freedom of speech online essay

123 Freedom of Speech Topics & Essay Examples

Looking for exciting freedom of speech topics to write about? This issue is definitely worth studying!

🔝 Top 10 Freedom of Speech Essay Topics

⁉️ freedom of speech essay: how to write, 🏆 best freedom of speech essay examples & topic ideas, 🔍 simple & easy freedom of speech essay titles, 💡 most interesting freedom of speech topics to write about, ❓ research questions about freedom of speech.

In your freedom of speech essay, you might want to focus on the historical perspective, elaborate on the negative effects of censorship, or even share your personal experience. Whether you will choose to write an argumentative, persuasive, or narrative essay, our article will help! We’ve gathered a list of excellent topics, ideas, and questions, together with A+ freedom of speech essay examples.

• Freedom of speech as an individual and a collective right
• Freedom of speech and its limitations
• Negative effects of censorship
• The origins of freedom of speech
• Freedom of speech as a negative right
• Democracy and freedom of speech
• Freedom of information in the era of Internet
• Freedom of speech and academic freedom
• Liberalism and freedom of speech
• Freedom of speech in the US

Freedom of speech is an important topic because every person has a fundamental right to express their opinions freely. Our ability to express our thoughts allows society to change and develop.

Essays on freedom of speech can raise awareness of the significance of this issue. That is why it is vital to create powerful and well-developed papers on this cause.

You can discuss various topics in your freedom of speech essay. You can search for them online or consult your professor. Here are our suggestions on freedom of speech essay analysis questions:

• The advantages and disadvantages of free speech policies
• The struggle schools face from the perspective of free speech
• The appropriate use of free speech
• The link between the freedom of speech and yellow journalism
• Speech as a personality trait: What the freedom of speech can reveal about people
• Freedom of speech: Pros and cons
• Freedom of speech in the United States (or other countries)

Once you have selected one of the titles for your essay, it is time to start working on the paper. Here are some do’s of writing the essay:

• Select topics that you are most interested in, as your dedication can help you to keep the reader engaged too. You can select one from the freedom of speech essay titles presented above.
• Develop a well-organized freedom of speech essay outline. Think of the main points you want to discuss and decide how you can present them in the paper. For example, you can include one introductory paragraph, three body paragraphs, and one concluding paragraphs.
• Define your freedom of speech essay thesis clearly. You should state it at the end of the introduction. The reader should understand the main point of your paper.
• While working on a persuasive essay, do not forget to include a section with an alternative perspective on the problem you are discussing.
• Remember that a concluding paragraph is vital because it includes a summary of all arguments presented in the paper. Rephrase the main points of the essay and add recommendations, if necessary.
• Check out essay examples online to see how you can structure your paper and organize the information.

Remember that you should avoid certain things while writing your essay. Here are some important don’ts to consider:

• Do not focus on your personal opinion solely while writing your paper. Support your claims with evidence from the literature or credible online sources.
• Do not ignore your professor’s requirements. Stick within the word limit and make sure that your essay meets all the criteria from the grading rubric, if there is one.
• Avoid using personal blogs or Wikipedia as the primary sources of information, unless your professor states it in the instructions. Ask your instructor about the literature you can use for the essay.
• When checking other students’ essays online, avoid copying their ideas. Remember that your paper should be plagiarism-free.
• Make sure that your paper is mistake-free. Grammatical mistakes may make the reader think that your opinion is not credible. It is better to check the essay several times before sending it to your professor.

Don’t hesitate to explore our free samples that can help you to write an outstanding essay!

• Freedom of Speech in Social Media Essay Gelber tries to say that the history of the freedom of speech in Australia consists of the periods of the increasing public debates on the issue of human rights and their protection.
• Teachers’ Freedom of Speech in Learning Institutions The judiciary system has not clearly defined the limits of the First Amendment in learning institutions, and it’s a public concern, especially from the teachers.
• Balancing Freedom of Speech and Responsibility in Online Commenting The article made me perceive the position of absolute freedom of speech in the Internet media from a dual perspective. This desire for quick attention is the creation of information noise, distracting from the user […]
• Freedom of Speech as a Basic Human Right Restricting or penalizing freedom of expression is thus a negative issue because it confines the population of truth, as well as rationality, questioning, and the ability of people to think independently and express their thoughts.
• Freedom of Speech and Propaganda in School Setting One of the practical solutions to the problem is the development and implementation of a comprehensive policy for balanced free speech in the classroom.
• Twitter and Violations of Freedom of Speech and Censorship The sort of organization that examines restrictions and the opportunities and challenges it encounters in doing so is the center of a widely acknowledged way of thinking about whether it is acceptable to restrict speech.
• Freedom of Speech in Social Networks The recent case of blocking the accounts of former US President Donald Trump on Twitter and Facebook is explained by the violation of the rules and conditions of social platforms.
• Freedom of Speech in Shouting Fire: Stories From the Edge of Free Speech Even though the First Amendment explicitly prohibits any laws regarding the freedom of speech, Congress continues to make exceptions from it.
• Freedom of Speech as the Most Appreciated Liberty In the present-day world, the progress of society largely depends on the possibility for people to exercise their fundamental rights. From this perspective, freedom of speech is the key to everyone’s well-being, and, in my […]
• Why Defamation Laws Must Prioritize Freedom of Speech The body of the essay will involve providing information on the nature of defamation laws in the USA and the UK, the implementation of such laws in the two countries, and the reason why the […]
• The Internet and Freedom of Speech: Ethics and Restrictions Because of a lack of security technology, across the board prohibition is justified under the law, a concept that is in itself considered unlawful by a strict definition of the First Amendment of the Constitution […]
• Protesting as a Way of Exercising Freedoms of Speech and Expression However, this department will be very careful in monitoring the behavior of the protestors and engaging in dialogue to solve issues that may lead to conflicts.
• Freedom of Speech: Is Censorship Necessary? One of the greatest achievements of the contemporary democratic society is the freedom of speech. However, it is necessary to realize in what cases the government has the right to abridge the freedom of self-expression.
• Freedom of Speech and the Internet On the one hand, the freedom of expression on the internet allowed the general public to be informed about the true nature of the certain events, regardless of geographical locations and restrictions.
• The Freedom of Speech: Communication Law in US By focusing on the on goings in Guatemala, the NYT may have, no doubt earned the ire of the Bush administration, but it is also necessary that the American people are made aware of the […]
• Freedom of Speech and Expression in Music Musicians are responsible and accountable for fans and their actions because in the modern world music and lyrics become a tool of propaganda that has a great impact on the circulation of ideas and social […]
• Freedom of Speech on Campus The primary issue identified by the case study is the extent to which free speech can be used and is protected regarding sensitive social aspects and discussions.
• Freedom of Speech and International Relations The freedom of speech or the freedom of expression is a civil right legally protected by many constitutions, including that of the United States, in the First Amendment.
• The Importance of Freedom of Speech In a bid to nurture the freedom of speech, the United States provides safety to the ethical considerations of free conversations.
• Freedom of Speech in Modern Media At the same time, the bigoted approach to the principles of freedom of speech in the context of the real world, such as killing or silencing journalists, makes the process of promoting the same values […]
• Freedom of Speech: Julian Assange and ‘WikiLeaks’ Case Another significant issue is that the precedent of WikiLeaks questions the power of traditional journalism to articulate the needs of the society and to monitor the governments.
• Advertising and Freedom of Speech According to Liodice, the marketer should provide the best information to the targeted consumer. The duty of the marketer is to educate and inform the consumer about the unique features of his or her product.
• Freedom of Speech and Expression This implies that autonomy is the epitome of the freedom of expression in many ways. Perhaps, this is the point of diversion between autonomy and restriction of the freedom of expression.
• Freedom of speech in the Balkans Freedom of speech in Montenegro In Montenegro, the practice of the freedom of speech and press were restricted to some issues by the law.
• Freedom of Speech in China and Political Reform Although the constitution of China has the provision of the freedom of speech, association, press and even demonstration, the freedom is not there in reality since the constitution forbids the undertaking of anything that is […]
• Controversies Over Freedom of Speech and Internet Postings It must be noted though that despite the Freedom of Speech being a first Amendment right, subsequent amendments to the constitution as well as various historical acts such as the Sedition Act of 1798 and […]
• Government’s control versus Freedom of Speech and Thoughts One of the most effective measures that oppressive regimes use the world over is the limitation of the freedom of speech and thoughts.
• Freedom of Speech: Exploring Proper Limits In this respect, Downs mentions the philosophy of educational establishments, where “the function of the University is to seek and to transmit knowledge and to train student in the process whereby truth is to be […]
• Freedom of Speech, Religion and Religious Tolerance As stipulated in Article 19 of the Universal Human Rights Declaration, the pastor has the right to share ideas and information of all kinds regardless of the periphery involved and in this case, he should […]
• Human Nature and the Freedom of Speech in Different Countries The paper will look at the human nature that necessitates speech and expression, freedom of speech as applied in different countries and limitations that freedom of speech faces.
• The Freedom Of Speech, Press, And Petition
• How The First Amendment Protects Freedom Of Speech
• The Freedom Of Speech, And Gun Ownership Rights
• The Misconception of Hate Speech and Its Connection with the Freedom of Speech in Our First Amendment
• Limitations On Constitutional Rights On Freedom Of Speech
• Teachers’ and Students’ Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression
• Internet Censorship Means No Freedom of Speech
• Freedom of Speech Part of America’s Constitution
• An Examination of the Disadvantage of Freedom of Speech in Slack Activism
• A Description of Freedom of Speech as One of the Most Important Freedoms
• How Censorship In The Media Is Taking AWay Our Freedom Of Speech
• An Analysis of Freedom of Speech and Its Punishments
• The Effects Of Technology On The Right Of Freedom Of Speech
• Freedom of Speech: Missouri Knights of the Ku Klux Klan v. Kansas City
• Problems with Limiting Freedom of Speech
• How The Freedom Of Speech And Its Interpretation Affects
• Giving Up Freedom Of Speech – Censorship On Hate Sites
• Freedom Of Speech, Religion, And The American Dream
• The Freedom Of Speech Across The World Wide Web
• Freedom of Speech: Should There be Restrictions on Speech in the U.S. Democracy
• An Argument in Favor of the Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press in Schools
• Freedom Of Speech And Violent Video Games
• The Importance of Freedom of Speech to the Progress of Society
• The Amendment Is Not Protected Under The Freedom Of Speech
• Should There Be Restrictions to Freedom of Speech
• Why Should Myanmar Have Similar Freedom of Speech Protections to United States
• An Analysis of the Freedom of Speech and the Internet in United States of America
• Freedom of Speech and the First Amendment
• Free Speech : The Benefits Of Freedom Of Speech
• Comparison of Freedom of Speech: Malaysia vs China
• The Fine Line between Freedom of Speech or Hate Speech
• Freedom Of Speech : One Of The Core Principles Of A Democracy
• Prevent Internet Censorship, Save Freedom of Speech
• The Importance of the First Amendment in Providing Freedom of Speech in America
• How the Freedom of Speech Is Possible Through the Internet in China
• The Importance of Freedom of Speech in Higher Education
• Hate Mail and the Misuse of the Freedom of Speech on the Internet
• A Comparison of Freedom of Speech and Private Property
• Importance Of Freedom Of Speech In Colleges
• Freedom Of Speech and Its Legal Limits
• Freedom Of Speech As An International And Regional Human Right
• The Importance of Protecting and Preserving the Right to Freedom of Speech
• An Overview of the Importance of the Freedom of Speech in the United States
• The Communication Decency Act: The Fight for Freedom of Speech on the Internet
• Freedom Of Speech On Students’s Rights In School
• How Far Should the Right to Freedom of Speech Extend
• Journalism and Freedom of Speech
• The Constitution and Freedom of Speech on the Internet in U.S
• ‘Freedom of Speech Means the Freedom to Offend.’
• Does the Law Relating to Obscenity Restict Freedom of Speech?
• Does New Zealand Have Freedom of Speech?
• How Far Should the Right to Freedom of Speech Extend?
• Does South Korea Have Freedom of Speech?
• How the First Amendment Protects Freedom of Speech?
• Does Freedom of Speech Mean You Can Say Anything?
• How Do You Violate Freedom of Speech?
• What Are Mill’s Four Main Arguments in Defence of Freedom of Speech?
• What Violates the Freedom of Speech?
• What Are the Disadvantages of Freedom of Speech?
• Does Freedom of Speech Have Limits?
• Why Does Australia Not Have Freedom of Speech?
• What Are the Three Restrictions to Freedom of Speech?
• How Is Freedom of Speech Abused?
• Who Benefits and Loses from Freedom of Speech?
• Is There Freedom of Speech in Media?
• What Are the Limits of Freedom of Speech in Social Media?
• Does Social Media Allow Freedom of Speech?
• How Is Freedom of Speech Negative?
• Where Is Freedom of Speech Not Allowed?
• Is USA the Only Country with Freedom of Speech?
• Does India Have Freedom of Speech?
• Who Made the Freedom of Speech?
• Why Was Freedom of Speech Created?
• Who Fought for Freedom of Speech?
• Women’s Rights Titles
• Censorship Essay Ideas
• Humanism Research Ideas
• Social Justice Essay Ideas
• Cultural Competence Research Topics
• Personal Values Ideas
• Social Democracy Essay Titles
• Constitution Research Ideas
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, February 24). 123 Freedom of Speech Topics & Essay Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/freedom-of-speech-essay-examples/

