Academic freedom of expression today is caught in the crossfire of many intense culture wars. Traditional liberal defences of free expression and freedom of speech seem to be insufficient. This paper argues that we need a fresh theoretical lens to understand and solve these conflictual situations in which university teachers often find themselves. Adopting an analytical and philosophical approach grounded in legal theory, my paper uses Stanley Fish’s neopragmatist, anti-foundationalist framework to reconceptualize academic freedom of expression. The central thesis of my article is that academic freedom is not an absolute individual right to say anything one pleases but a context-bound freedom defined by academia’s internal norms and purposes. In contrast to liberal theories that invoke universal principles, such as Mill’s “marketplace of ideas” or broad “First Amendment” rights, Fish’s perspective insists that all speech is constrained by its interpretive community. This paper critically evaluates liberal justifications for free academic expression, showing how these rely on abstract foundations that Fish’s neopragmatism calls into question; it reconstructs a Fishian account of academic freedom based on “professional correctness,” the idea that scholars are free only to the extent that their different forms of expression are coherent with the specific professional objectives and standards of scholarly inquiry.

Antitrust has adopted the “marketplace of ideas” from the First Amendment. The essence of this standard is that people should rationally demand the truth, thereby causing accurate information to overcome falsehoods without antitrust’s help. This has, though, produced an odd approach in which antitrust promotes the flow of information without any regard for its truthfulness. Indeed, antitrust courts have ruled that misinformation’s remedy must come from more speech as opposed to enforcement. Judges have also asserted that misinformation is a form of competition, versus an anticompetitive act, because aggrieved companies can win over consumers by exposing their rivals’ lies. In fact, antitrust refuses to scrutinize whether misinformation entails a consequence of monopoly power, despite the prevalence of inaccurate content in concentrated markets like journalism, digital platforms, and more. That said, what if people consume information in ways that defy antitrust’s expectations? Whereas antitrust refuses to remedy misinformation because consumers should rationally consume truthful information, perhaps people may actually prefer misinformation. This Article delves into cognitive and behavioral scholarship to explain why misinformation thrives in voids of competition. It shows that people become increasingly likely to demand misinformation in (1) rational and (2) irrational ways when competition declines. First, cognitive biases and conditions such as anxiety and depression have not only spurred people to find comfort in misinformation but to do so where they irrationally accept costs including, say, incarceration, sickness, or unemployment. This is especially prevalent in the absence of journalism, as dominant platforms can flood users’ feeds with misleading content meant to induce anxiety, enrage, comfort, and grab attention. Second, espousing misinformation can qualify as rational when it allows a person to join a community, find purpose, or maximize their welfare. These dynamics help to explain why misinformation has exploded in rural areas, news deserts, and informational monopolies where social isolation is greatest and credible news has dried up. Given misinformation’s prevalence in concentrated markets, the answer should come from more competition rather than just more speech. Knowing that antitrust law redresses inefficiencies caused by monopolies and trade restraints, enforcement should begin to treat misinformation as a market failure. When anticompetitive conduct creates a bottleneck of information, monopolists can generate revenue from filling voids with false and misleading content. Because monopoly power creates incentives to spread misinformation, and people become especially prone to believing falsehoods when living in a news desert, antitrust could attack the market structures that enable misinformation. Not only would this approach foster accurate information without entering unconstitutional waters like forcing a news organization or website to publish both sides of a debate, but it could better align antitrust with the First Amendment. To do so, antitrust must first assess why monopolies, news deserts, and informational vacuums impede “rational actors” from consuming truthful content. In fact, this research would help to inform recent developments, as the White House, Supreme Court Justices, subcommittees of the House of Representatives, Federal Trade Commission, and more have begun to debate antitrust’s evolving treatment of speech, information, and misinformation.

ABSTRACT This paper examines Bakhtin’s carnival vis-à-vis free speech, a relationship Bakhtin hinted at but could not fully explore due to socio-political constraints. While some scholars have characterized Bakhtin’s work as an anti-Stalinesque polemic, the implications of such characterizations remain largely unexamined, especially in the context of free speech. When reading Bakhtin vis-à-vis free speech theory, we can see that carnivalesque discourse is imbued with an ideology of free speech (e.g. marketplace of ideas, safety valve, and self-government). To exemplify the intersections of the carnivalesque and free speech, this paper examines script-flipping, a carnivalesque tactic in which First Amendment auditors film the police while reversing the direction of questioning, turning standard police questioning back on law enforcement. This analysis suggests that within the framework of free speech, the carnivalesque is not a fleeting disruption of the everyday but a fundamental and ongoing mode of being, particularly within democracies with free speech protections. As such, this essay demonstrates that carnivalesque rhetoric is the embodiment and active realization of free speech.

