The PTI government is on the back foot on the proposed digital regulation draft after a strong protest by the media and journalists community calling for a struggle to preserve free speech. While the government was thinking of some curbs on the content of the social media, the mainstream journalists are adamant not to allow such restrictions as they believe electronic media is already subjected to over-regulation.

But is the government right in imposing curbs and how far we need to go in preserving constitutional safeguards like freedom of speech? Are we aware of the new challenges that come with the advent of evolving cyberspace?

The debate is more relevant in the broader context of new realities: the exponential growth of net usage, its effects on the consumers, particularly the youth, the power of international media platforms, and the abuse of cyberspace by hackers, terrorists, and dark propagandists in the post-Covid-19 world.

Concerning net usage, Covid-19 has multiplied reliance on the internet as a means of education, communication, diplomacy, trade, and services from take-aways to household shopping. Due to staying home to avoid contraction of Covid-19, physical-societal space has dramatically shrunk, diffusing virtual interactions and communication.

The extent of digitalization of Pakistani society is by and large measured from these numbers: As of April 2021, the percentage of internet users in Pakistan is almost 50 percent which means approximately 100 million citizens, while 70% of consumers are youth a good as well as bad news. The good news is the youth has mounting aspirations, exposure and new avenues to explore opportunities in their lives through the net. The bad news is they are also exposed to dark propaganda, twisted narratives, influences, and ominous content targeting their innocent minds to sign up to particular agendas.

Since cyberspace is a new realm, the state has no digital sovereignty as a result it has grave implications unfolding in various ways: Besides, sexting among kids, a 2 years old kid can watch cartoons equally tagged for other messages. Then there are manuals of bomb-making and all sorts of terrorist activities which can be performed as a lone wolf warrior. Whereas various chat rooms can encourage them to imbibe the dark propaganda and hence respond. For example, the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq getting traction and recruitment in the western world was due to the net-based propaganda, its influence, and information operations.

In Pakistan's context, the virtual world brings in new challenges to the youth of Balochistan in particular as it subjects them to the consumption of all sorts of information, propaganda, and influences of militants and terrorist outfits. Balochistan has around 70 percent youth under the age of 22 years. They have the keyboards and the time of the whole world, but can hardly make sense between what is valid information and what is dark propaganda.

The influence of militant operations and their sponsors through dozens of websites and servers operating mostly out of India underscores the vulnerabilities of the youth to get access to their nefarious activities from a narrative building, claiming terror incidents of bomb blast to delegitimising the statehood of Pakistan.

Worse, the manipulation of the youth of Balochistan through social media is an art only to exacerbate biases, stereotypes, and mischaracterization of Pakistan and Balochistan's future aspirations through CPEC and its development trajectory. It is very important that the authorities concerned invest in digitalized projects to engage the youth of Balochistan and give a counter-narrative to militants and also check what is being churned out through social media.

At the country level, the net platform is a digital window to be an interface between an individual and the state, between society and the state, and hence it necessitates a case for a legitimate, much larger debate as to what restrictions and regulations should space be subjected to and who should decide "the good" for the state and society.

Learning from western experiences, hackers, cyber schemers, and dark propagandists are already undermining the digital sovereignty of advanced countries like America, the UK, and Russia.

Recent examples of how digital threat in real life is unfolding as a bigger problem to advanced economies are as follows: recently non-state actors attacked a gas pipeline called Colonial pipeline in America disrupting supply to the entire East Coast. In recent times ransomware (extorting money through digital blackmail or hacking from companies) and cyber attacks have targeted financial markets, schools, hospitals, and other government networks and influence operations for diverse purposes like recruitment, terrorism, and other anti-state criminal activities.

In other instances, India subjecting Twitter to Indian IT laws and the power of private giants like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter suspending individual accounts President Trump's accounts suspension under the pretext of checking hate speech demonstrate the extent of the power, a) the influence of global social media giants and, b) the limits of freedom of speech.

Interestingly, India banned Chinese apps like TikTalk and WeChat. Most European countries including the UK and France banned Hawaii 5G. While China has threatened two EU companies like Erricson and Samsung to be proscribed, it already has its own version of FB, Twitter, and Whatsapp. The above examples have brought a new debate to the fore the de-facto corporate sovereignty vs state's digital sovereignty.

Lessons learnt: Pakistan also has to transit from analog sovereignty to digital sovereignty which encompasses control and direction of anarchic content, software development, and companies power. Here one point extrapolation of digital sovereignty with some complete border control is not meant, but a state directing the speed of companies and regulating the content of digital social space so it does not create threats to the state and society's integrity and sanctity.

The problem Pakistan is facing is we as a whole have yet to evolve a strategic coherence about the challenges of digital threats.

Our elite from media to judiciary and policymaking need to recognize compelling cases to assert digital sovereignty by imposing regulations on free-for-all content that it has to regulate the borders of cyberspace and develop the capability to counter virtual threats to its digital systems and society at large.

Rather than clinging to archaic laws and principles meant for addressing the challenges of the bygone era, we need to balance the state's case for regulated digital platforms and content, and the free speech imperative which is not absolute in its very nature and is already subject to limits even in the western societies.

Currently, individuals and big companies' boards decide what to say and how to say, hence the law unto themselves where they should be subject to a sovereign state's law: this should be the baseline for the country to start with.

The recent debate of free speech and the anarchic content on social media platforms need to be understood, and broadly debated, to draw a line as to where a state can regulate, and how far should it go vis--vis the recognition of the limits of free speech so that we do meet the challenges of the new de facto realities of the virtual world.

(Jan Achakzai is a geopolitical analyst, a politician from Balochistan, and an ex-adviser to the Balochistan government on media and strategic communication. He remained associated with BBC World Service. He is also Chairman of the Centre for Geo-Politics & Balochistan. He tweets @Jan_Achakzai)

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Digital sovereignty vs freedom of speech? - The News International

This is indeed true most of the time. But it doesn't mean that government agents with hurt feelings won't sometimes try suing private citizens who have the temerity to criticize how government bureaucrats do their jobs. Such was the case earlier this spring when Louisville Metro Police officer Cory Evans filed a lawsuit against the "DUI Guy" an attorney named Larry Forman who has a YouTube channel for defamation after Forman accused Evans of planting evidence.

As Louisvilles WDRB reports:

"Forman posted body camera footage to his YouTube channel from a 2018 incident where LMPD Officer Cory Evans searched a man's vehicle following a suspected DUI. The video depicts officer Evans and another unidentified officer searching the vehicle for alcohol. Evans looks in the center console without finding anything, but the video jumps forward to the view of the other officer, who opens the console and finds a bottle of liquor minutes later."

While I dont agree with Forman when he concludes, The video speaks for itself, Formans conclusion is nonetheless quite plausible. In other words, the body cam video footage makes it easy to see how Forman could sincerely believe that Evans did indeed plant the evidence. That is, Forman may have simply been stating what he believed to be the truth.

Now, Evanss attorney claims the accusation has hurt the reputation of the LMPD officer and the suit is seeking damages.

Lets hope Evans loses, and loses big.

Defamation as a Means to Silence Critics

The problem of a police officer suing a community member for an accusation of abuse helps illustrate one of the central problems with defamation lawsuits: they can be used by powerful people to silence critics.

In the United States, we are fortunate that it is quite difficult to win a defamation lawsuit. Generally speaking, in American courts, plaintiffs claiming damages from defamation must prove actual harm as well as intent to harm. The plaintiff must also prove the defamatory comments are false.

The difficulty of winning a defamation suit under such circumstances helps discourage countless defamation lawsuits. Thank goodness.

Alas, in other parts of the world, this is not the case, and we find many cases of government agents suing or prosecuting citizens for defamation. We even find wealthy and powerful private citizens suing critics, even when those critics are apparently stating what they believe to be facts.

The potential for abusing defamation law helps illustrate, yet again, the wisdom of deferring to freedom of speech as a dominating legal principle, and as a philosophy behind the US governments First Amendment. The presumption should be overwhelmingly in favor of the freedom to speak freely, as efforts to limit speech in the name of protecting reputations presents many opportunities for the abuse of government power.