"123 Freedom of Speech Topics & Essay Examples." IvyPanda , 24 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/freedom-of-speech-essay-examples/.

IvyPanda . (2024) '123 Freedom of Speech Topics & Essay Examples'. 24 February.

IvyPanda . 2024. "123 Freedom of Speech Topics & Essay Examples." February 24, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/freedom-of-speech-essay-examples/.

1. IvyPanda . "123 Freedom of Speech Topics & Essay Examples." February 24, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/freedom-of-speech-essay-examples/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "123 Freedom of Speech Topics & Essay Examples." February 24, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/freedom-of-speech-essay-examples/.

IvyPanda uses cookies and similar technologies to enhance your experience, enabling functionalities such as:

• Basic site functions
• Ensuring secure, safe transactions
• Secure account login
• Remembering account, browser, and regional preferences
• Remembering privacy and security settings
• Analyzing site traffic and usage
• Personalized search, content, and recommendations
• Displaying relevant, targeted ads on and off IvyPanda

Please refer to IvyPanda's Cookies Policy and Privacy Policy for detailed information.

Certain technologies we use are essential for critical functions such as security and site integrity, account authentication, security and privacy preferences, internal site usage and maintenance data, and ensuring the site operates correctly for browsing and transactions.

Cookies and similar technologies are used to enhance your experience by:

• Remembering general and regional preferences
• Personalizing content, search, recommendations, and offers

Some functions, such as personalized recommendations, account preferences, or localization, may not work correctly without these technologies. For more details, please refer to IvyPanda's Cookies Policy .

To enable personalized advertising (such as interest-based ads), we may share your data with our marketing and advertising partners using cookies and other technologies. These partners may have their own information collected about you. Turning off the personalized advertising setting won't stop you from seeing IvyPanda ads, but it may make the ads you see less relevant or more repetitive.

Personalized advertising may be considered a "sale" or "sharing" of the information under California and other state privacy laws, and you may have the right to opt out. Turning off personalized advertising allows you to exercise your right to opt out. Learn more in IvyPanda's Cookies Policy and Privacy Policy .

• Current Issue
• Past Issues
• Get New Issue Alerts
• American Academy of Arts 
and Sciences

The Future of Speech Online: International Cooperation for a Free & Open Internet

This essay explores the impact that the resurgence of sovereignty has had on freedom of online speech. I argue that, in the past few decades, the internet has undergone a radical transformation from a universal tool of free communication to one that is increasingly fragmented into national and regional siloes. While acknowledging that recent internet regulation by democratic governments has been both necessary and inevitable, I argue that the authoritarian internet model—with citizens segregated from the rest of the global internet and subject to extensive surveillance and censorship—is on the rise, presenting a real risk to the internet as we know it. In the face of this threat, the world’s techno-democracies need to work together to protect the freedoms that the internet has so far made possible.

Nick Clegg is President of Global Affairs at Meta. He served in the UK Parliament from 2005 to 2017, where he became leader of the Liberal Democrat party in 2007 and served as Deputy Prime Minister in the UK ’s first coalition government since the war, from 2010 to 2015. He also served as a member of the European Parliament from 2000 to 2005. He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in 2018. He is the author of Politics: Between the Extremes (2016) and How to Stop Brexit (and Make Britain Great Again) (2017).

The internet is the latest in a long line of communications technologies to have enabled greater freedom of speech. From the printing press to the radio to the television and the cell phone, technological advances have made it possible for more people to express themselves, share news, and spread ideas. At every stage, speech has been further democratized, empowering people who could not previously make themselves heard and challenging the influence of the traditional gatekeepers of public information—including the state, the church, politicians, and the media. These advances have often been met first with excitement and enthusiasm, followed by a public backlash fueled by a mix of legitimate concerns about the impact of technology on society and moral panic stoked by the vested interests whose power has been challenged. In time, these pendulum swings have come to a resting point through a combination of the normalization of the technologies in society, the development of commonly understood norms and standards, and the imposition of guardrails through regulation.

The internet has enabled the most radical democratization of speech yet, making it possible for anyone with an internet connection and a phone or computer to express themselves, connect with people regardless of geographical barriers, organize around shared interests, and share their experiences across the world in an instant. Over the last two decades, social media and instant messaging apps have turbocharged internet-enabled direct communication—and have exploded in popularity. More than one-third of the world’s population uses Facebook every day. More than one hundred forty billion messages are sent every day on Meta’s messaging apps, including Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram.

These technologies have made it possible for grassroots movements to grow rapidly and challenge established authority and orthodoxy, and in doing so, change the world—from the Arab Spring to the Black Lives Matter movement and #MeToo. A decade ago, sociologist Larry Diamond called social media a “liberation technol­ogy.” 1 Without the ability of ordinary people to share text, images, and video in close-to-real time, and to have it amplified via networks of people connected through social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, the groundswell of public support for these causes and others would never have been possible. Social media also made it possible for millions of spontaneous grassroots community-based initiatives to start and flourish during the emergency stages of the COVID -19 pandemic to help the vulnerable or celebrate frontline workers, and for millions of small businesses to stay afloat and reach customers during lockdowns. 

It would be naive to assume that connection inevitably leads to progress or harmony. The free and open internet is not a panacea. With hindsight, the techno-­utopianism of the Arab Spring phase of social media was never going to last. But the pendulum has now swung far the other way, as it has done in the aftermath of previous technological advances, to a phase of techno-pessimism, with many critics decrying social media as the source of many of today’s societal ills. This backlash has led us to a pivotal moment for the internet. Politicians around the world are now responding to the clamor with a new wave of laws and regulations that will shape the internet for generations to come.