This study investigates how health journalists report handling misinformation shared by a public figure. Survey results from 629 U.S. journalists show that nearly 70% said they would gatecheck the information or make an explicit reference that the information was incorrect. Using the gatekeeping theory and the Hierarchy of Influences model, we examined the individual and organizational influences on information correction and found that women and more experienced professionals were less likely to correct the public figure. For those who chose to correct the public figure, their motivations included public-figure accountability, journalistic duty, concern that the audience would further pursue misinformation, and informing the public. Meanwhile, concerns about balance, maintaining neutrality in the marketplace of ideas, and amplifying misinformation could dissuade them.

Despite the increasing diversity of our online and offline communities, hate speech continues to divide us deeply. We urgently need to examine its ghastly omnipresence and our growing numbness to its harms. This article aims to identify mechanisms that exploit the right to free speech as a cover for the proliferation of hate speech in contemporary society. Chief among these is the manipulative tactic of equating resistance to today’s culture of uninhibited expression – which includes hate speech – with censorship. To begin with, I demonstrate that the idealistic “marketplace of ideas” endorsed by free speech absolutists becomes as repressive as the tyrannical censorship it fears when participants are constantly pressured into conformity. Next, I show that in this unregulated market, the idea of open dialogue gains more traction when participants are divided by hate. Finally, I examine how digital technology fosters seemingly benign habits that enable the online and offline amplification of harmful speech.

The English poet John Milton portrayed truth as a powerful warrior capable of defeating falsehood in open combat. The spread of false information online suggests otherwise. Here, we test the persuasive power and transmission potential of true versus false messages in a controlled experimental setting, free from the effects of social media algorithms and bot amplification. Across four experiments (combined N = 4,607), we tested how perceived veracity affects message persuasion and shareability, using messages generated by both humans and large language models. Experiments 1 and 2 (persuasion game) involved participants creating and evaluating persuasive messages; Experiments 3 and 4 (attention game) focused on messages optimized to capture attention. Our findings consistently show that messages created with the intention of being truthful were more persuasive and more likely to be shared than those designed to be false. While perceived message truth was the main driver of persuasion, message transmission was primarily driven by positive emotion and social engagement, indicating that social connection is prioritized during information sharing. These results suggest that truth holds a competitive edge in the marketplace of ideas. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

This paper compares the constitutional approaches of the United States and European countries to freedom of expression, and examines whether the “clear and present danger” principle can be regarded as a universally accepted legal standard. In the United States, freedom of expression is protected almost absolutely under the First Amendment and the “marketplace of ideas” theory, with government regulation permitted only when there is a clear and present danger of unlawful action. In contrast, European countries such as France, Germany, and the United Kingdom regard freedom of expression as a right that must be balanced with other constitutional values such as human dignity, public order, and the preservation of democratic order. France criminalizes the glorification of terrorism or crimes against humanity; Germany punishes Holocaust denial and Nazi glorification; and the UK sanctions speech that encourages terrorism. These jurisdictions prioritize proportionality and social context over imminence or direct causality, and justify preventive restrictions under the principle of militant democracy. Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) provides for the harmonization of freedom of expression with other public interests, and the European Court of Human Rights has recognized a wide range of state-imposed limitations on this basis. Countries such as Canada and Japan also employ proportionality-based balancing tests, and rarely adopt the U.S.- style imminence-centered approach. This reflects the exceptional nature of the American doctrine in the global landscape of free speech jurisprudence. From a comparative constitutional perspective, relying on the “clear and present danger” principle as the primary ground for challenging the constitutionality of Article 7(1) (acts benefiting the enemy) and Article 7(5) (enemy-benefiting expressive materials) of South Korea’s National Security Act appears unconvincing. Even in the United States, this doctrine is not consistently applied to expressions related to national security.

