FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nashville, TN — April 13, 2026 — The Future of Free Speech is pleased to announce that Farzaneh Badiei, a leading expert in Internet governance and digital rights, is joining the organization as a Senior Research Fellow.
Badiei will lead a new project on digital sovereignty — examining how the growing push by states and institutions to assert control over the Internet threatens freedom of expression, interoperability, and the open architecture that makes the Internet a global commons.
As governments worldwide invoke sovereignty to justify content regulation, data localization, and infrastructure control, the project will offer a principled framework for defending digital rights without reproducing the logic of coercion.
“Freedom of speech is not just a professional commitment for me, it’s deeply personal,” said Badiei. “At a time when defending free speech has become unfashionable, I’m thrilled to join an organization that unapologetically stands up for it. My work will focus on how digital sovereignty narratives are used by states and other powerful actors to justify control over speech online, and on imagining governance models that chart a different course.”
Badiei brings her expertise as an Internet governance practitioner, researcher, and advocate with nearly two decades of experience at the intersection of law, technology, and human rights. She holds a PhD in law from Hamburg University and has conducted research at Yale Law School, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society in Berlin.
She is also the founder of Digital Medusa, a boutique advisory focused on digital governance research and advocacy, whose mission is to provide objective, alternative narratives on how digital governance systems affect freedom of expression, access to information, and digital rights globally.
“We have long believed that the battle for free expression is increasingly being fought in the digital governance space — in debates over data, infrastructure, and platform control that rarely make headlines but carry enormous consequences,” said Jacob Mchangama, Executive Director of The Future of Free Speech. “Farzaneh’s research goes to the heart of those questions, and I’m genuinely excited to see where this project takes us.”
About The Future of Free Speech
The Future of Free Speech is an independent, nonpartisan think tank located at Vanderbilt University that works to reaffirm freedom of expression as the bedrock of free and thriving societies through actionable research, empowering tools, and principled advocacy. Learn more at www.futurefreespeech.org or follow along on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn.
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