In all times and places, of course, agents of the regime prefer to silence their critics if they think they can get away with it. Historically, regimes have employed many strategies, such as blasphemy laws, or have simply outlawed criticism. But, as The Economist has reported:

"All these approaches attract international criticism. So some governments turn instead to defamation laws. Defamation is recognised almost everywhere as grounds for a civil claim, in which subjects of wanton and damaging falsehoods can demand financial compensation. But when defamation is a criminal offence, governments can go beyond fining critics who have caused demonstrable harm, and imprison them simply for speaking. Though several countries have recently decriminalised defamation, many more still prosecute it zealously. And even where it can no longer lead to jail, charges can stifle criticism if courts award vast damages."

Fortunately, in the United States, where defamation are suits are generally difficult, it is especially difficult for government personnel or government agencies to sue for defamation.

This has been true for many decades, and this tendency toward skepticism of government-initiated suits was greatly strengthened in the American courts in 1964 with the Sullivan ruling, in which the U.S. Supreme Court concluded:

For good reason, no court of last resort in this country has ever held, or even suggested, that prosecutions for libel on government have any place in the American system of jurisprudence.

In the U.K., on the other hand, protections against defamation suits have been far weaker, even in regard to suits by government agencies. Only in recent decades, for example, has the UK turned toward heavily and explicitly restricting government suits against critics.

Use by Private Parties to Intimidate Critics

Invoking the government's courts to cover "damages" can be used in the private sector to silence one's opponents as well.

In the United Kingdom, where defamation laws are far more extensive than in the United States, we can find cases of defamation suits used to gain commercial and political advantage.

For example, when a plastic surgeon expressed doubts over the efficacy of a breast-enhancement cream, the creams manufacturers threatened the surgeon with legal action.

In another case, Saudi businessman Khalid bin Mahfouz sued a researcher who publicly concluded that Mahfouz had given money to al-Qaeda.

Such lawsuits would be quickly dismissed in the United States, but in the UK, matters are different. As NPR has reported:

"Crooks and brigands from around the world come [to the UK] launder their reputations, where they couldn't get exculpation in either their home country or indeed in the United States of America," says Mark Stephens, a London lawyer who often represents media companies in these cases. In American courts, the burden of proof rests with the person who brings a claim of libel. In British courts, the author or journalist has the burden of proof, and typically loses. "So you've got the rich and powerful shutting down and chilling speech which is critical of them," says Stephens.

Of course, the fact that its very hard to win defamation lawsuits in the US doesnt mean no one ever threatens them. Donald Trump, for example, is notorious for threatening defamation suits against critics. This dates back to well before his years as an elected official or presidential candidate. In 1984, for example, Trump sued architecture columnist Paul Gapp for making fun of Trumps plan to build a two hundredstory skyscraper in southern Manhattan. Trump claimed Gapps remarks caused Trump $500 million in damages.

Trump has tried many similar suits, including a suit against a writer who said Trump wasnt really a billionaire in 2006.

Trump sued one of his own Trump University students in 2010 over the students criticism of the schools business practices.

Thanks to the U.S.s laissez-faire attitude toward defamation, these cases were dismissed relatively quickly, although not without first causing his victims many sleepless nights and legal fees.

One can only hope that the lawsuit brought by Cory Evans of the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department receives the contempt that it deserves from the courts.

After all, government agents and agencies already exercise far more power over their fellow citizens than is the case for average people. The last thing we need is for these agents of the regime to be able to threaten their critics with lawsuits for the act of merely saying things.

Police officers and other government employees who dont like being subject to public criticism can always resign their positions and become ordinary private taxpaying citizens.

Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute.He has degrees in economics and political science from the University of Colorado and was a housing economist for the State of Colorado. He is the author of "Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre." Republished from mises.org.

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OPINION: How defamation suits are used to stifle free speech - The Richmond Observer

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That the dictatorship of the Communist Party and military in North Korea (the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, DPRK) suppresses free speech is taken for granted, and it regularly draws criticism from around the world. But such aversion to free speech is not limited to authoritarian regimes.

It can also become a problem when a nation that espouses freedom and democracy adopts policies and institutions which directly impinge on freedom of speech.

A serious example of this is the new South Korean law that took effect in March, banning the dissemination of leaflets critical of the Pyongyang regime into North Korea by balloon.

In South Korea it had previously been a common practice for individuals and groups who oppose the Pyongyang regime headed by supreme leader Kim Jong Un to attach leaflets and relief supplies to helium balloons which were then sent across the 38th parallel into North Korean territory.

These materials harshly criticize the inhuman dictatorship in North Korea and explain the truth about the current international situation and history.

Outlawing sending leaflets north amounts to trampling on one of the most important rights possessed by citizens of democratic countriesfreedom of speech.

The new law was adopted by South Korean president Moon Jae-in and his ruling party in response to a strong criticism from Pyongyang last year demanding that the balloon flights be stopped. This knuckling under to threats from Pyongyang by the South Korean leadership defies belief.

When President Moon met with U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington D.C. on May 21, they discussed various issues related to North Korea. One of the things observers had an eye on was what the two men would have to say about the new law banning leaflet distribution.

During an April meeting of the U.S. bipartisan congressional human rights commission, the South Korean government had come under heavy criticism for among other things trying to make South Korean society more like that of North Korea.

Then at the beginning of May, South Korean police conducted a raid to search the offices of a group made up of defectors from North Korea on suspicion that they had violated the new law by releasing large balloons carrying 500,000 leaflets near the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas. That was clear suppression of free speech.

President Biden has vowed that under his administration the United States will speak up about human rights issues around the world. It is, therefore, unfortunate that the issue of the anti-leaflet law was not solved during his summit meeting with Moon.

The joint statement issued following their summit meeting simply reiterated general policies, such as we agree to work together to improve the human rights situation in the DPRK.

The international community should not pretend it does not see what is happening with the anti-leaflet law, which is emblematic of how the Moon administration regularly kowtows to Pyongyang.

Australia, India, South Korea and some other countries have been invited to attend the G7 summit scheduled to start in the United Kingdom on June 11 because they are said to share the same common values of the G7 members.

However, we have to question whether the Moon deserves a seat at that table, considering how his administration so abjectly fawns over the dictatorship in North Korea while cracking down on free speech in South Korea.

The G7 members, along with other attendees such as Australia and India, should press Moon to withdraw the anti-leaflet law.

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(Read The Sankei Shimbun editorial in Japanese at this link.)

Author: Editorial Board, The Sankei Shimbun

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EDITORIAL | South Koreas New Limits on Free of Speech are At Odds with a Seat at the G7 Table - JAPAN Forward

Points on free speech

Thank you for the terrific Jan. 25 Explainer, Twitter banned Trump. Is free speech at risk? The question-and-answer format was perfect for batting aside talking points in a clear, concise manner. I have two suggestions that would have made this article a bit more convincing (at least to a reasonable reader), though I have no idea how the writer would have incorporated them:

1. In addition to the choices by corporations being legally permissible, they are the direct consequence of past behavior of the users being blocked or banned. These decisions were taken in response to the users actions (inflammatory language, lies, etc.), not prejudgment of possible future action (censorship).

2. For those who insist that Twitter has replaced the public square, why should offensive speech or deception online be permitted more leeway? Saying the same thing on Main Street would rightly alarm law enforcement.

Rusty WyrickGhivizzano, Italy

Thanks for the March 8 review of Bill Gates book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, headlined Big challenges energize Bill Gates, especially climate change. Unfortunately, the most telling passage was of Mr. Gates mentioning how huge his own carbon footprint was. It is human nature to crave wealth and the status it brings, and wealth usually brings a prodigal lifestyle. Thus I crave articles about those who practice modest consumption, even as they are generous with their wealth. Those who teach by example are the ones who inspire me.

John StettlerDallas

Your timely March 29 Explainer, Housing crunch: Is flexible zoning the answer? emphasizes the racial aspects of a problem that is far more complex. SB 9 and SB 10, currently under consideration in the California Legislature, would override local residential controls. Suburban issues involved include lack of adequate water supply, traffic congestion, school funding, and environmental questions all of which existing householders have been struggling with for years.

Story continues

Location of housing and education are clearly linked, but these bills, and numerous others now under consideration by the state, are no solution to affordable housing. A policy simply promoting duplexes is not the road to solving a complicated dilemma.

Gloria Wyeth NeumeierKentfield, California

I recently read the April 5 Explainer, Why enrollment matters to district bottom lines. I think that public education will change forever, and Im not optimistic about where it is going. My own familys experience has been terrible since March 2020, simply because only about four months have actually been in person.