Even though the principle of neutrality aims, at theoretical level, to ensure absence of coercion, preference, and arbitrary, unjustified State interference with the right to freedom of religion, often, in practice, this is not the case. This is proven by the above interplay between the theoretical scope and the practical outcomes of the use of the principle by the ECtHR. What should protect the right to freedom of religion, often results in allowing States’ violations of the right, based on certain political, philosophical stances such as secularism. Nevertheless, one should not confuse secularism with religious neutrality and liberalism. In this sense, the next phrase should encompass the often blurred, but crucial difference between secularism and religious neutrality and liberalism: ‘The beginning of wisdom in this contentious area of law is to recognize that neutrality and secularism are not the same thing. In the marketplace of ideas, secular viewpoints and ideologies are in competition with religious viewpoints and ideologies. It is no more neutral to favour the secular over the religious than it is to favour the religious over the secular. It is time for a reorientation of constitutional law: away from the false neutrality of the secular state, toward a genuine equality of rights’.

In a marketplace of ideas where theories can act as substitutes, theorists seek to persuade peers to engage with their theories. Given this critical role of persuasion, how do theorists do so? To address this question, the current study adopts a pragmatist perspective and employs the Toulmin model of arguments to examine how Oliver Williamson persuaded his peers to engage with transaction cost economics. The study unpacks how Williamson structured his arguments, introduced new constructs and language, and employed analogies and metaphors to foster a consensus, giving rise to an epistemic community. The study highlights that not only do values influence how arguments are crafted and evaluated, but also appealing to them plays a key role in persuasion. In doing so, the study considers both the rational and non-rational aspects of theorizing and persuasion. Finally, the study discusses the significance of argumentation in the context of AI and theorizing in strategic management.

Unlike authoritarians of old, the current crop of authoritarian demagogues does not explicitly reject the democratic framework. Instead, they undermine it from within. Rather than engage their opponents on the issues, demagogues delegitimize them. As ancient Greeks had observed, turning political rivals into enemies is highly effective because it answers a need. Demagogy is driven by demand. This poses a distinct challenge to the ideals of free speech and freedom of the press, which are justified and understood in terms of market competition or ‘the marketplace of ideas’.

Abstract It is frequently argued that false and misleading claims, spread primarily on social media, are a serious problem in need of urgent response. Current strategies to address the problem – relying on fact-checks, source labeling, limits on the visibility of certain claims, and, ultimately, content removals – face two serious shortcomings: they are ineffective and biased. Consequently, it is reasonable to want to seek alternatives. This paper provides one: to address the problems with misinformation, social media platforms should abandon third-party fact-checks and rely instead on user-driven prediction markets. This solution is likely less biased and more effective than currently implemented alternatives and, therefore, constitutes a superior way of tackling misinformation.

This article provides a comprehensive comparative analysis of the two dominant Western regulatory models governing the liability of online platforms for third-party content: the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and Section 230 of the United States Communications Decency Act (CDA). The analysis employs a comparative legal methodology to dissect the legal architecture, enforcement mechanisms, and underlying jurisprudential philosophies of each regime. It finds that the DSA represents a proactive, systems-based model of co-regulation rooted in a philosophy of ‘digital constitutionalism’, which imposes tiered, affirmative due diligence obligations on platforms to mitigate systemic risks and protect users’ fundamental rights. In contrast, Section 230 embodies a reactive, immunity-based model grounded in the ‘marketplace of ideas’ tradition, providing a broad liability shield to foster innovation and protect free expression, with minimal affirmative duties. The article examines seminal case law, including Zeran v. America Online, Inc. and the Supreme Court’s inconclusive ruling in Gonzalez v. Google, LLC, alongside the DSA’s early enforcement actions against platforms such as X and Meta. It concludes that the two frameworks are predicated on fundamentally incompatible theories of harm—systemic risk versus individual tort—making direct convergence unlikely. The DSA’s most significant long-term impact may be the establishment of a permanent institutional capacity for regulatory oversight in the EU, a development with no parallel in the US, suggesting a widening transatlantic divergence in platform governance. Future challenges, particularly the rise of generative AI and decentralised platforms, will further test the resilience and adaptability of both models.

