By Alexander Hohlfeld In her speech at the 2024 Copenhagen Democracy Summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen argued that Europe should not “fight the authoritarians or the extremes at their own game,” but instead “fight them by offering a positive vision of the future” that “protects what we hold dear – our democracy and our […]
By Ashkhen Kazaryan Below is an excerpt from our pubic comment. Click here to read the full submission. In Response to the Federal Trade Commission’s Request for Information: Technology Platform Censorship The Future of Free Speech is an independent, nonpartisan think tank located at Vanderbilt University. We work to reaffirm freedom of expression as the […]
ABSTRACT In contemporary society, the rise of social media has dramatically transformed the sharing of information, bypassing traditional editorial and governmental controls. This shift has enabled rapid global information sharing but also raised concerns about the influence of social media platforms, even in democratic societies. Legislative responses, such as Germany’s Network Enforcement Act of 2017, […]
Background The Future of Free Speech (FoFS)1 is an independent, nonpartisan think tank located at Vanderbilt University. We work to restore a resilient global culture of free speech in the digital age through knowledge, research, and advocacy. FoFS’ comment focuses on the following issues identified by the Oversight Board: The impacts of Meta’s Hate Speech […]
An Assessment of Social Media Content Removal in France, Germany, and Sweden The over-removal of legal content on social media platforms raises concerns about the chilling effect on free expression and the potential suppression of legitimate discourse online. This report found that a substantial majority (87.5% to 99.7%) of deleted comments on Facebook and YouTube […]
Background The Future of Free Speech (FoFS) is an independent, non-partisan think tank located at Vanderbilt University. FoFS’ comment focuses on some of the issues identified by the Oversight Board and particularly Meta’s human rights responsibilities in relation to using the phrase “From the river to the sea”, including freedom of expression, freedom of association, […]
Download the report By Jacob Mchangama and Jordi Calvet-Bademunt Summary Anyone who has tested generative AI with slightly controversial issues is now familiar with expressions such as “I’m unable to help you with that” (Google’s Gemini). Or “I’m not able to generate content that takes a stand on controversial historical or political issues” (Inflection’s […]
Scope Creep: An Assessment of 8 Social Media Platforms’ Hate Speech Policies SUMMARY At the turn of the 21st century, academics, civil society organizations, and governments hailed the promise of the Internet to eliminate any centralized control over speech. A few short decades later, however, this tech utopianism has disappeared. Dominant social media platforms […]
By Natalie Alkiviadou Abstract This paper looks at the developments of hate speech regulation online, specifically its horizontalization, with private companies increasingly ruling on the permissibility levels of speech, placing the right to free speech at peril. To elucidate issues at stake, the paper will look at the meaning of hate speech, the online landscape […]
Justitias Natalie Alkiviadou in International journal of Human Rights “Whilst automated mechanisms can assist human moderators by picking up on potentially hateful speech, they should not be solely responsible for removing hate speech. Biased training data sets, the lack of relevant data and the lack of conceptualization of context and nuance can lead to wrong […]