What I suspect will happen is that more and more parents will realize that there are other options to public school and those with the means will use them, while those without will have no choice. The inequity in the system will increase. While there are many factors to blame, the actions of teacher organizations to resist returning to school are a prime one. I say this not only as the spouse of a former public school teacher, but also as a practicing physician who has missed zero days of work, which makes me very unsympathetic.

James SchoutenPayson, Arizona

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Readers write: Points on free speech and public school - Yahoo News

University College London, a self-proclaimed institution of disruptive thinking, takes great pride in its origins. And rightly so. At a time when only white men of the Church of England could benefit from tertiary education, the opening of the Godless institution of Gower Street to people of all backgrounds, was groundbreakingly disruptive. It angered the establishment and the prevailing orthodoxies of 19th-century England.

For the Scottish clergyman, Edward Irving, London University (as it was known then) was the Synagogue of Satan. King George IV was so incandescent by the opening of Londons new secular university, that he ordered the creation of a new place of learning in London, Kings College London (KCL) which set out to imbue the minds of youth with a knowledge of the doctrines and duties of Christianity.

Thankfully, despite the widespread condemnation against UCL, it survived. And it has produced some of the worlds greatest minds, including John Stuart Mill, Mahatma Gandhi, Roger Penrose and Frances Crick. These individuals have made invaluable contributions to their fields. This is UCL at its finest. This is UCL, as a true academic institution of disruptive thinking.

Tragically, almost 200 years later, this university is no longer so welcoming to those who dare challenge the prevailing orthodoxies of our age. Just look at how students and academics have responded to the question of the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

In recent weeks and months, there has been a great deal of pressure put on the provost to retract the IHRA definition of antisemitism. UCLs governing body adopted the IHR definition in 2019. In December 2020, a working group of academics produced a report rejecting the definition. This was followed in February 2021 by UCLs academic board concluding that the IHRA definition was not fit for purpose.

In response, the UCL Students for Justice in Palestine Society (SJP) in a statement said: UCL was founded upon principles of acceptance and tolerance, academic autonomy, and freedom of speech. As a university that prides itself in being the home of disruptive thinking, the academic boards decision shows its continuous commitment to tackling discrimination and carving a new, innovative path.

And yet, despite the SJPs apparent enthusiasm for freedom of speech and disruptive thinking, on a recent Instagram post, they said that they would not engage in dialogue with Zionists. The society also refuses to engage with anyone who rejects the narrative of ethnic cleansing in Palestine and does not acknowledge apartheid within Israel, those who do not accept BDS as a legitimate form of resistance, and lastly, those who do not agree with the so-called right of return idea. In other words, the groups mindset is: if you do not agree with us, we refuse to debate you. They must enjoy talking to themselves!

Back in 2016, protesters disrupted a talk by Hen Mazzig, a former IDF soldier, organised by the UCL Friends of Israel. The protests turned violent and the police had to be called. At the time, UCL stood up for Mazzigs free speech, disciplining five of the students involved and inviting Mazzig back to speak in 2018. But now UCLs academic board seems to be in agreement with No Platform advocates, all while professing a commitment to free speech.

There is a great deal of hypocrisy here. It seems the only time free speech matters to these activists is when it comes to the vilification of Israel. Whenever Israel is brought up, suddenly, they become staunch advocates of free speech.

Defenders of Israel, on the other hand, are often silenced on UK campuses. Take, for example, an incident from November 2019 at KCL. One evening, a former senior IDF officer was set to give a talk on Israels humanitarian work for Syrians caught up in the civil war. A loud mob of 80 pro-Palestinian students protested this outside the event calling for him to be No Platformed. Despite the attempts of the few pro-Israel activists to engage in respectful dialogue, they were subjected to insults and abuse. The pro-Palestinians in attendance could have voiced their views on Israel and Zionism at the event. They could have challenged the IDF officer. But no. They chose division over discussion.

To be clear, I am not for one moment suggesting that Israel should be immune from robust criticism.The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most complicated and multifaceted conflicts on earth. The beauty of free speech is that it allows us to hear different perspectives. This paves the way for understanding, and understanding, of course, is the backbone of peace and tolerance. What is unacceptable, however, is for free speech to only exist for those who wish to demonise the worlds only Jewish state.

Free speech matters for all, and so does disruptive thinking. We should never forget that.

Harry is a student at UCL and the incoming president of the UCL Friends of Israel Society.

Excerpt from:

Free speech matters for all at UCL, and so does disruptive thinking - Jewish News

For some countries, too much free speech is considered a bad thing.

A Danish think tank has conducted a 50,000 person, 33 country survey into the idea of free speech.

It found that, while the Western world generally agrees it's a universal good, there were a number of countries where citizens think there is too much liberty to give offence.

This was most prevalent in places like Kenya and Nigeria where they have conflict around religion and sects, with 82 percent of respondents from Kenya saying the government should be able to prevent people from saying something to offend minorities.

But some other countries without those major issues also registered as having too much freedom of speech by their own citizens such as Germany, France, Australia, Argentina and Britain.

Massey University sociologist Paul Spoonley has spent decades researching aspects of free speech. He told Mike Hosking the pandemic may have affected some Western attitudes to free speech.

Covid-19 has caused a little bit of concern about free speech. It looks to be that theres concerns about misinformation, that people are opposed to vaccines and so on.

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Survey suggests people think there is too much free speech - Newstalk ZB

T

he head of one of Londons top universities said speakers should not be cancelled just because people protest about them and it is the job of universities to make people uncomfortable.

Dr Michael Spence, President and Provost of University College London also warned he is concerned at a growing trend where people say they feel unsafe if somebody disagrees with them.

Speaking after new research found that more than half of people oppose speakers being no-platformed at universities, he said people have forgotten how to disagree well and many free speech problems could be solved by simple good manners.

He told the Evening Standard that he wants students to leave UCL knowing that life is more nuanced than can be explained in a Tweet, and said the institutions job is to make everybody feel uncomfortable, to make everybody wonder if they are wrong. Thats the job of a university - thats how we progress.

It comes after a study by the Policy Institute at Kings College London found that a quarter of people aged 16 to 24 supported no-platforming. But overall, 53 per cent of the public said that universities should expose students to all types of viewpoints.

Dr Spence said: My job is to make sure that the university remains a place where people can speak their mind freely. In an environment of rapidly changing values its easy for the conversation to become quite frenzied quite quickly. Its really important for universities to remain places where people can talk about difficult ideas the new ideas and the old - in ways that remain civil.

He said he is concerned at a cultural shift that has seen people say you disagree with me and therefore I feel unsafe. He said in some instances when someone is threatening physical or emotional violence that would be true, but he added: We have to be careful as a culture to make sure the mere fact that somebody disagrees with me doesnt make me unsafe.

Former home secretary Amber Rudd is among the high profile names to be no platformed. An Oxford feminist society cancelled an event 30 minute before she was due to speak at the university in March last year after concerns were raised about her involvement in the Windrush scandal.

Dr Spence said nobody has been cancelled at UCL, and he is proud that the Student Union has held debates on Israel Palestine with both Zionist and anti-Zionist speakers. A successful Womens Place UK conference was also held at the university a group that campaigns for womens right but has been accused of transphobia. He said: There were protests and that was fine.

He added: Part of the day job of a university is to deal with protests. Thats what we do for our bread and butter.

Its only the point at which the protest means you cant speak or your event cant go ahead or you are physically intimidated when theres a problem.

He said it would be hopeless if universities enforced trigger warnings in lectures warning students they might be offended by some subjects. But he added that it is just plain courtesy for lecturers to tell pupils in advance if they are going to talk about sensitive material.

He said: Its only when these things become authoritarian that they become a problem. It sounds really naff but a huge amount of the stuff in this free speech area can be dealt with just with good manners. With remembering that ideas have consequences and there are other people who may be affected by the ideas. That doesnt stop you talking about them or expressing strong opinions but it does influence how you choose to talk about them.

See the rest here:

Universities must be open to free speech, says head of UCL - Evening Standard

A periodical devoted to the study of a long-dead European music theorist is an unlikely suspect to spark an explosive battle over race and free speech.

But the tiny Journal of Schenkerian Studies, with a paid circulation of about 30 copies an issue per year, has ignited a fiery reckoning over race and the limits of academic free speech, along with whiffs of a generational struggle. The battle threatens to consume the career of Timothy Jackson, a 62-year-old music theory professor at the University of North Texas, and led to calls to dissolve the journal.

