Protection Of Free Speech Research Articles

The analysis of the reasons the UK is unlikely to become a police state

In today’s society, there is tension between the exercise of public power and the protection of free speech. In Britain, nearly 1,000 people have been arrested for freedom of speech in the past five years. There has been discussion about whether Britain is becoming a police state. The system of the police state is undemocratic and authoritarian and serves a particular class. Under such a system, the police can arbitrarily use public power to arrest citizens, and citizens’ fundamental freedoms cannot be guaranteed. Today’s British society is civil, and citizens enjoy fundamental rights, including freedom of speech. The law establishes the boundaries of freedom of speech. Regarding limiting police power, the scope of police power can be clarified at the legislative and judicial levels, and the relationship between public power and private rights should be balanced. Thus, this paper argues that Britain will unlikely become a police state.

Regulating online harms: an examination of recent developments in the UK and the US through a free speech lens

ABSTRACT This article examines recent development in the regulatory landscape of online harms in the UK and US through a free speech lens. In so doing, it undertakes a comparative analysis of the UK’s Online Safety Act 2023 and laws in US states that is grounded in UN guidance advising that approaches to regulating online harms be grounded in human rights. Ultimately, this examination leads to the conclusion that the Online Safety Act and similar efforts at the state level in the US do not reflect human rights based approaches to regulation in this area. While American courts are reigning in state legislation based on the expansive protection of free speech under the First Amendment, the constitutional restraints in the UK are weaker. This raises concerns regarding the adequate protection of the free speech rights of internet users, particularly in the UK.

“Difficult to Just Exist”: Social Media Platform Community Guidelines and the Free Speech Rights of Sex Workers

The 2018 passing of FOSTA (Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act) and SESTA (Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act) set new limits on the free speech protection of Section 230 of the 1996 Communication Decency Act. In the aftermath, many social media sites shut down forums used by sex workers, and on some sites sex workers were systematically deplatformed or shadow banned. Social media platforms are critical spaces for sex workers. In addition to using them to safely do their work, social media platforms offer a place to communicate explicitly about their profession and find community support, particularly for sex workers from marginalized communities who are often physically isolated and lack support networks. We performed a qualitative analysis of Community Guidelines from seven social media platforms (Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat, and Tumblr). Our research focused on guidelines related to nudity, sexual content, and solicitation. The restrictions placed on content by social media platforms have serious implications for the ability of sex workers to do their jobs safely, advocate for themselves, and find community support online. Community guidelines, as they relate to sex workers, need a more nuanced approach to balancing free speech rights and preventing harm that prioritizes the sometimes competing needs of marginalized communities.

가짜뉴스에 대한 합헌적 규제를 위한 고찰

In a technological society where macro technologies, generative artificial intelligence, and platforms have accelerated by leaps and bounds, the risks and concerns of so-called fake news are intensifying. The Internet is a forum for expression, “the most participatory medium of expression”, as Constitutional Court has affirmed. Fake news is intentionally manipulated false information that has the appearance of a journalistic article. The rapid spread of fake news through social networking services (SNS) and personal media can lead to societal and structural problems by adversely affecting the judgment of individuals, threatening the freedom of expression on the Internet, which is rooted in freedom of thought. For this reason, it is necessary to regulate the creation and dissemination of fake news on the Internet. However, regulation in response to fake news eventually leads to restrictions on freedom of expression. Against this backdrop, the constitutional issues surrounding fake news and the response to it today are clear. It is a question of balancing the public interest protected by regulating fake news against the freedom of expression restricted by doing so. Regardless of the amount of money involved, it is difficult to determine whether information is true or false, and even false information can fall under the protection of free speech and expression. For this reason, legal regulation of fake news needs to be limited to those that objectively threaten people's basic rights and the basic order of liberal democracy, and whose danger or harm is obvious and requires urgency. As the issue of the regulation of fake news has become a hot topic in Korean society, this paper reviews the existing debate from a constitutional perspective and critically examines the dangers of fake news and the need for a constitutional legislative response, especially in the current era of changing technologies and platforms. To this end, we examined the legislative bills introduced in the 20th and 21st National Assemblies from the perspectives of the constitutional principles of clarity, proportionality, and pre-censorship funding, and examined the possibilities of responding to fake news in the current legislation, suggesting social science tools and self-regulation as complements to legislative regulation.

