A Blue Sky Vision for Social Media
On 11 December 2019, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced, via the social media platform itself, that Twitter would be funding an independent team of researchers, to develop an open standard…
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Posts by tag
Free Speech
51 posts
Is Anti-Woke Becoming the New Woke?
It was bound to happen. As Mark Twain writes in “Corn Pone Opinions,” our self-approval is “acquired mainly from the approval of other people.” Our ideas don’t come from “thinking…
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Is France Charlie?
France has been a crucible of radical philosophy since the eighteenth century, and was the pre-eminent centre for the arts in the nineteenth and twentieth. It was France to which…
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Some Thoughts on Christopher Hitchens
“Ladies and gentlemen. Brothers and sisters. Comrades. Friends. Thanks for coming out.” Thus began Christopher Hitchens, as was his custom, speaking from behind a lectern facing a standing-room-only audience. They…
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Threats to Free Speech at University, and How to Deal with Them—Part 1
Free speech is arguably the most important value for universities to uphold. As Steven Pinker points out in an essay aptly tilted Why Free Speech is Fundamental, “the very thing…
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What Social Justice Gets Right
Social Justice ideas and the postmodern thought that underlies them are extremely difficult to critique in a balanced way. This is largely caused by black-and-white thinking: many people wrongly believe…
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Enforcing Patriotism, Suppressing Dissent: America’s Neglected Free Speech Crisis
Picture this. Students in schools paid for with tax dollars are ordered to stand as a sign of respect for the federal government. If they sit or kneel, they face…
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Meet the New Conservatives, Same As the Old Conservatives
Someone unfamiliar with American political history might be forgiven for thinking that American social conservatives have historically been in favor of individualism and small government and have only recently embraced…
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Social Media Bans Make Good Business Sense
It’s now been pretty much established that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube aren’t committed to the fundamental principle of free speech. All these social media companies have blocked individuals whose opinions…
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The Grain of Truth Behind Calls to Restrict Debate
Statements about the oppressive nature of academic debate or the need to balance free speech with a consideration of people’s feelings are often seen as outrageous enough to be instantly…
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Zuckerberg: The Digital Gutenberg
On Thursday the second of May Facebook drew a line in the sand, banning from their platforms people who purvey ideas they deem dangerous. Being purged from Facebook and Instagram…
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The Internet Is Making You Less Free
Our current age is defined by the internet. The internet—a technology that allows the decentralized, globalized dissemination of information—has become so thoroughly entrenched in human life that access is now…
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The Student Snowflake Stereotype is Counterproductive to the Cause of Free Speech
Are students intolerant, overly sensitive snowflakes? Yes, according to broadcasters like Tucker Carlson in America and right-wing commentators James Delingpole, Brendan O’Neill, Toby Young and Julia Hartley-Brewer in the UK.…
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The Left-Wing Case Against Censorship of Social Media
In conversations about online extremism, the question of platforms inevitably arises. YouTube, for example, may be held culpable for featuring video recommendations that lead young men down rabbit holes of…
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In Defense of Hate Speech
On 23 February, Oluwole Ilesanmi, a Christian street preacher, was approached by two uniformed police officers outside an underground station in north London. Donned with an earpiece microphone and a…
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Is Battle Rap the Last True Bastion of Free Speech?
In a packed basement in the heart of Sheffield, northern England, two burly men—one wearing a hoodie, the other sporting a fitted New York Mets baseball cap at a jaunty…
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How Did Free Speech Get Here?
It was a good day for our public discourse when, on the popular public talk show Firing Line, conservative intellectual William F. Buckley had a conversation with avant-guard Beat poet…
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Britain’s Social Media Problem
For people under the impression that the UK takes its civil liberties seriously, the past two years’ parliamentary debates around social media make for a frightening read. A recent spate…
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