Cartoonist Godfrey Mwampembwa was fired from a leading Kenyan daily newspaper for his political views.
Andi Weiland/Flickr
New forms of artistic expression are driving debates in East Africa that challenge sensitive subjects. But the backlash has been vicious.
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Safe spaces are fundamentally at odds with the rigorous intellectual exchange central to the idea of a university.
Facebook’s actions – or inactions – facilitated breaches of privacy and human rights associated with democratic governance.
EPA/Peter DaSilva
Human rights abuses might be embedded in the business model that has evolved for social media companies in their second decade.
The free speech wars rage on but there is an essential difference between free speech and hate speech. Words shape the way we think about the world.
(Jason Rosewell/Unsplash)
Most Canadians are more than happy to support free speech, believing it to be the foundation of democracy. But for speech to be free it must be aligned to freedom itself.
Students from South Plantation High School, carrying placards, protest in support of gun control.
Carlos Garcia/Reuters
When students walked out of school to protest what they see as lax gun laws, some risked punishment from their schools. But it may be worth it to send a message, a First Amendment scholar argues.
Derek Cote, a homeless man, panhandling in the median strip on a street in Portland, Maine.
AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty
The First Amendment protects everything from porn to hateful signs outside military funerals. That includes fundraising pitches of all kinds.
Alexis Dubus
What does it mean for free speech if a comedian is successfully sued by her ex-husband over the material in her act?
Pants on fire.
Lightspring
Emmanuel Macron is the latest to talk about reining in fake news. It can’t be done.
The apparently growing practIce of governments and government officials blocking critics on social media has serious implications for freedom of expression.
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Citizens should be free to criticize government authorities on social media platforms, and muzzling such criticism may well be unconstitutional.
The framing of Motion 103, combatting Islamophobia, may seem like a distant concern to the free speech debate in universities, but it is in fact related in the way the so-called “alt-right” uses free speech as a rhetorical prop in their campaigns of ideological intimidation. Here:
Protesters rally over motion M-103, the Liberal anti-Islamophobia motion, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in March.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)
Right-wing ideologues use free speech as an alibi for their transphobic and Islamophobic rhetoric.
NextNewMedia
Many are calling for government to step in to stop bots and the spread of fake news on sites like Facebook and Twitter. A media expert explains why this is a slippery slope.
Thomas Hart Benton’s murals at the Indiana University Auditorium depict the social history of the state.
Joseph
A controversial panel on Indiana University’s campus depicts Ku Klux Klan members, but Benton had a reason for including them. Is avoidance really the best way to deal with dark episodes of the past?
At last week’s Party Congress, President Xi Jinping stated that China’s priority is to become a globally “stronger” nation.
AAP/Thomas Peter
Australian universities shouldn’t silence or be silenced by Chinese students who hold nationalistic views, they should encourage a healthy debate.
Demonstrators gather at the University of Florida.
REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
The white nationalist’s visit to the University of Florida shows just how messy life’s moral dilemmas can get.
Bob Brown was arrested under an anti-protest law after refusing to obey police directions to leave a forestry coup at Lapoinya State Forest.
AAP
Bob Brown’s successful High Court challenge to an anti-protest law in Tasmania will cause many states to review their own protest laws.
A client whose hair she had been cutting for 20 years came in as usual, and then, without any prompting or preamble, launched into a tirade against Muslims.
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In a suburban hair salon, a Muslim woman suddenly feels unwelcome in the country she has loved for 40 years.
Notorious Holocaust denier Brian Ruhe gives a Nazi salute as alt-right protesters and anti-racism protesters take part in rallies in Vancouver in August.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
The backlash against the alt-right has ignited debates about free speech. But not all right-wing thought constitutes hate speech, and we need to identify the dividing line.
Protests in Charlottesville in the US turned violent recently, leading to the death of one person.
Reuters/Joshua Roberts
Our society is now intolerant of those who are intolerant of others; they can be legally penalised. But is that in itself a failure of tolerance?
Is it time for Congress to act?
Noclip
As the issue of an open and free internet again comes up for public debate, Congress could participate – and help regulators devise a workable set of policies.
A crowd gathers before a speech by Ben Shapiro at University of California Berkeley.
AP Photo/Josh Edelson
From the football field to the library, this roundup of archival stories explores how the First Amendment applies to various aspects of our lives.