The radical liberalization of speech enabled by the internet brings its own set of issues and dilemmas: from what to do about the spread of misinformation, hate speech, and other forms of “bad” speech, to a range of novel issues around privacy, security, well-being, and more. These challenges are worthy of lengthy analysis and discussion in their own right—and they are the focus of other essays in this volume.

It is right that policymakers the world over are grappling with the many challenges the internet presents and beginning to establish a new generation of guardrails intended to mitigate the potential harms. But if we accept as our starting point that, for all the downsides, empowering people to express themselves directly is on the whole a positive thing for societies, and that this has been enabled by the open, borderless, and largely free-to-access internet, then we must not take it for granted.

In its early days, many thought that the internet’s distributed architecture and multi-stakeholder governance model would be enough to keep it open and free. It was thought that the web was by design a technology that evades control by any single state or organization—an idea perhaps best captured in poet and political activist John Perry Barlow’s end-of-the-millennium manifesto, “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.” 2 As he rather grandly put it: “Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.” Alas, this idealism has proved to be misplaced. Events in recent years have demonstrated that the internet’s design is not enough to guarantee protection from government control.

The clash between borderless open communication and authoritarian top-down control is one of the greatest tensions in the modern internet age. Authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes have demonstrated over and over that when they want to quash dissent, one of the tools they use is the internet. They often try to do two things: 1) censor what their citizens can say, and 2) cut their citizens off from the rest of the global internet. And, as we have seen firsthand at Meta, to do these things they target the use of social media and messaging apps by their citizens.

The global open internet was built on democratic values—largely by American companies with American expectations of free expression, free enterprise, and freedom from government control. The collaborative, multi-stakeholder approach to the development of interoperable protocols and standards helped ensure that a piece of information could reliably be sent from one digital address to another using a single language known as the “Internet Protocol,” all without a government unilaterally deciding what those technical standards should be. That, in turn, laid the foundation for a boom in technological innovation, expression, and commerce that flowed over those networks in real time. For those of us living in Western democracies, this is likely the only model of the internet that we have ever experienced. But the global internet, in its truest sense, no longer exists. And what remains of it is being challenged by an alternative model.

The authoritarian internet model—with citizens segregated from the rest of the global internet and subject to extensive surveillance and censorship—is on the rise, presenting a real risk to the open, accessible internet as we know it. This is how China’s internet works today, and other countries have made similar moves to build digital walls—or entirely new networks—at their national boundaries. Russia, for example, was already moving this way before the internet clampdown that accompanied its invasion of Ukraine. 

Artificial intelligence is the next frontier for freedom of speech online. AI is currently being developed by private companies, academic institutions, and governments—including authoritarian ones. Unlike the historical era in which the internet was developed—the 1990s and early 2000s—in which the liberal paradigm of the internet was taken for granted, today we have competing visions that aim to shape the standards and norms of the next generation of transformative technologies. 

The fracturing of the global internet into local and regional siloes is likely to intensify—by both accident and design—in the years ahead. As it does, it poses an ever-greater threat to free speech both online and offline. Writing new rules for the internet has increasingly become an opportunity for governments to pursue their economic and social agendas, as well as the stuff of manifestos, sloganeering, and geopolitical horse-trading. As tech issues have risen in political salience, populist nationalism has found expression in the debate about the internet. 

This new digital nationalism is not solely the preserve of authoritarian states. As is the case with the wider rise of populist nationalism globally, elements of digital nationalism are also creeping into the debate in open democratic societies. For example, talk of “digital sovereignty” and “data localization”—asserting a nation’s right to stop or limit the free flow of data across borders—is now commonplace. These ideas increasingly underpin new laws. As they do, they chip away at the foundations of the open internet, which relies on cross-border data flows, and play into the hands of authoritarian regimes who see these terms being used in places like the EU and use it as political cover for their own more onerous restrictions.

Of course, it’s right that governments should seek to express national sovereignty over matters of national importance to them. Barlow’s declaration of independence from government control came when the internet was still nascent with a fraction of the billions of people who are online today. Ultimately, the phase of global internet regulation happening right now is necessary given the internet’s level of maturity and its scale of impact on society, and many new internet regulations are designed to actively protect freedom of speech online. But the broader rise of digital nationalism poses an existential threat to the open internet, and in particular, the profoundly liberating effect it has had on people’s ability to express themselves freely.

In a number of regions around the world, we have seen attempts by governments to silence citizens, control the flow of information, and manipulate public debate. This is increasingly the case during times of war and social unrest, when apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/ X , TikTok, YouTube, WhatsApp, and Messenger are used by ordinary people to connect within and across borders to make their voices heard, to share news and information, and to organize and rally support. Nowhere has this been more apparent in recent years than in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and during recent mass protests in Iran. 3

Within days of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia attempted to block or restrict access to Facebook and Instagram as part of a wider attempt to cut Russian citizens off from the open internet, silence people and independent media, and manipulate public opinion. State-controlled media outlets and Russia-based covert influence campaigns also kicked into gear to spread propaganda and misinformation and to subvert media narratives beyond its borders. In recent years, Meta and others have become increasingly savvy about how to identify and take down these campaigns, not just on their own platforms but across the internet through cross-industry cooperation. Since 2017, Meta has disrupted more than two hundred so-called “coordinated inauthentic behavior” networks globally. 4

The widespread protests in Iran that began in the wake of the awful killing of Jîna Emînî, a Kurdish woman better known as Mahsa Amini, led to the Iranian government clamping down aggressively on speech and freedom of assembly, as well as limiting the use of the internet and apps like Instagram. 5 It’s little wonder why: Instagram has been widely used by Iranians to shed light on the protests and the brutal response of the regime. Since Emînî’s death, hashtags related to the protests in Iran have been used on Instagram more than one hundred sixty million times. #MahsaAmini was the fifth top hashtag globally during the first three months of protests, demonstrating the power of social media to help create awareness in these critical moments. Protestors also shared Instagram footage of the protests with international media outlets, many of whom couldn’t report directly from Iran.

Clampdowns by authoritarian regimes on the use of social media and the wider internet are not limited to times of acute crisis. Increasingly, they are also using content and data laws to suppress free speech.

Laws that seek to come to grips with the proliferation of content online do not inherently have to impinge on the right of citizens to express themselves freely. Perhaps the best example of internet legislation that actively protected free speech comes from a generation ago. The last time the United States enacted significant internet regulation was 1996, when Section 230 of the Communications Act was created to address liability for online content. 6 The statute protects free speech by making online services immune from civil liability for the actions of their users while providing protections for platforms to moderate content. This combination of simple tools—a shield from liability for hosting speech generated by others, and the latitude to moderate that content—has often been hailed as an integral enabler of speech in the digital era that also unlocked innovation and commerce. But it is hard to imagine such a law being passed in today’s climate. And Section 230 itself has not been preserved in aspic since the 1990s. For example, in 2018, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act / Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act was passed to clarify that Section 230’s liability protections did not mean exemption from enforcement of federal or state sex trafficking laws. 7

Of course, technological capabilities have also evolved exponentially in the last quarter-century, which is why updating Section 230 has been fiercely debated in Washington and elsewhere in recent years. Done well, Section 230 reform can continue to promote free speech while equipping companies with the tools to combat harmful content such as child exploitation, pornography, incitement of violence, and bullying and harassment. Meta has spoken out in support of updating Section 230 to require platforms to be more transparent about their standards, processes, and actions; establish regular reporting requirements; and maintain a safe harbor approach, in which larger platforms are required to demonstrate that they have robust practices for identifying illegal content and quickly removing it. Any such requirements, Meta has argued, should not adversely affect the playing field for nascent or smaller companies that have less capacity to comply with a complex regulatory regime, with exemptions or modifications for those entities as needed.

Of course, cultural attitudes and historical sensitivities vary widely around the world, and nation-states have a sovereign right to determine what is legal and illegal speech in their territories. Doing so by no means represents a mortal threat to free expression. Few would argue, for example, that Germany’s ban on Holocaust denial is unreasonable.

The threat to free speech comes from laws designed to quash dissent, restrict political speech, or otherwise infringe international human rights norms. China’s restrictive “Great Firewall of China” content laws are well-known: there are vast swathes of websites that Chinese users are blocked from accessing, while news, satire, and other content are frequently censored. 8 And these restrictions can have knock-on effects beyond China’s borders. Chinese-owned TikTok is one of the fastest growing social media apps in the world, but has been accused of restricting political content globally, including videos of prodemocracy protests in Hong Kong. 9

Individual companies will decide for themselves when to stand firm and when to acquiesce in the face of laws or government requests they disagree with, but not without consequences. Companies like Meta receive countless requests from authorities in countries democratic, authoritarian, and in-between to remove political content, often accompanied by threats of fines if they fail to comply, and often shrouded in vague justifications of maintaining national security or public order. In some cases, refusal to remove content can lead to access to these platforms being throttled (a means of intentionally slowing internet traffic to a halt). And laws have been proposed in some countries requiring internet companies to designate local employees who can be held responsible by local law enforcement, adding an unsettlingly personal element to any refusal to cooperate with government requests.