It also prompted Professor Jackson to file an unusual lawsuit charging the university with violating his First Amendment rights while accusing his critics of defamation.

This tale began in the autumn of 2019 when Philip Ewell, a Black music theory professor at Hunter College, addressed the Society for Music Theory in Columbus, Ohio. He described music theory as dominated by white males and beset by racism. He held up the theorist Heinrich Schenker, who died in Austria in 1935, as an exemplar of that flawed world, a virulent racist who wrote of primitive and inferior races views, he argued, that suffused his theories of music.

Ive only scratched the surface in showing out how Schenkers racism permeates his music theories, Professor Ewell said, accusing generations of Schenker scholars of trying to whitewash the theorist in an act of colorblind racism.

The societys members its professoriate is 94 percent white responded with a standing ovation. Many younger faculty members and graduate students embraced his call to dismantle white mythologies and study non-European music forms. The tone was of repentance.

We humbly acknowledge that we have much work to do to dismantle the whiteness and systemic racism that deeply shape our discipline, the societys executive board later stated.

At the University of North Texas, however, Professor Jackson, a white musicologist, watched a video of that speech and felt a swell of anger. His fellow scholars stood accused, some by name, of constructing a white witness protection program and shrugging off Schenkers racism. That struck him as unfair and inaccurate, as some had explored Schenkers oft-hateful views on race and ethnicity.

A tenured music theory professor, Professor Jackson was the grandson of Jewish migrs and had lost many relatives in the Holocaust. He had a singular passion: He searched out lost works by Jewish composers hounded and killed by the Nazis.

And he devoted himself to the study of Schenker, a towering Jewish intellect credited with stripping music to its essence in search of an internal language. The Journal of Schenkerian Studies, published under the aegis of the University of North Texas, was read by a small but intense coterie of scholars.

He and other North Texas professors decided to explore Professor Ewells claims about connections between Schenkers racial views and music theories.

They called for essays and published every submission. Five essays stoutly defended Professor Ewell; most of the remaining 10 essays took strong issue. One was anonymous. Another was plainly querulous. (Ewell of course would reply that I am white and by extension a purveyor of white music theory, while he is Black, wrote David Beach, a retired dean of music at the University of Toronto. I cant argue with that.).

Professor Jacksons essay was barbed. Schenker, he wrote, was no privileged white man. Rather he was a Jew in prewar Germany, the definition of the persecuted other. The Nazis destroyed much of his work and his wife perished in a concentration camp.

Professor Jackson then took an incendiary turn. He wrote that Professor Ewell had scapegoated Schenker within the much larger context of Black-on-Jew attacks in the United States and that his denunciation of Schenker and Schenkerians may be seen as part and parcel of the much broader current of Black anti-Semitism. He wrote that such phenomena currently manifest themselves in myriad ways, including the pattern of violence against Jews, the obnoxious lyrics of some hip-hop songs, etc.

Noting the paucity of Black musicians in classical music, Professor Jackson wrote that few grow up in homes where classical music is profoundly valued. He proposed increased funding for music education and a commitment to demolishing institutionalized racist barriers.

And he took pointed shots at Professor Ewell.

I understand full well, Professor Jackson wrote, that Ewell only attacks Schenker as a pretext to his main argument: That liberalism is a racist conspiracy to deny rights to people of color.

His remarks lit a rhetorical match. The journal appeared in late July. Within days the executive board of the Society for Music Theory stated that several essays contained anti-Black statements and personal ad hominem attacks and said that its failure to invite Professor Ewell to respond was designed to replicate a culture of whiteness.

Soon after, 900 professors and graduate students signed a letter denouncing the journals editors for ignoring peer review. The essays, they stated, constituted anti-Black racism.

Graduate students at the University of North Texas issued an unsigned manifesto calling for the journal to be dissolved and for the potential removal of faculty members who used it to promote racism.

University of North Texas officials in December released an investigation that accused Professor Jackson of failing to hew to best practices and of having too much power over the journals graduate student editor. He was barred from the magazine, and money for the Schenker Center was suspended.

Jennifer Evans-Crowley, the universitys provost, did not rule out that disciplinary steps might be taken against Professor Jackson. I cant speak to that at this time, she told The New York Times.

Professor Jackson stands shunned by fellow faculty. Two graduate students who support him told me their peers feared that working with him could damage their careers.

Everything has become exceedingly polarized and the Twitter mob is like a quasi-fascist police state, Professor Jackson said in an interview. Any imputation of racism is anathema and therefore I must be exorcised.

This controversy raises intertwined questions. What is the role of universities in policing intellectual debate? Academic duels can be metaphorically bloody affairs. Marxists slash and parry with monetarists; postmodernists trade punches with modernists. Tenure and tradition traditionally shield sharp-tongued academics from censure.

For a university to intrude struck others as alarming. Samantha Harris, a lawyer with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, a free speech advocacy group, urged the university to drop its investigation.She did not argue Professor Jacksons every word was temperate.

This is an academic disagreement and it should be hashed out in journals of music theory, Ms. Harris said. The academic debate centers on censorship and putting orthodoxy over education, and that is chilling.

That said, race is an electric wire in American society and a traditional defense of untrammeled speech on campus competes with a newer view that speech itself can constitute violence. Professors who denounced the journal stressed that they opposed censorship but noted pointedly that cultural attitudes are shifting.

Im educated in the tradition that says the best response to bad speech is more speech, said Professor Edward Klorman of McGill University. But sometimes the traditional idea of free speech comes into conflict with safety and inclusivity.

There is too a question with which intellectuals have long wrestled. What to make of intellectuals who voice monstrous thoughts? The renowned philosopher Martin Heidegger was a Nazi Party member and Paul de Man, a deconstructionist literary theorist, wrote for pro-Nazi publications. The Japanese writer Yukio Mishima eroticized fascism and tried to inspire a coup.

Schenker, who was born in Galicia, part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, was an ardent cultural Germanophile and given to dyspeptic diatribes. He spoke of the filthy French; English, and Italians as inferior races; and Slavs as half animals. Africans had a cannibal spirit.

Did his theoretical brilliance counter the weight of disreputable rages?

Professor Ewell argued that Schenkers racism and theories are inseparable. At a minimum, he wrote in a paper, we must present Schenkers work to our students in full view of his racist beliefs.

The dispute has played out beyond the United States. Forty-six scholars and musicians in Europe and the Middle East wrote a defense of Professor Jackson and sounded a puzzled note. Professor Ewell, they wrote, delivered a provocative polemic with accusations aimed at living scholars and Professor Jackson simply answered in kind.

Neither professor is inclined to back down. A cellist and scholar of Russian classical music, Professor Ewell, 54, describes himself as an activist for racial, gender and social justice and a critic of whiteness in music theory.

Shortly after the Journal of Schenkerian Studies appeared in July, Professor Ewell who eight years ago published in that journal canceled a lecture at the University of North Texas. He said he had not read the essays that criticized him.

I wont read them because I wont participate in my dehumanization, he told The Denton Record-Chronicle in Texas. They were incensed by my Blackness challenging their whiteness.

Professor Ewell, who also is on the faculty of the City University of New York Graduate Center, declined an interview with The Times. He is part of a generation of scholars who are undertaking critical-race examinations of their fields. In Music Theory and the White Racial Frame, the paper he presented in Columbus, he writes that he is for all intents a practitioner of white music theory and that rigorous conversations about race and whiteness are required to make fundamental antiracist changes in our structures and institutions.

For music programs to require mastery of German, he has said, is racist obviously. He has criticized the requirement that music Ph.D. students study German or a limited number of white languages, noting that at Yale he needed a dispensation to study Russian. He wrote that the antiracist policy solution would be to require languages with one new caveat: any language including sign language and computer languages, for instance is acceptable with the exception of Ancient Greek, Latin, Italian, French or German, which will only be allowed by petition as a dispensation.

Last April he fired a broadside at Beethoven, writing that it would be academically irresponsible to call him more than an above average composer. Beethoven, he wrote, has been propped up by whiteness and maleness for 200 years.

As for Schenker, Professor Ewell argued that his racism informed his music theories: As with the inequality of races, Schenker believed in the inequality of tones.

That view is contested. Professor Eric Wen arrived in the United States from Hong Kong six decades ago and amid slurs and loneliness discovered in classical music what he describes as a colorblind solace. Schenker held a key to mysteries.