Free Speech Challenges to the Inflation Reduction Act

This Viewpoint looks at the lawsuits brought by pharmaceutical companies to challenge the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, in particular claims under the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.

Appliance of Deep Learning on hate speech detection: a systematic review

Hate speech is defined as offensive viewpoints toward individuals or groups divided by ethnicity, religion, or gender. Hate speech is not restricted by law in many countries, and may be seen as the protection of free speech since whether a statement is hate speech is highly related to the individual. Hate speech is widely recognized and has been researched extensively in recent years due to its nebulous definition and quick spread. With deep learning's ongoing growth, some researchers have started to apply deep neural networks to hate speech detection (HSD). Although a lot of progress has been made in research-based work around the task, a comprehensive overview of the progress of the task is lacking. Therefore, an overview of the progress that using deep neural networks to address hate speech problems is necessary. The overview presents what methods have been employed recently to enhance the task's performance, and also analyzes the potential problems of the task.

Raab’s bill of rights and the challenges inherent in attempting a statutory re-balancing of articles 8 and 10 ECHR

ABSTRACT This article explores the right-wing tendency to parade the creation of greater protection for free speech as a key basis for revision or repeal of the Human Rights Act. To illustrate that point it takes as a case study the potential change to the balance to be struck between Articles 10 and 8 under the proposed Bill of Rights in the context of the tort of misuse of private information. Given the apparently flagship nature of the provisions aimed at such a re-balancing, and the support it enjoys in particular newspapers, it appears probable that they will re-emerge in some form. The notion that judges have disregarded media freedom and usurped the function of Parliament in creating a European-style privacy law appears to be embedded in right-wing thinking and is therefore unlikely to be discarded. It is a trend that will probably continue, whatever the fate of this particular instrument.

Weaponizing free speech protections in U.S. higher education: the ugly impact of assaultive speech on Black women students

First Amendment protections for blackface in U.S. higher education have for too long fostered hostile educational environments for Black women and other racially minoritized and marginalized communities. Institutions dedicated to inclusive learning environments can no longer ignore these abuses and have an opportunity and obligation to challenge and disrupt the protections long afforded to assaultive speech. However, overturning these problematic gendered-anti-Black racist narratives of interpreting caricatures of Black women's bodies with blackface and exaggerated body parts as harmless entertainment of means centering the voices, perspectives and lived truths of Black women. I use what I call an Intersectionality Discourse Analysis to analyze two subsequent federal court cases involving a white fraternity's ugly woman contest at a public U.S. university and free speech theory. In my recommendations I urge institutional leaders to take an unapologetic stance in sanctioning assaultive speech and to petition the courts to support their decision-making.

Perspectives on the First Amendment

Given the constitutional protection of free speech under the First Amendment, to what extent does the American public support that hate speech can be banned while still protecting free speech? The First Amendment states that “congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.” This project analyzes published data from the Cato Institute Free Speech and Tolerance Survey (2017) to determine the role that Americans' generation plays in their support of a hate speech ban. Individuals of various generations differ in their experiences with world events, politics and social norms. These differences can impact views on free speech. Preliminary analysis by the Cato Institute shows that younger generations are more likely to support that hate speech can be banned while still protecting free speech than older generations. Current scholarship lacks a depth of research in this area. As such, this project establishes relationships concerning views on hate speech that are a novel contribution to this field of study.

Are illiberal acts unethical? APA's Ethics Code and the protection of free speech.