Of course, if resisting attempts by authorities to censor content on a company’s platform comes at too high a price, the alternative is to withdraw services from that market altogether. In either case, free speech is restricted. Either citizens use a platform that limits their ability to express themselves, or they lose the ability to use the platform to express themselves at all. But while censorship poses a direct threat to free speech online, another characteristic of digital nationalism—the desire to limit the flow of data across national borders—poses an indirect but no less significant one.

For all intents and purposes, China’s internet is separate from the rest of the global internet. Not only does China’s internet model impose restrictions on content, it also requires restrictions on the flow of data in and out of the country, essentially creating a digital wall at its national border. As digital nationalism takes hold in other countries, support for data localization has grown.

For some policymakers, the motivation behind data localization policies is economic—albeit based on a deeply flawed misconception that “data is the new oil”—a scarce resource to be hoarded, enriching those who own the most. As I have argued elsewhere, notwithstanding the fact that it is a valuable resource for those who know how to obtain relevant insights from it, data is a nonrivalrous good rather than a finite commodity to be owned and traded, pumped from the ground and burned in cars and factories. 10 As such, the value of data does not lie in hoarding it, but in the network effects produced by global flows of data. It is this freedom of information flows that makes the internet, and its underlying structure of data, valuable not just for companies like Meta, but for billions of individual users, small businesses, civil society organizations, and researchers across the world. Fixating on where data is stored and processed is a red herring; its value can be derived regardless of where it is stored globally.

Nonetheless, this idea has influenced policymakers in a number of countries, and not just where authoritarian regimes are in power. While “hard” data localization policies result in an almost complete enclosure of a country’s data economy within national boundaries, the desire to impose greater national sovereignty over data has increased support for “soft” data localization policies in many open democracies. This milder form of localization requires data to be mirrored in local servers, so that copies are held domestically, which has the effect of slowing internet services and limiting access to them. Indeed, support for data localization in liberal democracies unwittingly gives legitimacy to the actions of authoritarian governments who want to impose harsher control over the internet.

Following this trend, governments around the world are growing more aggressive in their demands for private platforms to comply with rules to produce data, block content, and break the end-to-end encryption that keeps messaging services private and secure. What’s more, as the Center for Strategic and International Studies put it:

National security justifications for these mandates are often thinly veiled attempts at asserting greater control of the domestic digital domain; meanwhile, data localization has had negative impacts on human rights, privacy, and economic interests. 11

These developments create the conditions for the splintering of the open internet, with all the negative impact that this will have for freedom of speech around the world. This splintering not only risks changing the character of the existing internet, but also threatens to shape the next generation of transformative technologies powered by artificial intelligence—from “generative AI ” tools that use machine learning systems to create new text and visual content, to “metaverse” technologies like virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality that could reshape the way we work, learn, and play.

Without global cooperation on the development of the standards underpinning these powerful new technologies, they could be fragmented from the start. Instead of universal standards, we will have an arms race between different models, underpinned by different values, leading to a more technologically, socially, and culturally divided world than ever before.

We need a counterweight to the spread of the authoritarian internet. The world’s techno-democracies must recognize and actively promote and defend the idea of the open internet. The announcement of an agreement to protect open data flows between the United States and the European Union is a necessary step, as are the principles enshrined in the “Declaration for the Future of the Internet” announced by the Biden administration and signed by dozens of governments in 2021. 12 We need concrete actions to follow.

To protect against the spread of the authoritarian internet, the democratic world needs a shared sense of ambition and urgency. In 1944, with the end of World War II in sight, the Allies gathered in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. After a month of intense negotiations, an agreement was struck that became the foundation of global stability in the postwar era. Bretton Woods led to a new global governance philosophy based on the idea that if nations large and small ceded a degree of their own sovereignty to abide by the same global rules, it would prevent a return to the protectionism and economic catastrophes of the 1920s and 1930s. Global institutions like the International Monetary Fund ( IMF ) and the World Bank were created to promote economic growth and political stability for all. We need that same scale of ambition to unite the democratic world today. The internet has been one of the great collective achievements of humanity. It is time for its Bretton Woods moment. A shared sense of purpose based on universal values like free expression, transparency, and accountability could be the foundation for an international consensus that governments, industry, and civil society can organize around.

If we want to create a system with the teeth necessary to rigorously defend the open internet, we need an international body with the ability to hear complaints and adjudicate them when conflicts of law arise. This mechanism could apply to conflicts related to laws that impede data flows or undermine the protocols on which network interoperability relies, but also to resolving jurisdiction questions related to other conflicts of law. States that signed up to such a body would be bound by its decisions, and expected to uphold shared values and refrain from regulating the internet in ways that put other countries at a disadvantage. 

However, given the growing geopolitical chasm between the United States and the European Union on one side and China and Russia on the other, it may be wishful thinking to imagine the creation of meaningful new multilateral global institutions—the Bretton Woods moment and postwar institutions were made possible by the destruction of the Axis powers, and no such total victory over authoritarian control of the internet is possible. Therefore, an incremental approach is more realistic. Policy scholars Tanya Filer and Antonio Weiss have argued that the future of international cooperation lies in “digital minilaterals,” which they describe as “a small, trust-based network with a shared set of values oriented around innovation and the creation and sharing of knowledge.” 13

Starting small is key to redeveloping the kernels of trust that have been lost in this climate of rising nationalism. Alongside the IMF and World Bank, an “Inter­national Trade Organization” was originally envisaged as part of the postwar Bretton Woods system as a necessary bulwark against the protectionist policies that contributed to the outbreak of war. Instead, the international community chose to enact a series of rules under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ( GATT ), before finally setting up the World Trade Organization ( WTO ) to oversee those rules in 1995. A similar trajectory could be necessary for the sort of international cooperation required today to eventually blossom.

Indeed, the WTO could provide a forum for democracies to come together around a GATT -style arrangement on international data flows and other digital issues. It could include just a few key players at first, with the intention of expanding over time. Such an approach goes with the grain of recent attempts to get multi­national agreement on digital issues. For example, leading WTO countries have taken steps toward a new global trade agreement on cross-border e-commerce. The 2019 plurilateral joint statement on e-commerce has now been signed by scores of WTO countries. 14 The statement includes the United States and China, but not India. Persuading India and others to join the e-commerce negotiations should be an integral part of the future of this process. The United States, European Union, and their allies could pursue a coordinated effort that would tie joining the e-commerce agreement with economic and political incentives. This could take the form of economic assistance, direct investment, and political support in international fora where appropriate. 

The WTO could also bring democracies to the table around other pressing challenges, like regulatory coordination and expanding the CLOUD Act—which enables data to be shared for investigations of serious crime—to include more countries beyond the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. As the U.S. Department of Justice proudly proclaimed, the CLOUD Act “represents a new paradigm: an efficient, privacy and civil liberties-protective approach to ensure effective access to electronic data.” 15 This new paradigm should reach more democracies. 

This approach—using the WTO to bring key democracies together around agreements that then expand to include more countries—could be a great starting point for global alignment on AI regulation, too. The Biden administration has already signaled its intention to legislate to safeguard privacy and civil rights in the use of AI technologies. 16 Using its global clout to bring nations together to establish common standards around AI would help to ensure democratic values are baked in as these technologies are developed across the democratic world. 

Whatever the forum, democracies need to do more to provide support and guidance to private platforms in protecting free speech and defending human rights when they operate in authoritarian and semi-authoritarian countries. Starting small to get agreement between key players may be necessary, but the ambition should be global. Multi-stakeholder institutions in particular—in which government, industry, civil society, academia, and technical experts come together on equal footing—can support the development of a framework of actions that private platforms can take to do this across the globe and provide guidelines for the kinds of speech that need to be protected.

We are living through an extraordinary period. In three decades, the internet has radically democratized speech and transformed the global economy. And a new generation of technologies—from hugely powerful AI systems to metaverse technologies like virtual and augmented reality—promise to deepen the integration of data-driven technologies in every corner of our societies. Necessary new waves of laws to govern digital technologies are being written in capitals around the world, and governments are becoming increasingly savvy and sophisticated in how they harness technological progress to their domestic and global advantage.

The result is that the internet is changing—but not necessarily for the better. After a period of extraordinary openness, the internet is increasingly being carved up into national and regional silos. With each new national restriction, the internet becomes a little less free, and the digital economy becomes a bit more constrained. Slowly, the authoritarian internet replaces the open internet, and authoritarian values replace democratic ones online, not the least of which is the belief in free expression.

In the face of this threat, democracies have a responsibility and a choice: ­actively support the open internet or stand by silently as digital nationalism reshapes it piece by piece. Defending the open internet is still possible, but it will require serious political will and leadership, particularly from the world’s leading techno-democracies such as the United States, European Union, India, and other significant leaders in this field like Japan, Australia, and South Korea. They not only need to reject digital nationalist policies domestically, but to cooperate to guard against them internationally. We cannot afford any more benign neglect. The internet requires not a more intense version of digital nationalism, but rather a renewed belief in international and regional collaboration that aims to protect the freedoms that the internet has so far made possible to all.