Schenker penetrated to the heart of what makes music enduring and inspiring, said Professor Wen, who teaches at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He was no angel and so what? His ideology is problematic but his insights are massive.

How this ends is not clear. The university report portrayed Professor Jackson as hijacking the journal, ignoring a graduate student editor, making decisions on his own and tossing aside peer review.

A trove of internal emails, which were included as exhibits in the lawsuit, casts doubt on some of those claims. Far from being a captive project of Professor Jackson, the emails show that members of the journals editorial staff were deeply involved in the planning of the issue, and that several colleagues on the faculty at North Texas, including one seen as an ally of Professor Ewell, helped draft its call for papers.

When cries of racism arose, all but one of those colleagues denounced the journal. A graduate student editor publicly claimed to have participated because he feared retaliation from Professor Jackson, who was his superior, and said he had essentially agreed with Professor Ewell all along. The emails paint a contradictory picture, as he had described Professor Ewells paper as naive.

Professor Jackson hired a lawyer who specialized in such cases, Michael Allen, and the lawsuit he filed against his university charges retaliation against his free speech rights. More extraordinary, he sued fellow professors and a graduate student for defamation. That aspect of the lawsuit was a step too far for FIRE, the free speech group, which supported targeting the university but took the view that suing colleagues and students was a tit-for-tat exercise in squelching speech.

We believe such lawsuits are generally unwise, the group stated, and can often chill or target core protected speech.

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Obscure Musicology Journal Sparks Battles Over Race and Free Speech - The New York Times

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (First Amendment to the Constitution)

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. (Exodus 20:16, KJV)

The first quote is the law of the land, the second is not. Further, the first quote makes it clear that it is up to the individual to decide whether to adhere to the second quote.

To some extent, and in the spirit of free speech, the U.S. Constitution permits the bearing of false witness or lying as a constitutional right. The framers of the Constitution were more concerned about the suppression of speech than the corruption of it. They reasoned that men [and women] of good conscience would outweigh those with no conscience.

But the framers of the Constitution could not possibly envision the power and ability of the internet and mass media outlets to spread and amplify lies to millions of Americans. Worse, that in the two-party system that emerged after the First Amendment was adopted, one party would use mass media and the internet to develop alternative versions of reality; one steeped in populist beliefs augmented by an unscrupulous orator.

Lies and misinformation threaten to destroy our free speech. We have all witnessed that firsthand. In the past three months, we have seen how Donald Trumps lies about a stolen election led to an insurrection against the government and a loss of faith in our election process, the very heart of our democracy.

In the backlash of these lies, several entities, most notably Dominion and Smartmatic, the makers of election software, are suing Trumps lawyer as well as several news sources in multi-billion-dollar lawsuits on charges of defamation. Now the courts will decide how much free speech will be permitted to destroy the reputation of a company, an individual or a states election process.

This appears to be the future direction of free speech in America. An individual, a company or a political party can openly tell lies or spread misinformation and then magnify it in public media and leave it to the courts to decide whether their right to free speech can ruin a persons life or destroy another company or even democracy itself.

Further, since litigation of this magnitude often requires large financial resources, the litigation of slander will often come down to a question of wealth and monetary backing. Free speech in America will exist only for those who can afford to back it up in court.

Even if the Constitution permitted the restriction of free speech against slanderous lies, we would not be able to regulate our way out of bearing false witness. The dividing line between what speech is permissible and what is illegal would be more dynamic than it is now. I believe the framers of the First Amendment understood that.

The United States has grown from a rebellious group of idealistic colonies to the most powerful nation ever to have existed. We are so powerful that the temptation of that power will cause many to trade their integrity to obtain it.

In the end, our democracy depends upon our integrity. Our freedom of speech is our most important heritage. To preserve it, we must speak truth and stand up to those who would pervert it.

(James Fieseher lives in Dover.)

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My Turn: Our biggest threats to free speech - Concord Monitor

As a law professor, I am a strong defender of free speech. Defending free speech as a constitutional principle means defending the right of people to speak even when I disagree with their message.

As a Democratic State Representative from Iowa City, I have heard a lot recently about how Iowa Republicans believe they are victims of First Amendment violations against conservative speech. The Iowa House Government Oversight Committee held hearings to review complaints that the Regents Universities had infringed on conservative students free speech rights. In the University of Iowa case, the College of Dentistry Dean admitted that the College was wrong to schedule an inquiry for a student who criticized the Colleges statement opposing an Executive Order issued by then-President Trump. Republican lawmakers accused the universities of hypocrisy, and said that it is a universitys job to educate, not indoctrinate.

I readily concede that the University made a mistake. Under the First Amendment, a state university should not punish anyone for commenting on a matter of public concern such as an Executive Order. To do so is not only a violation of First Amendment principles; it is also antithetical to the Universitys educational mission to foster robust debate across different points of view. I was glad to see that university officials immediately recognized their mistake, apologized, and reversed course.

But there is another side to this story. Iowa Republicans say they are victims of free speech violations, but they are also perpetrators. Several of them have made statements or introduced bills that blatantly violate principles of free speech and association.

Here are just a few of the more egregious examples from the first five weeks of the legislative session:

Iowa House and Senate leadership should have pronounced these bills dead on arrival. Instead, they breathed life into them by assigning them to committees and allowing them to advance to committee and perhaps even to the floor. Even if these bills dont ultimately pass, they do real damage to our educational system every time they are publicly debated. They also chill free speech, as no one dares to speak against them for fear that they or their employer will be further punished by vindictive legislation.

When conservatives believe their free speech rights have been violated, they are right to call it out. We should all call it out, no matter who is speaking. But our Republican state legislators also need to clean up around their own doorstep. And they should certainly stop playing the victim when they hold all the political power in the state and are wielding it to suppress the free speech of thousands of Iowans.

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Letter to the editor: Free speech and politics in Iowa - Little Village

An important part of University of Virginias ongoing commitment to free expression and to fully and honestly explore UVAs complex history is moving forward this week with the creation of two new committees.

UVA President Jim Ryan and Provost Liz Magill have announced the creation of one committee to articulate the Universitys commitment to free expression and free inquiry, and another to examine naming and memorials on Grounds.

We are working to give voice to our commitment as an educational institution to the free and open exchange of ideas, and to grapple with the complexities of our Universitys history and the names that we honor, Ryan said. These committees will help us forge a path forward as we continue to address these issues as a community and as a nation.

First Amendment expert Leslie Kendrick, White Burkett Miller Professor of Law and Public Affairs and vice dean at UVAs School of Law, will chair the Committee on Free Expression and Free Inquiry. The group will craft a statement that identifies the role that free expression and free inquiry play in UVAs academic enterprise and how they shape engagement with the ideas of others. The statement will reflect the Universitys values, its history and its legal obligations as a public institution.

Free expression and free inquiry are the lifeblood of universities; these principles underpin this Universitys educational missions of producing knowledge, developing citizen leaders, and serving, Magill said.In a moment where the country is experiencing heightened conflict, we believe its essential to concisely articulate those foundational commitments of University life.

The members of the Committee on Free Expression and Free Inquiry are:

University Counsel Tim Heaphy will serve as counsel to the committee, whose work will begin soon.

President Ryan and Provost Magill have assembled a highly accomplished and diverse group of scholars and University representatives to consider these important topics, Kendrick said. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the committee.

Michael Suarez, English professor and executive director of the Rare Book School, will chair the Naming and Memorials Committee, which is a reconfiguration and reconstitution of a previously existing committee. The group is charged with delineating principles and protocols for naming and, under certain limited circumstances, renaming buildings on Grounds. The committee is also tasked with making recommendations about the status and contextualization of memorials.

In each case, the committee will carefully review and develop recommendations that will then be sent to President Ryan for his review and, if advanced, to the Board of Visitors.

Our University, as a public institution of higher education, is not a place stuck in time, but a dynamic community where history is alive and ever-changing, Suarez said. We have a responsibility not only to record that history, but also to interpret it for current and future generations, to give it context and meaning. The Naming and Memorials Committee has been entrusted with an extraordinary educational opportunity: to help the University to continue to tell our long and complex story.

The formation of the committee comes on the heels of the Board of Visitors approval in September of five recommendations from UVAs Racial Equity Task Force regarding changes to UVAs historic landscape.

The members of the Naming and Memorials Committee are:

The committees consultants are:

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University Names New Committees on Free Speech and the Historic Landscape at UVA - UVA Today

There is a fundamental belief among Americans that we have the right to do and say whatever we want because we are protected by the First Amendment. Although freedom of speech exists in America, all speech is not free. There is a cost.