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in both scholarly and legislative interest in regulating the dissemination of disinformation on the Internet. Social networks form a specific information environment, which calls into question the established approach to freedom of speech. It is said that traditionally freedom of speech has been viewed as a guarantee that the people will independently filter out false ideas and arrive at the truth. However, something has evidently gone wrong: social networks have become inundated with false information, and their users are no longer inclined toward constructive dialogue. When considering public discourse as a marketplace of ideas, it is quite evident that it has failed and requires governmental intervention. This article critically examines such alarmist takes on the issue. The marketplace of ideas is a metaphor, not a model predicting the inevitable triumph of truth; therefore, it is unacceptable to justify governmental intervention in public discourse based on any inefficiency. Statements may only be restricted if they harm legally protected interests of citizens, and these negative consequences must be clearly explained and demonstrated by the legislators. There should also be proven causality between speech and harm. All these checkpoints are absent in propositions for fake news regulation. The negative consequences to discourse, rationality or democracy itself that are said to justify government regulation cannot be empirically verified. What is presented as evidence of the impact of fake news actually only confirms the breadth of its dissemination, irrelevant to any negative consequences of such content. The Internet or social media have not changed fundamental precepts of freedom of speech. That is the rejection of the state as an arbiter of truth or overseer of the rationality of citizens’ decision-making, and there are no valid reasons to abandon this principle. In the absence of harm, the current version of discourse on the Internet, including that represented by fake news, cannot be subject to government regulation.

The Conflict-of-Interest Discount in the Marketplace of Ideas

ABSTRACT In his dissent in the Abrams case (November 1919), U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver W. Holmes coined the metaphor of a “free trade in ideas” to justify stronger free speech guarantees. This epistemic argument for free speech, later turned into the notion of a “marketplace of ideas,” became a powerful normative and interpretive rationale of expressive freedoms. However, before the Abrams dissent, Holmes was far from being a champion of free speech. As late as the spring of 1919, he had upheld the constitutionality of repressive wartime legislation. Thus, the summer of 1919 is a major turning point in Holmes's views. This article focuses on the role of the young Harold Laski during these months, examining his book recommendations to the Justice. Insisting on the truth-seeking functions of expressive freedoms, Laski's books pointed argument which is found in the Abrams dissent. I also consider additional reasons for Holmes's change of mind, particularly how the “First Red Scare” affected Laski and other civil rights activists. Lastly, the article reflects on what the Laski-Holmes relationship may tell us regarding the later assimilation of the Abrams dissent and the “marketplace of ideas” as core elements of a long-term libertarian tradition of free speech.

News literacy is a topic of increasing attention from scholars and policymakers, particularly as disinformation and misinformation proliferate in the communication technology space. In this article we focus on both justifications and messages for news literacy from an international human rights law perspective. Several existing norms provide foundation for what can be called an international human right to news literacy. This right is inherent in the educational guarantees of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Further, if the right to freedom of expression in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is to be fulfilled, news literacy must be part of a state party’s effort. The right to justice in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals includes a guarantee of accountable institutions with informed citizen oversight. Finally, an authoritative interpretation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) explicitly requires digital literacy education for minors. The legal context of news merits further development in news literacy scholarship. This article contributes to that effort by discussing the international human rights law foundations of news literacy and then arguing that news literacy education must account for a growing divide between the marketplace of ideas and the anti-marketplace of ideas. Drawing on the economic history research of Fernand Braudel, we contend the anti-marketplace is a zone of speech capitalism embodied by large social media platforms. While the users of these platforms may be engaging in protected freedom of expression in the marketplace of ideas, the platforms themselves largely operate in the anti-marketplace. The actions of platforms in the anti-marketplace are not primarily expressive and lack the social and individual values contributions that would justify expansive and strong protections afforded by free-press and free-speech legal guarantees. This reality has significant ramifications for the legal context surrounding news and is critical for news-literate citizens to understand. The failure of the U.S. Supreme Court to make the distinction between the marketplace and the anti-marketplace in the context of social media is explored here as a suggested case study to be included in news literacy curricula.

