Politiken: When Amnesty Turns ‘Immigrant Boys’ and ‘Fools’ into Hate Speech, Something Has Gone Wrong

In a new piece in the Danish newspaper Politken, Jacob Mchangama argues that, if adopted, Amnesty International Denmark’s recommendations from a new report on hate speech would undermine free speech and increase government surveillance. Here is a summary of his arguments. Amnesty International Denmark claims to defend free speech but argues that free speech itself […]

Tech Policy Press: Will the DSA Save Democracy? The Test of the Recent Presidential Election in Romania

By Joan Barata Voting manipulation through social media platforms. Illegal campaign financing on TikTok. Cyber-attacks. Suspected Russian interference. The circumstances around Romania’s troubled December presidential election bear all the hallmarks of a modern political thriller. But the circumstances around the election and its annulment also present an opportunity to consider the application of Europe’s Digital Services Act […]

Le Point: Repeal the Offense of Apology for Terrorism? A Necessary Debate

By Jacob Mchangama The abuse of “apology for terrorism” laws became particularly evident after Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7. What if the cure was worse than the disease? Article 11 of the 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen – the edifice of the French Revolution – guarantees all […]

Persuasion: Don’t Mourn the Fact-Checkers

Misguided decisions and the superiority of crowdsourcing mean Zuckerberg was right to change direction. But he must also keep Trump at arm’s length. By Jacob Mchangama The Great American Vibe Shift, rapidly reshaping U.S. culture and politics, has landed at 1 Hacker Way—the gleaming Palo Alto headquarters of Meta. In a video this week, Meta founder and […]

WSJ: Banning TikTok Would Violate America’s Free Speech Tradition

By Jacob Mchangama and Jeff Kosseff A heavy-handed new law forced TikTok to announce that it would shut down operations “within days.” Although the law left people without a popular forum to share and access information, a government official brushed off free speech concerns, saying that the ban did not mean “doom and gloom” for the […]

CELE: Threatening Dynamics on Internet Governance: The Case of Europe and The Digital Services Act (DSA)

By Joan Barata  As part of their research on the topic, CELE has characterized a threat of regulation as “any kind of public or private utterance or action by public officials who hold regulatory power over others in which they express, suggest, or imply, clearly or veiledly, their desire to see their subject’s conduct move […]

Tech Policy Press: Safeguarding Freedom of Expression in the AI Era

By Jordi Calvet-Bademunt  The European Union (EU) adopted the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act in June 2024. Hailed as “the world’s first comprehensive AI law,” the AI Act includes a set of obligations for high-impact general-purpose AI models, which will start applying next year. Models are presumed to have a “high impact” when they have a certain amount of computation power. According […]

Human Rights Here: Platform Liability, Hate Speech, and the Fundamental Right to Free Speech

By Natalie Alkiviadou  Introduction The rise of social media has fundamentally altered the landscape of information dissemination, bypassing traditional editorial and governmental controls. This has allowed for rapid global information sharing but has also raised concerns about the influence of social media platforms, even in democratic societies. Legislative responses, such as Germany’s Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG) […]

Volokh Conspiracy: Book Review: “Fearless Speech” Doesn’t Take First Amendment History Seriously

By Jacob Mchangama via Eugene Volokh I’m delighted to pass along this book review by Prof. Jacob Mchangama (Vanderbilt), who is the author of Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media and other works on free speech; he is also the CEO of The Future of Free Speech and Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and […]

International Press Institute: Media Freedom and Pluralism in The Republic of Cyprus: An Overview

By Natalie Alkiviadou  Introduction  The piece gives an overview of the situation of media freedom and pluralism in the Republic of Cyprus. The Republic of Cyprus has de jure sovereignty over the entirety of the island. In practice, however, its governance is confined to the southern region while the northern part of the island is administered by the self-proclaimed […]