The American Psychological Association's (APA's) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (American Psychological Association, 2017b; hereinafter referred to as the Ethics Code) does not contain an enforceable standard regarding psychologists' role in either honoring or protecting the free speech of others, or ensuring that their own free speech is protected, including an important corollary of free speech, the protection of academic freedom. Illiberal acts illegitimately restrict civil liberties. We argue that the ethics of illiberal acts have not been adequately scrutinized in the Ethics Code. Psychologists require free speech to properly enact their roles as scientists as well as professionals who wish to advocate for their clients and students to enhance social justice. This article delineates criteria for what ought to be included in the Ethics Code, argues that ethical issues regarding the protection of free speech rights meet these criteria, and proposes language to be added to the Ethics Code. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Trump’s hateful rhetoric and First Amendment failures: Re-envisioning incitement, true threats, and hate speech

ABSTRACT Donald Trump’s hate-filled rhetoric while in office emphasizes long-existing shortcomings of free speech doctrine dealing with various forms of threatening speech. More so, because of his elected position during those speech moments, his speech elevates those concerns to a new level. His disregard for civil discourse has opened the door for a new speech behavior in national politics, one where inciteful, threatening or hateful speech is used more frequently and, as such, is becoming more socially acceptable. Each of those speech moments invokes claims of First Amendment protection. All of them were unimaginable topics 50 years ago and yet, from a legal perspective, all were or would be judged today using principles and legal doctrines crystalized in the 1950s and 1960s. Clearly, these are different times but what, if anything, does that mean for claims to free speech protections? This paper maintains that the answer to the problems inherent in current First Amendment treatment of hate-filled political speech involves two actions. First, the pre-existing doctrines of incitement and true threats need to be updated to make them applicable to current communication formats. Second, the courts must consider the addition of a constitutional category of hate speech.

Regulation of social media intermediary liability for illegal and harmful content

The discussion focuses primarily on the manner in which the distribution of social media content needs to be governed in ensuring illegal and harmful content is limited (e.g. not accessible to children) whilst ensuring freedom of expression and speech. Closely linked to intermediary liability is the manner in which social media platforms self-regulate harmful content on their platforms. In September 2021 criticism was leveled at Facebook that it was not doing enough to prevent harmful content targeting children. It appears that self-regulation of social media content by companies are not effective. In some instances, it is alleged that profit outweigh safety and security concerns. Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, indicated in March 2021 in testimony to the United States Congress that he was of the opinion that social media companies should be regulated. Governments are now in the process of implementing regulations pertaining to social media content. Such regulation will have a ripple effect across the world and other countries will most probably follow. In this regard, the European Commission is considering the implementation of the Digital Services Act. Since governments are implementing or considering implementing social media regulations, consideration should be given to the following issues: • How and what should a government regulate pertaining to social media content? • The issue of social media intermediary liability for harmful content is contentious. A social media platform cannot escape liability where it is used, for example, for sex trafficking, but how is liability determined? In March 2021 Zuckerberg made the following statement “platforms should be required to demonstrate that they have systems in place for identifying unlawful content and removing it. Platforms should not be held liable if a particular piece of content evades its detection—that would be impractical for platforms with billions of posts per day—but they should be required to have adequate systems in place to address unlawful content.” Zuckerberg submission to the US Congress is tied to the common law standard of duty of care. In the US businesses have a common law duty to take reasonable steps to not cause harm to their customers, as well as to take reasonable steps to prevent harm to their customers. It is important to establish which human rights’ safeguards government regulation pertaining to content should have in place. Government regulations must provide a safe and secure place for free speech while addressing harmful speech, but the regulations should not silence all speech. Many governments are now concluding that seIf-regulation of harmful content by social media companies are for many reasons not effective. The Internet is borderless and therefore government regulations of social media content must comply with uniform guidelines to ensure free speech protection for the global communication environment

To Tell the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth: Truth Seeking and Truth Telling in Law (and Other Arenas)

This article reviews the fate of truth and falsehood outside of the courtroom, largely—but not exclusively—in the United States. Describing opportunities and techniques to mislead or deceive on and off the Internet and social media, it focuses on the evolving social control response undertaken by institutions and increasingly by distributed networks: government regulators, private actors, self-regulators, crowds, third parties, platform architecture, and technology. The review highlights the turbulent legal and regulatory challenges encountered as existing rules do not quite fit the virtual world, free speech protections tie the hands of legislators and regulators in some parts of the world, and massive private corporations—whose profitability is maximized by user engagement with inflammatory and often false messages—control much of what can and cannot be said. Competing media, platforms, and regulators usher in a post-truth era with contested arbiters of truth and dire warnings of an epistemological crisis.