On Monday, the U.S. Senate began debating whether to hold Donald Trump accountable for inciting the Capitol insurrection that resulted in the deaths of five individuals including a Capitol police officer. At issue is a single article of impeachment that accuses the former president of reiterating false claims that he had won this election and that he willfully made statements that, in context, encouraged and foreseeably resulted in lawless action at the Capitol.

In response, Trumps legal team has asserted that the statements he made at the rally were protected by his First Amendment right to free speech. Thus, Trump should not be held accountable for any subsequent actions of the protesters.

In the landmark case of Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the Supreme Court, while acknowledging the sacredness of free speech, established that the government can punish what has been defined to be inflammatory speech if that speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action producing and is likely to incite or produce such action."

However, the impeachment and trial process as set forth in the Constitution may be viewed as a political process rather than a judicial process. There is a difference. In the judicial process, attorneys dispute the existence of necessary facts to establish that the defendant did, in fact, commit the crime. In this political impeachment process, the law will be argued as opposed to the facts. Because this process is taking place in a partisan Senate, it is not likely that Trump will be found guilty, especially given the retributive nature of party politics.

As Americans, we have become comfortable with the concept of freedom, the ability to determine our own destiny. We have freedom of speech, religion, press and freedom. We are free to peacefully assemble, and we have free elections. It was the idea that all men were created equal that inspired one of the greatest civil rights movements in history where oppressed African Americans demonstrated their humanity in refusing to meet violence with violence.

The Capitol insurrection is much bigger than just a few people getting drunk on Trumpism. We the People must defend our nation against the domestic terroristic ideas that threaten our democracy from within such as partisan politics, classism, elitism and racism. As true citizens of America, we must do our part in protecting democracy. If nothing more comes of this impeachment trial, America should be reminded that ideas, not weapons, are the most powerful tools of revolution.

BLAIR D. CONDOLL, J.D.

political science professor, Dillard University

New Orleans

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Letters: The limits of free speech and the dangers of violence and insurrection - The Advocate

For conservatives, free speech has become particularly bewildering in the age of social media. In the years leading up to Twitter forcing Donald Trump to find a new hobby, conservatives railed against cancel culture, suggesting that deplatforming is an infringement on their First Amendment rights as if our Founding Fathers fought to secure your constitutional right to that creepy shared account with your spouse.

As high school civics taught us, censorship requires government action; First Amendment rights generally dont protect you from private actors. Do I have the right to come into your business and say your wife is ugly and your father assassinated John F. Kennedy? I could say that, but you could also throw me out on my butt. (Or, if youre Ted Cruz, praise me and support my presidency.)

Implicit in the right to speak freely is the right to associate freely. To put free association in terms that conservatives should be familiar with, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey are bakers, your social media accounts are gay wedding cakes, and neither Zuckerberg nor Dorsey have to bake that cake.

Meanwhile, on the left, free speech is reduced to one head-scratching cliche: You cant shout fire in a crowded theater. When I hear this, I want to douse myself in kerosene and take my chances inside the theater.

The bromide paraphrases Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who wrote in the 1919 majority decision for Schenck v. United States, The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. Schenck involved an anti-war activist who was convicted for the dangerous act of gulp handing out leaflets. Turns out a man audaciously suggesting peace during wartime doesnt roll off the tongue as well.

Yes, free speech has limits (e.g., defamation, obscenity, telling your kids that Santa Claus is a Deep State conspiracy). However, this phrase is useless. Imagine finding roadkill while out for a walk with a friend. You ask, What kind of animal is that? Your friend responds, Not all animals are armadillos. Though technically true, this insight wont help crack the case.

Fortunately, this flimsy legal reasoning was overturned in 1969 by Brandenburg v. Ohio, which established a higher standard for censorship. Where Schenck provided the government with a bazooka, Brandenburg traded down for a Red Ryder BB gun with a warped barrel.

And thank goodness. Gifting government with a broad scope to censor is akin to lending a Bowie knife to your toddler for his arts-and-crafts project.

Confusion converges politically with one specific topic: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 shields internet companies from legal liability of whatever nonsense trolls and keyboard warriors post on their websites. Without 230, the internet would not be what it is today. However, spend any amount of time in the comments section and youll find that the current shape of the internet isnt exactly a compelling argument.

The right and left both want to abolish 230 but for different reasons. The right believes 230 grants immunity to Silicon Valley companies, allowing them to deplatform their fellow conservatives with impunity. However, without 230, it is likely that more deplatforming would occur, because most prudent businessmen shy away from being legally liable for some manifesto-writing dude who uses the screen name QAnon4Lyfe1776.

Meanwhile, progressives want 230 gone because they believe it protects hate speech. Unfortunately, they define hate speech like how they identify roadkill: Whatever it is, it aint an armadillo.

We often discuss freedom but rarely the obligation to use it responsibly. Rights and responsibilities are two sides of the same coin. And the best place to invest this coin is within a competitive marketplace of ideas. In the dissenting opinion for Abrams v. United States (another case involving a dastardly anti-war pamphleteer), Oliver Wendell Holmes yes, the same Holmes who worried about fiery theaters wrote, The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out.

In this marketplace of ideas, the best investment strategy is to avoid the short-selling hucksterism of those who fail to grasp the long-term value of the freedoms protected by the First Amendment. Freedom isnt zero-sum but rather a multiplier effect that can open up a boundless world of beauty, innovation, and nuance. When embraced responsibly, freedom pays off with dividends.

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COLUMN: Free speech failures of the left and right - Montrose Daily Press

I was shocked to read the many letters in last weeks paper publicly flogging the editor for publishing the article Big Tech Censorship Hits Home. The vitriol that the writers of these letters had for the woman in the article and for the editor who dared to publish her story was alarming.

Politics is downstream of culture. While free speech is currently protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution, I worry that our culture is shifting away from the values that uphold this precious right by calling for censorship. While it is true that Facebook is a private company that has the right to do what they want, it is also true that Facebook acts as a public square for people to share information and have open conversations about important topics. However, it is no longer an open forum when people are shut out of the conversation. If our culture not only accepts, but calls for censorship and profile deletion of anyone that they deem disagreeable, then I fear that our First Amendment rights will also soon be deleted.

It is frightening to think that so many people willingly accept Facebook as the arbiter of truth. Are we willing to allow this company and their algorithms to decide what we see and how we communicate? It might suit your needs today when Facebook is deleting profiles that you find disagreeable, but what about tomorrow when Facebook decides that your profile is the new unmentionable?

The spirit of free speech allows people to speak their mind without the threat of being silenced. Instead of insisting that unfavorable ideas are shut down, lets rise to the challenge of a proper debate in an effort to present a better, more sound idea.

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Letter: The culture of free speech | Letters to the Editor | tillamookheadlightherald.com - Tillamook Headlight-Herald

The University has announced the creation of two new committees, one focused on free speech and expression and the other examining the names of University institutions and the contextualization and status of memorials on Grounds.

The Committee on Free Expression and Free Inquiry will write a statement identifying the roles of free expression and free inquiry in the University's academic enterprise as well as how they shape engagement with the ideas of others. This committee will be chaired by Leslie Kendrick, White Burkett Miller professor of law and public affairs and vice dean at the School of Law.

We are working to give voice to our commitment as an educational institution to the free and open exchange of ideas, and to grapple with the complexities of our Universitys history and the names that we honor, University President Jim Ryan said. These committees will help us forge a path forward as we continue to address these issues as a community and as a nation.

Additional members of this committee include Dean of Students Allen Groves; Kevin McDonald, vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion; Mazzen Shalaby, fourth-year Batten student and Board of Visitors student member; Susan Kirk, professor, associate dean for graduate medical education and chair-elect of the Faculty Senate as well as various other alumni, faculty and administrators. University Counsel Tim Heaphy will also serve as counsel to the committee.

Ryan addressed the issue of free speech in a statement this fall following controversy over signs posted on Lawn room doors critiquing the University. The signs, which contained profanity such as FCK UVA, generated calls for removal from some alumni and community members. In his statement, Ryan said that after consultation with Heaphy, the University could not remove the signs but would consider placing a ban on all signage on Lawn room doors as early as next year.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education a watchdog group for free speech and other related issues at college and universities previously awarded the University a green light speech code rating, the highest given by the organization. The green light rating indicates there is no University policy that is a serious threat to students free speech rights on Grounds.