• 1 Larry Diamond, “Liberation Technology,” in Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy , ed. Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), 3.
• 2 John Perry Barlow, “ A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, ” Electronic Frontier Foundation (accessed August 23, 2023).
• 3 Raksha Kumar, “ Not Quite the Arab Spring: How Protestors Are Using Social Media in Innovative Ways, ” Oxford University Reuters Institution, December 6, 2022.
• 4 For more information, see “ Security at Meta, ” Meta (August 22, 2023).
• 5 Akash Sriram, “ As Unrest Grows, Iran Restricts Access to Instagram, WhatsApp, ”   Reuters, September 21, 2022. For more information on Jîna Emînî’s name, as well as Masha Amini, the Arabic name that the Islamic Republic ( IR ) forced her to use (the IR neither recognizes nor allows the Kurdish language in any official documents), see Azadeh Shahshahani and Yosi Badie, “ Iran’s Brutal Crackdown on ‘Women, Life, Freedom,’ ” The Nation , September 28, 2022.
• 6 47 U.S.C. § 230.
• 7 Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017, Pub. L. No. 115-165, 132 Stat. 1253.
• 8 Yaqiu Wang, “ In China, the ‘Great Firewall’ Is Changing a Generation, ” Politico, September 1, 2020.
• 9 Alex Hern, “ Revealed: How TikTok Censors Videos That Do Not Please Beijing, ” The Guardian , September 25, 2019.
• 10 Nick Clegg, “ Data: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and How Misunderstanding It Is Fracturing the Internet, ” Medium, September 20, 2022.
• 11 Erol Yayboke, Carolina G. Ramos, and Lindsey R. Sheppard, “ The Real National Security Concerns over Data Localization, ” Center for Strategic and International Studies, July 23, 2021.
• 12 “ FACT SHEET: United States and European Commission Announce Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework, ” The White House, March 25, 2022; and “ FACT SHEET: United States and 60 Global Partners Launch Declaration for the Future of the Internet, ” The White House, April 28, 2022.
• 13 Tanya Filer and Antonio Weiss, “ Digital Minilaterals Are the Future of International Cooperation, ” Brookings Institution, October 16, 2020.
• 14 “ Joint Statement Initiative on E-commerce, ” World Trade Organization (accessed August 22, 2023).
• 15 Promoting Public Safety, Privacy, and the Rule of Law Around the World: The Purpose and Impact of the CLOUD Act , U.S. Department of Justice, April 2019.
• 16 Garance Burke, “ White House Unveils Artificial Intelligence ‘Bill of Rights,’ ” Associated Press, October 5, 2022.

Democracy, Social Media, and Freedom of Expression: Hate, Lies, and the Search for the Possible Truth

• Share Chicago Journal of International Law | Democracy, Social Media, and Freedom of Expression: Hate, Lies, and the Search for the Possible Truth on Facebook
• Share Chicago Journal of International Law | Democracy, Social Media, and Freedom of Expression: Hate, Lies, and the Search for the Possible Truth on Twitter
• Share Chicago Journal of International Law | Democracy, Social Media, and Freedom of Expression: Hate, Lies, and the Search for the Possible Truth on Email
• Share Chicago Journal of International Law | Democracy, Social Media, and Freedom of Expression: Hate, Lies, and the Search for the Possible Truth on LinkedIn

Download PDF

This Essay is a critical reflection on the impact of the digital revolution and the internet on three topics that shape the contemporary world: democracy, social media, and freedom of expression. Part I establishes historical and conceptual assumptions about constitutional democracy and discusses the role of digital platforms in the current moment of democratic recession. Part II discusses how, while social media platforms have revolutionized interpersonal and social communication and democratized access to knowledge and information, they also have led to an exponential spread of mis- and disinformation, hate speech, and conspiracy theories. Part III proposes a framework that balances regulation of digital platforms with the countervailing fundamental right to freedom of expression, a right that is essential for human dignity, the search for the possible truth, and democracy. Part IV highlights the role of society and the importance of media education in the creation of a free, but positive and constructive, environment on the internet.

I. Introduction

Before the internet, few actors could afford to participate in public debate due to the barriers that limited access to its enabling infrastructure, such as television channels and radio frequencies. 1 Digital platforms tore down this gate by creating open online communities for user-generated content, published without editorial control and at no cost. This exponentially increased participation in public discourse and the amount of information available. 2 At the same time, it led to an increase in disinformation campaigns, hate speech, slander, lies, and conspiracy theories used to advance antidemocratic goals. Platforms’ attempts to moderate speech at scale while maximizing engagement and profits have led to an increasingly prominent role for content moderation algorithms that shape who can participate and be heard in online public discourse. These systems play an essential role in the exercise of freedom of expression and in democratic competence and participation in the 21st century.

In this context, this Essay is a critical reflection on the impacts of the digital revolution and of the internet on democracy and freedom of expression. Part I establishes historical and conceptual assumptions about constitutional democracy; it also discusses the role of digital platforms in the current moment of democratic recession. Part II discusses how social media platforms are revolutionizing interpersonal and social communication, and democratizing access to knowledge and information, but also lead to an exponential spread of mis- and disinformation, hate speech and conspiracy theories. Part III proposes a framework for the regulation of digital platforms that seeks to find the right balance with the countervailing fundamental right to freedom of expression. Part IV highlights the role of society and the importance of media education in the creation of a free, but positive and constructive, environment on the internet.

II. Democracy and Authoritarian Populism

Constitutional democracy emerged as the predominant ideology of the 20th century, rising above the alternative projects of communism, fascism, Nazism, military regimes, and religious fundamentalism . 3 Democratic constitutionalism centers around two major ideas that merged at the end of the 20th century: constitutionalism , heir of the liberal revolutions in England, America, and France, expressing the ideas of limited power, rule of law, and respect for fundamental rights; 4 and democracy , a regime of popular sovereignty, free and fair elections, and majority rule. 5 In most countries, democracy only truly consolidated throughout the 20th century through universal suffrage guaranteed with the end of restrictions on political participation based on wealth, education, sex, or race. 6

Contemporary democracies are made up of votes, rights, and reasons. They are not limited to fair procedural rules in the electoral process, but demand respect for substantive fundamental rights of all citizens and a permanent public debate that informs and legitimizes political decisions. 7 To ensure protection of these three aspects, most democratic regimes include in their constitutional framework a supreme court or constitutional court with jurisdiction to arbitrate the inevitable tensions that arise between democracy’s popular sovereignty and constitutionalism’s fundamental rights. 8 These courts are, ultimately, the institutions responsible for protecting fundamental rights and the rules of the democratic game against any abuse of power attempted by the majority. Recent experiences in Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Venezuela, and Nicaragua show that when courts fail to fulfill this role, democracy collapses or suffers major setbacks. 9

In recent years, several events have challenged the prevalence of democratic constitutionalism in many parts of the world, in a phenomenon characterized by many as democratic recession. 10 Even consolidated democracies have endured moments of turmoil and institutional discredit, 11 as the world witnessed the rise of an authoritarian, anti-pluralist, and anti-institutional populist wave posing serious threats to democracy.

Populism can be right-wing or left-wing, 12 but the recent wave has been characterized by the prevalence of right-wing extremism, often racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, and homophobic. 13 While in the past the far left was united through Communist International, today it is the far right that has a major global network. 14 The hallmark of right-wing populism is the division of society into “us” (the pure, decent, conservatives) and “them” (the corrupt, liberal, cosmopolitan elites). 15 Authoritarian populism flows from the unfulfilled promises of democracy for opportunities and prosperity for all. 16 Three aspects undergird this democratic frustration: political (people do not feel represented by the existing electoral systems, political leaders, and democratic institutions); social (stagnation, unemployment, and the rise of inequality); and cultural identity (a conservative reaction to the progressive identity agenda of human rights that prevailed in recent decades with the protection of the fundamental rights of women, African descendants, religious minorities, LGBTQ+ communities, indigenous populations, and the environment). 17

Extremist authoritarian populist regimes often adopt similar strategies to capitalize on the political, social, and cultural identity-based frustrations fueling democratic recessions. These tactics include by-pass or co-optation of the intermediary institutions that mediate the interface between the people and the government, such as the legislature, the press, and civil society. They also involve attacks on supreme courts and constitutional courts and attempts to capture them by appointing submissive judges. 18 The rise of social media potentializes these strategies by creating a free and instantaneous channel of direct communication between populists and their supporters. 19 This unmediated interaction facilitates the use of disinformation campaigns, hate speech, slander, lies, and conspiracy theories as political tools to advance antidemocratic goals. The instantaneous nature of these channels is ripe for impulsive reactions, which facilitate verbal attacks by supporters and polarization, feeding back into the populist discourse. These tactics threaten democracy and free and fair elections because they deceive voters and silence the opposition, distorting public debate. Ultimately, this form of communication undermines the values that justify the special protection of freedom of expression to begin with. The “truth decay” and “fact polarization” that result from these efforts discredit institutions and consequently foster distrust in democracy. 20

III. Internet, Social Media, and Freedom of Expression 21

The third industrial revolution, also known as the technological or digital revolution, has shaped our world today. 22 Some of its main features are the massification of personal computers, the universalization of smartphones and, most importantly, the internet. One of the main byproducts of the digital revolution and the internet was the emergence of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and messaging applications like WhatsApp and Telegram. We live in a world of apps, algorithms, artificial intelligence, and innovation occurring at breakneck speed where nothing seems truly new for very long. This is the background for the narrative that follows.

A. The Impact of the Internet

The internet revolutionized the world of interpersonal and social communication, exponentially expanded access to information and knowledge, and created a public sphere where anyone can express ideas, opinions, and disseminate facts. 23 Before the internet, one’s participation in public debate was dependent upon the professional press, 24 which investigated facts, abided by standards of journalistic ethics, 25 and was liable for damages if it knowingly or recklessly published untruthful information. 26 There was a baseline of editorial control and civil liability over the quality and veracity of what was published in this medium. This does not mean that it was a perfect world. The number of media outlets was, and continues to be, limited in quantity and perspectives; journalistic companies have their own interests, and not all of them distinguish fact from opinion with the necessary care. Still, there was some degree of control over what became public, and there were costs to the publication of overtly hateful or false speech.

