Op-eds etc.
AI-powered lies and manipulation constitute the gravest threat to humanity. At least this is the dystopian scenario espoused by the collective wisdom of 1,500 experts surveyed in the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Risks Report last week. Unfortunately, such outbreaks of “elite panic” are a recurring phenomenon. Whenever the public sphere is expanded through new communications technology, […]
Jeff Kosseff in New York Times This term, the Supreme Court will reconsider America’s laissez-faire approach to regulating the internet, and in doing so it will address vital and new First Amendment questions. Can states stop social media sites from blocking certain content? Can the federal government pressure platforms to remove content it disagrees with? […]
Evidence Is Growing That Free Speech Is Declining! Jacob Mchangama is unfolding the findings from our latest report in Foreign Policy. “The scale of speech restrictions in the shrinking club of open democracies suggests that while democracies face serious challenges, the prescribed cure to these ills risks becoming worse than the disease.” Read the piece
Far-right provocateurs burning Qurans led Denmark to pass a law forbidding “improper treatment” of religious texts. History shows this is a very bad idea. Read the article
“Those who support silencing “dangerous” opinions coercively have failed to answer the question: Are we really safer when we know less about what motivates our neighbors?” – CEO Jacob Mchangama in Persuasion Access article
Joan Barata Senior Legal Fellow, Future of Free Speech (Justitia) Introduction The Digital Services Act (DSA) constitutes the new legal horizontal framework in the EU regarding the provision of online services. It formally came into force on 16 November 2022. However, a significant number of rules and obligations included in this Regulation will become enforceable […]
In 2017, then–Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen proclaimed: “I’m proud and happy that we live in a country where we have abolished the blasphemy provision and where you’re allowed to be critical—even in satire and cartoons—of religious symbols.” Last week, however, Rasmussen, who is now the minister of foreign affairs, did an about-face. The Quran […]
In TIME, Jacob Mchangama explains how Denmark and Sweden’s plans to criminalize Quran burnings forebode a future in which democratic states willingly yield their fundamental principles to religious dogmatism. “On the one hand, there are good reasons to be critical of book burnings. It is a poor substitute for reasoned debate and will forever be […]
WHEN THE US Supreme Court agreed to hear Gonzalez v. Google, its first case involving Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the tech-policy world was laser-focused on its implications. The week before oral arguments, in February last year, the Brookings Institution held a panel touting the case’s “power to reshape the internet.” The New York Times wrote that the case “could have […]
In 1766, Sweden enacted its landmark Press Freedom Act, becoming the first country in the world to implement such protections. In 1770, Denmark outpaced this achievement by formally abolishing all forms of censorship. Despite intermittent setbacks, these pioneering acts cultivated a vibrant culture of free expression. The Scandinavian countries evolved into global symbols of democracy, freedom, […]