Free speech also played a major role in the events of Aug. 11 and 12, 2017, when neo-Nazis and white supremacists held a violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

The University also announced the creation of a Naming and Memorials Committee, which will serve as a reconfiguration of the Universitys Committee on Names. The new committee will establish protocols for naming and in some cases, renaming buildings on Grounds as well as making recommendations on contextualizing memorials. Recommendations will be sent to Ryan for review and then to the Board of Visitors.

The Naming and Memorials Committee will be chaired by Michael Suarez, English professor and executive director of the Rare Book School.

Our University, as a public institution of higher education, is not a place stuck in time but a dynamic community where history is alive and ever-changing, Suarez said. We have a responsibility not only to record that history, but also to interpret it for current and future generations, to give it context and meaning.

Additional members of the Naming and Memorials Committee will include Shalaby, History and African American Studies Prof. Kevin Gaines and various other faculty, alumni and administrators. The committee will also refer to numerous consultants from both the University and Charlottesville communities.

Following the release of the racial equity task forces final report, which suggested 12 initiatives to promote racial equity at the University, the Board of Visitors voted to adopt five recommendations recontextualization of the Thomas Jefferson statue, removal and relocation of the George Rogers Clark statue, rededication or removal of the Frank Hume Memorial Wall, renaming the School of Education and Human Development and removing Henry Withers name from the name of Withers-Brown Hall.

In anticipation of the Board of Visitors decision, the Minority Rights Coalition is calling on the University to immediately remove the wall and not rededicate it.

Last summer, the Board of Visitors voted to rename Ruffner Hall to Ridley Hall after Walter Ridley, the first African American to earn a doctoral degree from the University. Community members, activists and students have also called into question the name of Alderman Library, which is named after Edwin Alderman, first president of the University and known white supremacist and eugenicist.

Following the renaming of Ruffner Hall, a petition was also circulated over the summer calling on the University to remove names that should no longer be honored on Grounds many buildings are named after known white supremacists.

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U.Va. creates committees on Free Expression and Free Inquiry, Naming and Memorials - University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily

Jack Dorsey, Chief Executive Officer of Twitter, testifies remotely as Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., looks at his iPad during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Photo By Bill Clark/Pool/Sipa USA via Reuters

In the aftermath of the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, crackdowns on certain social-media accounts and apps involved in the violence have further fueled a debate over reform of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which largely protects online platforms from liability for their users content, and other policy options. The conversation about the role of private companies in regulating speech has quickly become a transatlantic oneas well as a test for how free and open societies should best approach a free and open internet. So how exactly can Europes experiences with regulating online speech and content inform the debate in the United States? And what should solutions look like in the United States? Were offering a series of perspectives. Below, the Europe Centers Distinguished Fellow Frances Burwell offers her perspective. Read Europe Center Nonresident Senior Fellow Kenneth Propps perspective here.

The decisions by Facebook and Twitter to suspend former US President Donald Trump and thousands of other accounts following the riots at the US Capitol have been criticized by some as trampling on free speech and by others as too little too late. But the real question is why two private companies have been the key decision-makers in this situation. Rather than relying on CEOs Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, the US governmentespecially Congress and the courtsshould make clear what type of speech is acceptable online and what type of speech is not.

After the events of January 6, Congress will certainly take on reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Actthe 1996 law that allows online platforms, including social-media companies, to escape liability for content posted by their users. When Congress does look at the act, it should not just focus on the companies and their responsibilities. Legislators should take a good, hard look in the mirror. They must provide the guidelines that are central to reducing violent extremist content online: rules on acceptable versus forbidden online speech.

For all Americans, free speech is a sacred right. But social media has demonstrated a tendency to proliferate and magnify the most hate-filled and conspiracy-based speech at breathtaking speed, with serious consequences for the countrys democratic future. Companies have responded by establishing their own user guidelines and policing content as they each see fit. Legally, they are free to do this, since the First Amendment applies to government restrictions on speech. But many users regard Facebook and Twitter as essential avenues of communication in the digital age that should not be censored. Should we continue to rely on such an ad-hoc system, based on private-sector interests, to restrain especially violent speech? Or is it time to have a serious debate about how the United States as a nation should define and police the most egregious speech online?

As US lawmakers take on this issue, they might usefully draw some lessons from the experience of European governments in regulating content online. The European Union (EU) is without doubt the regulatory superpower of the digital world. Germany and other EU member states have imposed significant obligations on online platforms in terms of monitoring and removing certain content. In some cases, platforms must remove content within twenty-four hours of notification, sometimes less, or face significant fines. For several years, the major social-media companies (including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) have participated in a voluntary EU Code of Conduct, pledging to remove content deemed illegal hate speech after being notified of its existence on their platforms. A 2019 review showed that 90 percent of the notifications were reviewed within twenty-four hours and 71 percent of the material was removed.

This system is about to get even tougher: A proposed EU Digital Services Act will impose significant reporting requirements on companies regarding content removal and, for some platforms, intrusive inspections designed to change how algorithms recommend certain content. In the wake of the Capitol riots, some European politicians urged the United States to adopt similar rules constraining social media.

Such a content-moderation system is only possible, however, if based on a clear definition of unlawful speechand establishing that definition is not a job for corporations, but for elected representatives. Today in the United States, only a few categories of online speech are prohibited, among them terrorist content and child pornography. Other illegal speech includes incitement of imminent lawless and violent action and threats to the US president or vice presidentboth of which Trump may have violated during his speech to supporters before they headed to the Capitol. For the most part, decisions about what is not protected as free speech have been made in the court system, and thus each exemption applies in very specific and limited circumstances. Incitement to lawless and violent action may be protected, for example, if the action is not imminent.

In contrast, many European governments have long defined certain categories of illegal speech, many of which pre-date the online world. In Germany, for example, it is illegal to deny that the Holocaust happened. As in the United States, terrorist content and child pornography are illegal, although European attitudes vary widely toward what is considered obscenity in the United States. Central to European regulation is the idea of illegal hate speech, defined in EU law as the public incitement to violence or hatred directed to groups or individuals on the basis of certain characteristics, including race, color, religion, descent, and national or ethnic origin. While this rule does not prohibit racist caricatures of specific groups or individuals, it does ban calls for violence or other injury. Prohibitions on such hate speech have been enforced not only online, but in magazines, on television, and even in nightclub acts.

If Congress seeks to reduce the liability protections of platforms for user-generated content, it will need to be specific about the nature of proscribed content. Unless that content is clearly defined, companies will simply seek to protect themselves by establishing guidelines that allow only the safest, most mundane material. Any restrictions on online speech should be very limitedperhaps adopting a concept similar to Europes public incitement to violence or hatred or dropping the requirement that the dangerous incitement in question be imminent. Aside from the constitutional considerations, authoritarian governments around the world will see anything but modest limitations as an opportunity to legitimize their own moves to restrict online speech.

While the EU experience offers some useful lessons, even very strict content-moderation rules will not solve the entire problem. The EUs definition of illegal hate speech does not address the spread of conspiracy theories and fake news, for example, both of which are detrimental to US and European democracies and which can be found not only online but also in traditional media outlets. And the regulation of larger platforms often pushes hate speech to the wilder reaches of the internet and smaller, more ephemeral platforms.

US President Joe Biden has called for a Summit of Democracies during 2021, with disinformation on the agenda. The United States and Europe should use this meeting to compare their approaches to the dangers some online content presents to our democracies and to work with other democracies to find a common way forward. As a first step, Congress and the Biden administration must consider how best to safeguard US democracy from incitements to violence and hate.

Frances G. Burwell is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and a senior director at McLarty Associates.

Tue, Dec 15, 2020

A hearing on the consequences of the European Court of Justices invalidation of the EU-US Privacy Shield illuminated the deepening transatlantic divide over data transfers, and it highlighted the early challenge the subject looks to pose for President-elect Joe Bidens administration, which is eager to repair US-EU relations.

New AtlanticistbyKenneth Propp

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Free speech and online content: What can the US learn from Europe? - Atlantic Council

As important as freedom of speech may be, the failure to put it in the context of other values leads us to some serious problems for our society and, more specifically, for our educational institutions.

In terms of our national political life, we have seen the consequences of defending freedom of speech while attending insufficiently to other essential matters, notably the difference between truth and lies. We face a difficult task if we are to rise to the occasion of saving our form of government.