The internet, with the emergence of websites, personal blogs, and social media, revolutionized this status quo. It created open, online communities for user-generated texts, images, videos, and links, published without editorial control and at no cost. This advanced participation in public discourse, diversified sources, and exponentially increased available information. 27 It gave a voice to minorities, civil society, politicians, public agents, and digital influencers, and it allowed demands for equality and democracy to acquire global dimensions. This represented a powerful contribution to political dynamism, resistance to authoritarianism, and stimulation of creativity, scientific knowledge, and commercial exchanges. 28 Increasingly, the most relevant political, social, and cultural communications take place on the internet’s unofficial channels.

However, the rise of social media also led to an increase in the dissemination of abusive and criminal speech. 29 While these platforms did not create mis- or disinformation, hate speech, or speech that attacks democracy, the ability to publish freely, with no editorial control and little to no accountability, increased the prevalence of these types of speech and facilitated its use as a political tool by populist leaders. 30 Additionally, and more fundamentally, platform business models compounded the problem through algorithms that moderate and distribute online content. 31

B. The Role of Algorithms

The ability to participate and be heard in online public discourse is currently defined by the content moderation algorithms of a couple major technology companies. Although digital platforms initially presented themselves as neutral media where users could publish freely, they in fact exercise legislative, executive, and judicial functions because they unilaterally define speech rules in their terms and conditions and their algorithms decide how content is distributed and how these rules are applied. 32

Specifically, digital platforms rely on algorithms for two different functions: recommending content and moderating content. 33 First, a fundamental aspect of the service they offer involves curating the content available to provide each user with a personalized experience and increase time spent online. They resort to deep learning algorithms that monitor every action on the platform, draw from user data, and predict what content will keep a specific user engaged and active based on their prior activity or that of similar users. 34 The transition from a world of information scarcity to a world of information abundance generated fierce competition for user attention—the most valuable resource in the Digital Age. 35 The power to modify a person’s information environment has a direct impact on their behavior and beliefs. Because AI systems can track an individual’s online history, they can tailor specific messages to maximize impact. More importantly, they monitor whether and how the user interacts with the tailored message, using this feedback to influence future content targeting and progressively becoming more effective in shaping behavior. 36 Given that humans engage more with content that is polarizing and provocative, these algorithms elicit powerful emotions, including anger. 37 The power to organize online content therefore directly impacts freedom of expression, pluralism, and democracy. 38

In addition to recommendation systems, platforms rely on algorithms for content moderation, the process of classifying content to determine whether it violates community standards. 39 As mentioned, the growth of social media and its use by people around the world allowed for the spread of lies and criminal acts with little cost and almost no accountability, threatening the stability of even long-standing democracies. Inevitably, digital platforms had to enforce terms and conditions defining the norms of their digital community and moderate speech accordingly. 40 But the potentially infinite amount of content published online means that this control cannot be exercised exclusively by humans.

Content moderation algorithms optimize the scanning of published content to identify violations of community standards or terms of service at scale and apply measures ranging from removal to reducing reach or including clarifications or references to alternative information. Platforms often rely on two algorithmic models for content moderation. The first is the reproduction detection model , which uses unique identifiers to catch reproductions of content previously labeled as undesired. 41 The second system, the predictive model , uses machine learning techniques to identify potential illegalities in new and unclassified content. 42 Machine learning is a subtype of artificial intelligence that extracts patterns in training datasets, capable of learning from data without explicit programming to do so. 43 Although helpful, both models have shortcomings.

The reproduction detection model is inefficient for content such as hate speech and disinformation, where the potential for new and different publications is virtually unlimited and users can deliberately make changes to avoid detection. 44 The predictive model is still limited in its ability to address situations to which it has not been exposed in training, primarily because it lacks the human ability to understand nuance and to factor in contextual considerations that influence the meaning of speech. 45 Additionally, machine learning algorithms rely on data collected from the real world and may embed prejudices or preconceptions, leading to asymmetrical applications of the filter. 46 And because the training data sets are so large, it can be hard to audit them for these biases. 47

Despite these limitations, algorithms will continue to be a crucial resource in content moderation given the scale of online activities. 48 In the last two months of 2020 alone, Facebook applied a content moderation measure to 105 million publications, and Instagram to 35 million. 49 YouTube has 500 hours of video uploaded per minute and removed more than 9.3 million videos. 50 In the first half of 2020, Twitter analyzed complaints related to 12.4 million accounts for potential violations of its rules and took action against 1.9 million. 51 This data supports the claim that human moderation is impossible, and that algorithms are a necessary tool to reduce the spread of illicit and harmful content. On the one hand, holding platforms accountable for occasional errors in these systems would create wrong incentives to abandon algorithms in content moderation with the negative consequence of significantly increasing the spread of undesired speech. 52 On the other hand, broad demands for platforms to implement algorithms to optimize content moderation, or laws that impose very short deadlines to respond to removal requests submitted by users, can create excessive pressure for the use of these imprecise systems on a larger scale. Acknowledging the limitations of this technology is fundamental for precise regulation.

C. Some Undesirable Consequences

One of the most striking impacts of this new informational environment is the exponential increase in the scale of social communications and the circulation of news. Around the world, few newspapers, print publications, and radio stations cross the threshold of having even one million subscribers and listeners. This suggests the majority of these publications have a much smaller audience, possibly in the thousands or tens of thousands of people. 53 Television reaches millions of viewers, although diluted among dozens or hundreds of channels. 54 Facebook, on the other hand, has about 3 billion active users. 55 YouTube has 2.5 billion accounts. 56 WhatsApp, more than 2 billion. 57 The numbers are bewildering. However, and as anticipated, just as the digital revolution democratized access to knowledge, information, and public space, it also introduced negative consequences for democracy that must be addressed. Three of them include:

a) the increased circulation of disinformation, deliberate lying, hate speech, conspiracy theories, attacks on democracy, and inauthentic behavior, made possible by recommendation algorithms that optimize for user engagement and content moderation algorithms that are still incapable of adequately identifying undesirable content;

b) the tribalization of life, with the formation of echo chambers where groups speak only to themselves, reinforcing confirmation bias, 58 making speech progressively more radical, and contributing to polarization and intolerance; and

c) a global crisis in the business model of the professional press. Although social media platforms have become one of the main sources of information, they do not produce their own content. They hire engineers, not reporters, and their interest is engagement, not news. 59 Because advertisers’ spending has migrated away from traditional news publications to technological platforms with broader reaches, the press has suffered from a lack of revenue which has forced hundreds of major publications, national and local, to close their doors or reduce their journalist workforce. 60 But a free and strong press is more than just a private business; it is a pillar for an open and free society. It serves a public interest in the dissemination of facts, news, opinions, and ideas, indispensable preconditions for the informed exercise of citizenship. Knowledge and truth—never absolute, but sincerely sought—are essential elements for the functioning of a constitutional democracy. Citizens need to share a minimum set of common objective facts from which to inform their own judgments. If they cannot accept the same facts, public debate becomes impossible. Intolerance and violence are byproducts of the inability to communicate—hence the importance of “knowledge institutions,” such as universities, research entities, and the institutional press. The value of free press for democracy is illustrated by the fact that in different parts of the world, the press is one of the only private businesses specifically referred to throughout constitutions. Despite its importance for society and democracy, surveys reveal a concerning decline in its prestige. 61

In the beginning of the digital revolution, there was a belief that the internet should be a free, open, and unregulated space in the interest of protecting access to the platform and promoting freedom of expression. Over time, concerns emerged, and a consensus gradually grew for the need for internet regulation. Multiple approaches for regulating the internet were proposed, including: (a) economic, through antitrust legislation, consumer protection, fair taxation, and copyright rules; (b) privacy, through laws restricting collection of user data without consent, especially for content targeting; and (c) targeting inauthentic behavior, content control, and platform liability rules. 62

Devising the proper balance between the indispensable preservation of freedom of expression on the one hand, and the repression of illegal content on social media on the other, is one of the most complex issues of our generation. Freedom of expression is a fundamental right incorporated into virtually all contemporary constitutions and, in many countries, is considered a preferential freedom. Several reasons have been advanced for granting freedom of expression special protection, including its roles: (a) in the search for the possible truth 63 in an open and plural society, 64 as explored above in discussing the importance of the institutional press; (b) as an essential element for democracy 65 because it allows the free circulation of ideas, information, and opinions that inform public opinion and voting; and (c) as an essential element of human dignity, 66 allowing the expression of an individual’s personality.