This article examines the intricacies involved in the process of decolonizing education. It draws on the author's first-hand teaching experiences and observations as an activist scholar and a critical pedagogue at Bingöl University in Turkey from 2013 to 2016, during a period marked by intense political tension between security forces and Kurdish insurgencies. It elucidates a transformative pedagogical endeavor aimed at decolonizing education, with a particular focus on Kurdish students who endure colonial domination and oppression. Grounded in critical pedagogy, border thinking, and the principles of epistemic disobedience, this intervention represents a deliberate departure from traditional educational paradigms. It endeavors to cultivate a more inclusive and liberatory learning environment by drawing on theoretical frameworks articulated by renowned scholars such as Freire, Fanon, Mignolo, and Illich. At its core, this endeavor seeks to transcend the conventional boundaries of education by fostering critical consciousness, agency, and alternative worldviews among marginalized communities. Through prioritizing interactive dialogue, problem-posing educational models, and participatory learning practices, the initiative empowers students to critically engage with their social, historical, and cultural contexts. Employing innovative pedagogical strategies like the marketplace of ideas and extracurricular reading groups, students are encouraged to reclaim their own forms of knowledge and challenge hegemonic narratives perpetuated by colonial structures. This initiative underscores the transformative potential of education in dismantling oppressive structures and fostering alternative visions of social change. By amplifying the voices of marginalized communities, the intervention not only challenges the status quo but also lays the groundwork for a more equitable and emancipatory educational landscape.

The concept of ‘marketplace of ideas’ has been employed as a conventional argument to justify freedom of expression. The Constitutional Court of Korea has also been significantly influenced by this concept, presenting it as a rationale to protect freedom of expression and asserting that “the Internet is the medium most closely approximating the ‘marketplace of ideas’”. However, the proliferation of disinformation, hate speech, and the development of artificial intelligence have urged a re-evaluation of the validity of the ‘marketplace of ideas’, which posits that truth can prevail over falsehoods through unrestricted competition. ‘Marketplace of ideas’, which is advocated from a laissez-faire perspective, also encounters challenges related to market failure when examined from an economic perspective. This phenomenon occurs because market failure is not limited to the market for goods but extends to the market for ideas as well. In the context of freedom of expression, market failure can result in impediments to information distribution, insufficient dissemination of high-quality information, and democratic representation. To address market failure in the realm of free expression, it is imperative to focus on platform governance. In the United States, self-regulation by individual companies or industries, and in Europe, co-regulation by governments, have been proposed as potential solutions to market failure. The divergence between the US and European approaches to platform governance stems from the distinct constitutional traditions of freedom of expression. While platform governance mechanisms, such as self-regulation and co-regulation, offer advantages including flexibility, expedience, and professionalism, they may also generate tensions with the rule of law and potentially result in private censorship when limiting fundamental rights. To ensure the democratic legitimacy of self-regulation, limitations on freedom of expression must be implemented in a manner consistent with the rule of law. Furthermore, to prevent co-regulation from devolving into private censorship, considerable caution must be exercised to ensure that government intervention does not transform into censorship by administrative authority.

Abstract Digital technologies and platforms have brought a much-needed plurality to communications and the press, but have also opened the door to increased manipulation, misinformation, and distortion in the marketplace of ideas. The worrying erosion of citizens’ autonomy has progressively intensified with the evolution of certain business models. This article explores the ways in which the digital economy contributes to distortion of information, and the role competition law may play in safeguarding democracy.

University is designated as the marketplace of ideas. The marketplace transpires transcendent values among the students to build upcoming generations and generate new knowledge. For that academic freedom of the teachers and students is inevitable. Usually, teachers in universities must enjoy three rights to ensure academic freedom. S/he must have freedom of research and publication, freedom of teaching and freedom of speaking on different issues as citizens. Freedom of teaching is perceived as core academic speech and freedom of speaking on different issues is confined within extra mural (political) and intra-mural (public issues) speeches. This means a person belonging to academia has the scope of opining on different issues of a country whether it be academic or non-academic. As far as s/he speaks from his/her subjective expertise with objectivity, his/her speech is a fundamental human right. The absence of free speech in academia will not bring new and radical ideas through questioning the current system. But the scenario is upside down in Bangladesh. Here, the faculty members or students don’t enjoy academic freedom or secure academic environment due to the excessive politicization of universities. Though politicization could have accelerated academic freedom by entertaining dissenting opinions, but in Bangladesh it creates a chilling effect on the core academic, intra-mural and extra-mural speech of the faculty members. This will endanger the academia of Bangladesh by squeezing its role of social/state reformation and nation-building. Hence, this article focuses on the violation of academic freedom in Bangladesh through excessive politicization of Universities and endeavors to find political influence-free academia through the lens of freedom of speech.