The damage a fundamentalist approach to free speech can cause our educational systems should be easier to address, given a commitment to core values regarding facts, logic and evaluating sources of information. Where we cannot arrive at the truth about a particular matter definitively, we can still get closer and at least move into the neighborhood. And when we are not ourselves in a position to judge the truth value of what we encounter, we must have ways of evaluating sources and learning how particular experts obtain their special knowledge.

Faculty members who have been especially focused on defending their freedom of speech need to be paying more attention to the quality of their speech. They need to be mindful of their professional responsibilities as well as their rights. That is why they are the ones getting paid and students are the ones paying.

An emphasis on rights is understandable and important at a time that is difficult for faculty generally and especially so for those without tenure. Moreover, some measures taken against faculty members in particular cases -- removal from the classroom or even termination -- have been clearly out of scale with the specific offense. But there is no downside to complementing a concern for faculty rights with a concern for the professional responsibilities that entitle faculty members to take pride in their calling.

In addition to emphasizing the importance of speech supported by facts, sourcing and an interest in truth, faculty members need to teach their students -- and themselves -- how to engage most effectively with those holding different views. They should help students resist the attractions of indulging in self-righteous disdainful abuse. Trying to find out why a person holds certain beliefs is a necessary ethnographic step in the process of dialogue.

While respectful dialogue does not work with everyone, it shapes the ground rules of what is rightly defined as education. And education takes place not only in the classroom, but also in campus free speech zones, since students do not shed their perceptions of faculty/student roles and relationships -- and the unequal nature of them -- when they enter such places.

A breakdown between private and public spheres has especially aggravated our current problems about speech. What faculty members used to say in private -- for example, while enjoying a drink with some colleagues -- is now shared on various nonprivate platforms. What was fine in the former context is not so fine in the latter. We now live with the danger of privacy disappearing altogether.

Our attitudes to free speech are part of a wider, uncritical cultural celebration of freedom abroad in our land. And thus we see many of our fellow citizens refusing to wear masks during a dangerous pandemic and some of our legislators insisting on their right to carry firearms when they report for their day jobs.

An unreflective approach to freedom of speech is often paired with promotion of a marketplace of ideas. Let us note, however, that a marketplace is where you can sell anything -- anything -- that someone else is willing to buy. That may be a less than helpful or inspirational way to think about a democracy, or, for that matter, a society more generally.

We have already followed the path from First Amendment/freedom of speech fundamentalism to Citizens United, a major contribution to turning our democracy into an oligarchy. Will we follow it to where it undermines what education itself is supposed to give to us?

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Academics should put freedom of speech in the context of other values (opinion) - Inside Higher Ed

Editor:

Recently, My Edmonds News reported on the vandalism to the art installation that changed key characteristics of the message into an entirely new message altogether. The public was appropriately appalled, and legal action was pursued. Oscar Wilde is quoted as sayingI may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself. Service members have given their lives defending this freedom. All the people of Edmonds should be mindful, respectful, and display the true meaning of decorum when it comes to defending every citizens right to protected speech.

In local Facebook groups, discussion is abundant and emotionally charged about the theft of political signs and other signs reflecting individual beliefs. We might not agree, or even understand the messages on those signs and can become blinded by our own passion. The use of a sign is a way to provoke thought, declare a strong personal belief, offer support. It is a sacred and protected right we as Americans enjoy and others in the world can only envy. Recently, many in Edmonds have had to resort to extreme measures to keep trespassers, enemies of free speech, and those who disagree from stealing yard signs. This week Councilmember Adrienne-Fraley Monillas used her position to make rhetorical and unproven statements during the Council Comments section of the Jan. 26, 2021 council meeting. I will fight to protect her right to express her thoughts. She is perfectly within her rights to say the things that she does, and residents of Edmonds are perfectly within their rights to display legal signage on private property to express their views.

A case in point. Recently, I was asked to watch a neighbors property while they were away. They had multiple legal signs on their private property. Over the course of seven days, trespassers stole private yard signs no fewer than four times. Fortunately, in two of the cases, I was able to secure photographs of these individuals. I promptly filed a police report and provided the photographs.

The people stealing these signs (and silencing protected speech) need to be prosecuted and serve their penalty.

Whether you want to express Black Lives Matter, Drop the Mike, Equity, Justice, We Choose Kindness, or I Like Turtles signs on your private property is your business. If you dislike the sign, think about why that is and engage in a discussion with those you disagree with to understand their views and share yours. Using misleading speech and to emotionally divide our community as Councilmember Adrienne-Fraley Monillas is doing is both wrong and dangerous.

One thing most of us have in common is our love for this city. We have done our best work when we share ideas, opinions, and respect. Members of this community crave having a voice and a meaningful role in their future. History has taught us what we become when we seek to silence those with whom we disagree.

George BennettEdmonds

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Letter to the editor: Silencing free speech by breaking the law not what Edmonds is about - My Edmonds News

By Bang Showbiz 2h ago

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Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegal has insisted there needs to be a balance between free speech and moderating social media platforms.

The 30-year-old businessman - who launched the popular photo sharing app while studying at Stanford University and became a billionaire five years ago - has insisted users should be allowed to express themselves, even when that includes saying "really inappropriate" things.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We've definitely taken a proactive approach to the content that's distributed on Snapchat, but at the same time, you know, should platforms be responsible?

"For example, for telephone calls, I would say no - if you pick up the phone, and you say something really, really inappropriate and outrageous to your friends, the telephone company isn't responsible for what your friend said, your friend is responsible.

However, Spiegal also noted the importance of finding a balance between a huge audience - more than 70% of 13 to 34-year-olds in the US - and letting people exercise their right to free speech.

He explained: "We do want to make sure that our platform is the place where people can express themselves and even though they say inappropriate things sometimes, our government actually has a whole legal framework to protect that sort of self expression and free speech."

Meanwhile, Spiegal also added while he would be "happy" to pay more taxes, he would expect some of the money to be repaid into tech funding by governments.

He added: "The history of great nations really tends to be built on huge breakthroughs in technology and a lot of times that technology is founded on government investment.

I think it's really easy today in our political system to focus on the failures, rather than these amazing successes.

Regulation is only one part of a comprehensive technology strategy - the rest of it really has to be oriented around...investment in new technology.

BANG ShowBiz Tech

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Snapchat boss calls for balance between free speech and social media moderation - IOL

I am writing about State Rep. Dawn Johnson and her link to a neo-Nazi website.

I don't know Dawn Johnson and am not acquainted with the site she linked to. For the sake of argument I'll stipulate she's is an anti-Semite. That said, there is a whole lot more going on here that people better pay attention to. I believe the attack on Johnson did not happen spontaneously. I believe she is being used as an example to put people on notice as to what will happen to them if they step out of line and express ideas not approved by the ruling class.

I believe the elites who want to shut down free speech are all on the left. And I don't really believe for one minute they care about anti-Semitism. As a Jew who grew up in this country, and has encountered my share of anti-Semitic comments, almost all of them came from people on the left. I think the reason they picked Dawn Johnson to make an example of is that it seems so noble and righteous to condemn anti-Semitism, no one will question the motive behind it. To me, the motive is clear. By first picking on people like Dawn, they get us used to the idea of controlled speech. So when the day comes when your right to express yourself is taken from you, you won't be shocked. And if they've really done their job, they'll end up making you feel guilty even though you haven't said anything wrong.

But what if you did say something 'wrong?' So what? The first amendment was designed to protect offensive speech. Uncontroversial speech doesn't need protection. I'm old enough to see the burgeoning insanity taking root in our once free country. When I was young, if someone said something objectionable, people would talk about it for awhile. The related issues would be hashed out and then we'd be done with it. It is after all, only speech. There is a difference between speech and action. We should be free to say anything.

The other reason I think Dawn was chosen is that she is a Trump supporter. Singling her out supports their canard that Trump is anti-Jewish, which is absurd. Trump is the most Jewish-friendly president we've ever had.

He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. And he has worked to keep Iran from getting the bomb since they have openly stated they would like to erase Israel from the map and probably would if they could.

The people who attack Dawn are useful tools of the deep state who carry out their agenda, oblivious to how it can and probably will be used against themselves someday. Don't lose heart Dawn. I'd rather have a cup of coffee with you than any one of them any day.

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Hillarie Goldstein: Right to free speech is protected in this country - The Laconia Daily Sun