Pornography and Speech Act Theory – An In-Depth Survey

Considering the short history of the feminist philosophy of language, Rae Langton’s article “Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts” was highly influential as one of the first positive research programs in the movement. In her paper, Langton – using John L. Austin’s speech act theory – interprets Catharine MacKinnon’s thesis: pornography is a speech that subordinates and silences women. Despite the importance of the subject, those unfamiliar with certain historical and contextual features of the topic would hardly understand it.
 My paper aims to introduce some of the major accounts in this special area at the intersection of speech act theory and feminist philosophy. Rather than just reconstructing Langton’s arguments and the most common objections against it, I take a more holistic approach, examining its surrounding literature as well.
 My article has six sections. In Section 1, I contrast the conservative and liberal arguments against pornography and sketch MacKinnon’s liberal critique. In Section 2, I give alternative interpretations of MacKinnon’s thesis that “pornography is harm.” In Section 3, I try to make sense of the prima facie implausible assumption that pornography is speech. In Section 4 and 5, I analyze the Langtonian theories about subordination and silencing. Finally, in Section 6, I mention the most challenging problems for Langton’s approach, considering the verbal nature of pornography, the limits of the protection of free speech, and the different positions on sexual consent.

Expressive Conduct and Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution: A Purposivist Approach

AbstractUnlike the First Amendment of the United States, the quest to develop a grand theory to explain the scope and purpose of the free speech clause of the Indian Constitution has rarely been attempted. In this void, the significant constitutional question of when expressive conduct should trigger free speech protection has not received adequate academic and judicial scrutiny in India despite its global resonance. This article examines the evolution of the current doctrine by the Indian Supreme Court on the issue of expressive conduct and finds that the Court's ad-hoc approach fails to provide a meaningful resolution framework. Analysing the jurisprudence of the US Supreme Court on its First Amendment, it discusses two potential approaches available to the Indian Supreme Court: one based on the speaker's conduct, and the other, based on state purposes. It argues that focusing on state purposes not only provides a principled answer to this conundrum but is also consistent with Indian free speech jurisprudence. Contrary to contemporary scholarship, it demonstrates that the law on Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution, as moulded by the Indian Supreme Court over decades, has implicitly treated the examination of state purpose as its predominant inquiry. This article concludes with some ideas on the limitations and prospects of adopting such an approach.

Color-evasive free speech ideology: a conceptual analysis of free speech as racial oppression in U.S. higher education

ABSTRACT In this essay, I draw on the socio-historical context of free speech and hate speech in U.S. public higher education and the concepts of color-evasiveness and free speech ideology to conceptualize a color-evasive free speech ideology. The ideology I conceptualize is characterized by a prevailing belief that protecting and defending free speech rights is the only way to ensure democracy and equality, regardless of the racial harm and violence enacted by speech, and to the degree that those who challenge racist hate speech should be punished as a threat to free speech. I then explore three recent events to contextualize color-evasive free speech ideology: higher education professional organizations’ responses to the release of Executive Order 13864 (Improving Free Inquiry, Transparency, and Accountability at Colleges and Universities) in March 2019 and two institutional-level examples of controlling student behavior through selective and racialized protection of free speech. I discuss the examples to illustrate how color-evasive free speech ideology upholds white supremacy and conclude with implications for scholars and practitioners, urging a critical troubling of color-evasive free speech ideology in future research and practice.