The regulation of digital platforms cannot undermine these values but must instead aim at its protection and strengthening. However, in the digital age, these same values that historically justified the reinforced protection of freedom of expression can now justify its regulation. As U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres thoughtfully stated, “the ability to cause large-scale disinformation and undermine scientifically established facts is an existential risk to humanity.” 67

Two aspects of the internet business model are particularly problematic for the protection of democracy and free expression. The first is that, although access to most technological platforms and applications is free, users pay for access with their privacy. 68 As Lawrence Lessig observed, we watch television, but the internet watches us. 69 Everything each individual does online is monitored and monetized. Data is the modern gold. 70 Thus, those who pay for the data can more efficiently disseminate their message through targeted ads. As previously mentioned, the power to modify a person’s information environment has a direct impact on behavior and beliefs, especially when messages are tailored to maximize impact on a specific individual. 71

The second aspect is that algorithms are programmed to maximize time spent online. This often leads to the amplification of provocative, radical, and aggressive content. This in turn compromises freedom of expression because, by targeting engagement, algorithms sacrifice the search for truth (with the wide circulation of fake news), democracy (with attacks on institutions and defense of coups and authoritarianism), and human dignity (with offenses, threats, racism, and others). The pursuit of attention and engagement for revenue is not always compatible with the values that underlie the protection of freedom of expression.

IV. A Framework for the Regulation of Social Media

Platform regulation models can be broadly classified into three categories: (a) state or government regulation, through legislation and rules drawing a compulsory, encompassing framework; (b) self-regulation, through rules drafted by platforms themselves and materialized in their terms of use; and (c) regulated self-regulation or coregulation, through standards fixed by the state but which grant platform flexibility in materializing and implementing them. This Essay argues for the third model, with a combination of governmental and private responsibilities. Compliance should be overseen by an independent committee, with the minority of its representatives coming from the government, and the majority coming from the business sector, academia, technology entities, users, and civil society.

The regulatory framework should aim to reduce the asymmetry of information between platforms and users, safeguard the fundamental right to freedom of expression from undue private or state interventions, and protect and strengthen democracy. The current technical limitations of content moderation algorithms explored above and normal substantive disagreement about what content should be considered illegal or harmful suggest that an ideal regulatory model should optimize the balance between the fundamental rights of users and platforms, recognizing that there will always be cases where consensus is unachievable. The focus of regulation should be the development of adequate procedures for content moderation, capable of minimizing errors and legitimizing decisions even when one disagrees with the substantive result. 72 With these premises as background, the proposal for regulation formulated here is divided into three levels: (a) the appropriate intermediary liability model for user-generated content; (b) procedural duties for content moderation; and (c) minimum duties to moderate content that represents concrete threats to democracy and/or freedom of expression itself.

A. Intermediary Liability for User-Generated Content

There are three main regimes for platform liability for third-party content. In strict liability models, platforms are held responsible for all user-generated posts. 73 Since platforms have limited editorial control over what is posted and limited human oversight over the millions of posts made daily, this would be a potentially destructive regime. In knowledge-based liability models, platform liability arises if they do not act to remove content after an extrajudicial request from users—this is also known as a “notice-and-takedown” system. 74 Finally, a third model would make platforms liable for user-generated content only in cases of noncompliance with a court order mandating content removal. This latter model was adopted in Brazil with the Civil Framework for the Internet (Marco Civil da Internet). 75 The only exception in Brazilian legislation to this general rule is revenge porn: if there is a violation of intimacy resulting from the nonconsensual disclosure of images, videos, or other materials containing private nudity or private sexual acts, extrajudicial notification is sufficient to create an obligation for content removal under penalty of liability. 76

In our view, the Brazilian model is the one that most adequately balances the fundamental rights involved. As mentioned, in the most complex cases concerning freedom of expression, people will disagree on the legality of speech. Rules holding platforms accountable for not removing content after mere user notification create incentives for over-removal of any potentially controversial content, excessively restricting users’ freedom of expression. If the state threatens to hold digital platforms accountable if it disagrees with their assessment, companies will have the incentive to remove all content that could potentially be considered illicit by courts to avoid liability. 77

Nonetheless, this liability regime should coexist with a broader regulatory structure imposing principles, limits, and duties on content moderation by digital platforms, both to increase the legitimacy of platforms’ application of their own terms and conditions and to minimize the potentially devastating impacts of illicit or harmful speech.

B. Standards for Proactive Content Moderation

Platforms have free enterprise and freedom of expression rights to set their own rules and decide the kind of environment they want to create, as well as to moderate harmful content that could drive users away. However, because these content moderation algorithms are the new governors of the public sphere, 78 and because they define the ability to participate and be heard in online public discourse, platforms should abide by minimum procedural duties of transparency and auditing, due process, and fairness.

1. Transparency and Auditing

Transparency and auditing measures serve mainly to ensure that platforms are accountable for content moderation decisions and for the impacts of their algorithms. They provide users with greater understanding and knowledge about the extent to which platforms regulate speech, and they provide oversight bodies and researchers with information to understand the threats of digital services and the role of platforms in amplifying or minimizing them.

Driven by demands from civil society, several digital platforms already publish transparency reports. 79 However, the lack of binding standards means that these reports have significant gaps, no independent verification of the information provided, 80 and no standardization across platforms, preventing comparative analysis. 81 In this context, regulatory initiatives that impose minimum requirements and standards are crucial to make oversight more effective. On the other hand, overly broad transparency mandates may force platforms to adopt simpler content moderation rules to reduce costs, which could negatively impact the accuracy of content moderation or the quality of the user experience. 82 A tiered approach to transparency, where certain information is public and certain information is limited to oversight bodies or previously qualified researchers, ensures adequate protection of countervailing interests, such as user privacy and business confidentiality. 83 The Digital Services Act, 84 recently passed in the European Union, contains robust transparency provisions that generally align with these considerations. 85

The information that should be publicly provided includes clear and unambiguous terms of use, the options available to address violations (such as removal, amplification reduction, clarifications, and account suspension) and the division of labor between algorithms and humans. More importantly, public transparency reports should include information on the accuracy of automated moderation measures and the number of content moderation actions broken down by type (such as removal, blocking, and account deletion). 86 There must also be transparency obligations to researchers, giving them access to crucial information and statistics, including to the content analyzed for the content moderation decisions. 87

Although valuable, transparency requirements are insufficient in promoting accountability because they rely on users and researchers to actively monitor platform conduct and presuppose that they have the power to draw attention to flaws and promote changes. 88 Legally mandated third-party algorithmic auditing is therefore an important complement to ensure that these models satisfy legal, ethical, and safety standards and to elucidate the embedded value tradeoffs, such as between user safety and freedom of expression. 89 As a starting point, algorithm audits should consider matters such as how accurately they perform, any potential bias or discrimination incorporated in the data, and to what extent the internal mechanics are explainable to humans. 90 The Digital Services Act contains a similar proposal. 91

The market for algorithmic auditing is still emergent and replete with uncertainty. In attempting to navigate this scenario, regulators should: (a) define how often the audits should happen; (b) develop standards and best practices for auditing procedures; (c) mandate specific disclosure obligations so auditors have access to the required data; and (d) define how identified harms should be addressed. 92

2. Due Process and Fairness

To ensure due process, platforms must inform users affected by content moderation decisions of the allegedly violated provision of the terms of use, as well as offer an internal system of appeals against these decisions. Platforms must also create systems that allow for the substantiated denunciation of content or accounts by other users, and notify reporting users of the decision taken.

As for fairness, platforms should ensure that the rules are applied equally to all users. Although it is reasonable to suppose that platforms may adopt different criteria for public persons or information of public interest, these exceptions must be clear in the terms of use. This issue has recently been the subject of controversy between the Facebook Oversight Board and the company. 93

Due to the enormous amount of content published on the platforms and the inevitability of using automated mechanisms for content moderation, platforms should not be held accountable for a violation of these duties in specific cases, but only when the analysis reveals a systemic failure to comply. 94

C. Minimum Duties to Moderate Illicit Content

The regulatory framework should also contain specific obligations to address certain types of especially harmful speech. The following categories are considered by the authors to fall within this group: disinformation, hate speech, anti-democratic attacks, cyberbullying, terrorism, and child pornography. Admittedly, defining and consensually identifying the speech included in these categories—except in the case of child pornography 95 —is a complex and largely subjective task. Precisely for this reason, platforms should be free to define how the concepts will be operationalized, as long as they guide definitions by international human rights parameters and in a transparent manner. This does not mean that all platforms will reach the same definitions nor the same substantive results in concrete cases, but this should not be considered a flaw in the system, since the plurality of rules promotes freedom of expression. The obligation to observe international human rights parameters reduces the discretion of companies, while allowing for the diversity of policies among them. After defining these categories, platforms must establish mechanisms that allow users to report violations.

In addition, platforms should develop mechanisms to address coordinated inauthentic behaviors, which involve the use of automated systems or deceitful means to artificially amplify false or dangerous messages by using bots, fake profiles, trolls, and provocateurs. 96 For example, if a person publishes a post for his twenty followers saying that kerosene oil is good for curing COVID-19, the negative impact of this misinformation is limited. However, if that message is amplified to thousands of users, a greater public health issue arises. Or, in another example, if the false message that an election was rigged reaches millions of people, there is a democratic risk due to the loss of institutional credibility.

The role of oversight bodies should be to verify that platforms have adopted terms of use that prohibit the sharing of these categories of speech and ensure that, systemically, the recommendation and content moderation systems are trained to moderate this content.

V. Conclusion

The World Wide Web has provided billions of people with access to knowledge, information, and the public space, changing the course of history. However, the misuse of the internet and social media poses serious threats to democracy and fundamental rights. Some degree of regulation has become necessary to confront inauthentic behavior and illegitimate content. It is essential, however, to act with transparency, proportionality, and adequate procedures, so that pluralism, diversity, and freedom of expression are preserved.