Hiding in Plain Sight: A Tale of Trust and Mistrust inside a Community of Citizen Reporters

The large volume of user-generated content on the Social Web puts a high burden on the participants to evaluate the accuracy and quality of such content. Researchers have been trying to address this problem by focusing on discovering in- fluential entities inside social platforms to guide their ranking algorithms. Often these entities correspond to people or orga- nizations already influential in the real-world. However, not everywhere in the world is there a right to and protection of free speech. In countries where the traditional media cannot report the truth, anonymity becomes a necessity for citizens who want to exercise their right of free-speech in the service of their community. But is it possible for anonymous individuals to become influ- ential and gain the trust of a community? In this paper, we discuss the case of a community of Twitter citizen reporters, located in a Mexican city plagued by the drug cartels fighting for control of territory. Our analysis shows that the most in- fluential individuals inside the community were anonymous accounts. Neither the Mexican authorities, nor the drug car- tels were happy about the real-time citizen reporting of crime or anti-crime operations in an open social network such as Twitter, and we discovered external pressures to this com- munity and its influential players to change their reporting behavior.

Hate Speech and the European Court of Human Rights: Whatever Happened to the Right to Offend, Shock or Disturb?

Abstract In Handyside v. The United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) held that the right to freedom of expression, as provided for in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects not only expressions that are favorably received but also those that ‘offend, shock or disturb’. 1 Yet, the Court has since developed a substantial body of inconsistent case-law allowing restrictions on ‘hate speech’ that severely questions the degree to which offensive, shocking and disturbing speech is truly protected by the ECHR. Against a qualitative and quantitative backdrop, the authors argue that the Court and previously the Commission, have adopted an overly restrictive approach to hate speech, which fails to provide adequate protection to political speech on controversial issues, including criticism of public officials and government institutions and has created an inconsistent and even arbitrary body of case law. Instead, jurisdictions that recognize a need to balance the freedom of expression with limits on hate speech have adopted more convincing approaches of hate speech, providing a robust protection of free speech while leaving room for the State to curtail the most extreme forms of non-violent hate speech.

Expressing one's opinions freely on politicians using parodies: Effect of the sources of political parodies (user‐ vs. media‐generated parodies)

AbstractPolitical parody, which is entitled to free speech protection under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, aims at criticizing politicians' policies and ideas with humor. As such, political parodies represent a serious threat to a politician's brand image and reputation. Despite their prevalence in political life and debates, the relative persuasive effects of political parodies based on their communication source (user‐generated parody [UGP] vs. media‐generated parody [MGP]) have been underexplored. To fill this gap, we developed two studies. The first study involved content analysis of more than 330 parody videos posted on YouTube between 2012 and April 2019 in France. Our findings, in Study 1, showed that MGP led to fewer likes and a more negative attitude toward the parody than UGP. The second study, based on controlled experiment, provided evidence through mediation; compared to UGP, MGP led to more negative attitudes toward the parody and less perceived influence of the parody because of a higher perception of the source's intention to manipulate. This mediating effect was significant only when individuals were highly skeptical of traditional media. These findings add to current theories of political parody, free speech and user‐generated content and offer actionable insights to practitioners.

Fact or Phallus?

As societal reliance on digital and online communication continues to grow, courts are grappling with how best to provide legal recourse for novel, technology-related issues while still protecting American citizens’ First Amendment right to free speech. The State of Texas recently enacted Penal Code section 21.19, which criminalizes the transmission of unsolicited sexually explicit images to another person—or as it is commonly known, “cyber-flashing.” Cyber-flashing occurs through digital and online platforms, including text messages, apps, and social media. Section 21.19 is one of the first statutes of its kind in the United States. In the age of “dick pics,” this law has emerged at a crucial time in an evolving social and technological world. While section 21.19 has ample support, critics argue that it is ultimately unconstitutional. Proponents argue that it combats sexual harassment and the “growing problem of aggressive and unsolicited sexual communication online.” Additionally, many victims view cyber-flashing as a threatening and intimidating form of sexual violence. This fact is legally significant, in that the First Amendment’s true threat doctrine allows governmental regulation of speech that places individuals in fear of harm. This Article argues that section 21.19 is constitutional under the true threat doctrine and, alternatively, proposes a possible solution for Texas to ensure the statute’s compliance with First Amendment free speech protections.