In addition to the importance of regulatory action, the responsibility for the preservation of the internet as a healthy public sphere also lies with citizens. Media education and user awareness are fundamental steps for the creation of a free but positive and constructive environment on the internet. Citizens should be conscious that social media can be unfair, perverse, and can violate fundamental rights and basic rules of democracy. They must be attentive not to uncritically pass on all information received. Alongside states, regulators, and tech companies, citizens are also an important force to address these threats. In Jonathan Haidt’s words, “[w]hen our public square is governed by mob dynamics unrestrained by due process, we don’t get justice and inclusion; we get a society that ignores context, proportionality, mercy, and truth.” 97

• 1 Tim Wu, Is the First Amendment Obsolete? , in The Perilous Public Square 15 (David E. Pozen ed., 2020).
• 2 Jack M. Balkin, Free Speech is a Triangle , 118 Colum. L. Rev. 2011, 2019 (2018).
• 3 Luís Roberto Barroso, O Constitucionalismo Democrático ou Neoconstitucionalismo como ideologia vitoriosa do século XX , 4 Revista Publicum 14, 14 (2018).
• 4 Id. at 16.
• 7 Ronald Dworkin, Is Democracy Possible Here?: Principles for a New Political Debate xii (2006); Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously 181 (1977).
• 8 Barroso, supra note 3, at 16.
• 9 Samuel Issacharoff, Fragile Democracies: Contested Power in the Era of Constitutional Courts i (2015).
• 10 Larry Diamond, Facing up to the Democratic Recession , 26 J. Democracy 141 (2015). Other scholars have referred to the same phenomenon using other terms, such as democratic retrogression, abusive constitutionalism, competitive authoritarianism, illiberal democracy, and autocratic legalism. See, e.g. , Aziz Huq & Tom Ginsburg, How to Lose a Constitutional Democracy , 65 UCLA L. Rev. 91 (2018); David Landau, Abusive Constitutionalism , 47 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 189 (2013); Kim Lane Scheppele, Autocratic Legalism , 85 U. Chi. L. Rev. 545 (2018).
• 11 Dan Balz, A Year After Jan. 6, Are the Guardrails that Protect Democracy Real or Illusory? , Wash. Post (Jan. 6, 2022), https://perma.cc/633Z-A9AJ; Brexit: Reaction from Around the UK , BBC News (June 24, 2016), https://perma.cc/JHM3-WD7A.
• 12 Cas Mudde, The Populist Zeitgeist , 39 Gov’t & Opposition 541, 549 (2004).
• 13 See generally Mohammed Sinan Siyech, An Introduction to Right-Wing Extremism in India , 33 New Eng. J. Pub. Pol’y 1 (2021) (discussing right-wing extremism in India). See also Eviane Leidig, Hindutva as a Variant of Right-Wing Extremism , 54 Patterns of Prejudice 215 (2020) (tracing the history of “Hindutva”—defined as “an ideology that encompasses a wide range of forms, from violent, paramilitary fringe groups, to organizations that advocate the restoration of Hindu ‘culture’, to mainstream political parties”—and finding that it has become mainstream since 2014 under Modi); Ariel Goldstein, Brazil Leads the Third Wave of the Latin American Far Right , Ctr. for Rsch. on Extremism (Mar. 1, 2021), https://perma.cc/4PCT-NLQJ (discussing right-wing extremism in Brazil under Bolsonaro); Seth G. Jones, The Rise of Far-Right Extremism in the United States , Ctr. for Strategic & Int’l Stud. (Nov. 2018), https://perma.cc/983S-JUA7 (discussing right-wing extremism in the U.S. under Trump).
• 14 Sergio Fausto, O Desafio Democrático [The Democratic Challenge], Piauí (Aug. 2022), https://perma.cc/474A-3849.
• 15 Jan-Werner Muller, Populism and Constitutionalism , in The Oxford Handbook of Populism 590 (Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser et al. eds., 2017).
• 16 Ming-Sung Kuo, Against Instantaneous Democracy , 17 Int’l J. Const. L. 554, 558–59 (2019); see also Digital Populism , Eur. Ctr. for Populism Stud., https://perma.cc/D7EV-48MV.
• 17 Luís Roberto Barroso, Technological Revolution, Democratic Recession and Climate Change: The Limits of Law in a Changing World , 18 Int’l J. Const. L. 334, 349 (2020).
• 18 For the use of social media, see Sven Engesser et al., Populism and Social Media: How Politicians Spread a Fragmented Ideology , 20 Info. Commc’n & Soc’y 1109 (2017). For attacks on the press, see WPFD 2021: Attacks on Press Freedom Growing Bolder Amid Rising Authoritarianism , Int’l Press Inst. (Apr. 30, 2021), https://perma.cc/SGN9-55A8. For attacks on the judiciary, see Michael Dichio & Igor Logvinenko, Authoritarian Populism, Courts and Democratic Erosion , Just Sec. (Feb. 11, 2021), https://perma.cc/WZ6J-YG49.
• 19 Kuo, supra note 16, at 558–59; see also Digital Populism , supra note 16.
• 20 Vicki C. Jackson, Knowledge Institutions in Constitutional Democracy: Reflections on “the Press” , 15 J. Media L. 275 (2022).
• 21 Many of the ideas and information on this topic were collected in Luna van Brussel Barroso, Liberdade de Expressão e Democracia na Era Digital: O impacto das mídias sociais no mundo contemporâneo [Freedom of Expression and Democracy in the Digital Era: The Impact of Social Media in the Contemporary World] (2022), which was recently published in Brazil.
• 22 The first industrial revolution is marked by the use of steam as a source of energy in the middle of the 18th century. The second started with the use of electricity and the invention of the internal combustion engine at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. There are already talks of the fourth industrial revolution as a product of the fusion of technologies that blurs the boundaries among the physical, digital, and biological spheres. See generally Klaus Schwab, The Fourth Industrial Revolution (2017).
• 23 Gregory P. Magarian, The Internet and Social Media , in The Oxford Handbook of Freedom of Speech 350, 351–52 (Adrienne Stone & Frederick Schauer eds., 2021).
• 24 Wu, supra note 1, at 15.
• 25 Journalistic ethics include distinguishing fact from opinion, verifying the veracity of what is published, having no self-interest in the matter being reported, listening to the other side, and rectifying mistakes. For an example of an international journalistic ethics charter, see Global Charter of Ethics for Journalists , Int’l Fed’n of Journalists (June 12, 2019), https://perma.cc/7A2C-JD2S.
• 26 See, e.g. , New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964).
• 27 Balkin, supra note 2, at 2018.
• 28 Magarian, supra note 23, at 351–52.
• 29 Wu, supra note 1, at 15.
• 30 Magarian, supra note 23, at 357–60.
• 31 Niva Elkin-Koren & Maayan Perel, Speech Contestation by Design: Democratizing Speech Governance by AI , 50 Fla. State U. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2023).
• 32 Thomas E. Kadri & Kate Klonick, Facebook v. Sullivan: Public Figures and Newsworthiness in Online Speech , 93 S. Cal. L. Rev. 37, 94 (2019).
• 33 Elkin-Koren & Perel, supra note 31.
• 34 Chris Meserole, How Do Recommender Systems Work on Digital Platforms? , Brookings Inst.(Sept. 21, 2022), https://perma.cc/H53K-SENM.
• 35 Kris Shaffer, Data versus Democracy: How Big Data Algorithms Shape Opinions and Alter the Course of History xi–xv (2019).
• 36 See generally Stuart Russell, Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control (2019).
• 37 Shaffer, supra note 35, at xi–xv.
• 38 More recently, with the advance of neuroscience, platforms have sharpened their ability to manipulate and change our emotions, feelings and, consequently, our behavior in accordance not with our own interests, but with theirs (or of those who they sell this service to). Kaveh Waddell, Advertisers Want to Mine Your Brain , Axios (June 4, 2019), https://perma.cc/EU85-85WX. In this context, there is already talk of a new fundamental right to cognitive liberty, mental self-determination, or the right to free will. Id .
• 39 Content moderation refers to “systems that classify user generated content based on either matching or prediction, leading to a decision and governance outcome (e.g. removal, geoblocking, account takedown).” Robert Gorwa, Reuben Binns & Christian Katzenbach, Algorithmic Content Moderation: Technical and Political Challenges in the Automation of Platform Governance , 7 Big Data & Soc’y 1, 3 (2020).
• 40 Jack M. Balkin, Free Speech in the Algorithmic Society: Big Data, Private Governance, and New School Speech Regulation , 51 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1149, 1183 (2018).
• 41 See Carey Shenkman, Dhanaraj Thakur & Emma Llansó, Do You See What I See? Capabilities and Limits of Automated Multimedia Content Analysis 13–16 (May 2021),https://perma.cc/J9MP-7PQ8.
• 42 See id. at 17–21.
• 43 See Michael Wooldridge, A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence: What It Is, Where We Are, and Where We Are Going 63 (2021).

Perceptual hashing has been the primary technology utilized to mitigate the spread of CSAM, since the same materials are often repeatedly shared, and databases of offending content are maintained by institutions like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and its international analogue, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC).

• 45 Natural language understanding is undermined by language ambiguity, contextual dependence of words of non-immediate proximity, references, metaphors, and general semantics rules. See Erik J. Larson, The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do 52–55 (2021). Language comprehension in fact requires unlimited common-sense knowledge about the actual world, which humans possess and is impossible to code. Id . A case decided by Facebook’s Oversight Board illustrates the point: the company’s predictive filter for combatting pornography removed images from a breast cancer awareness campaign, a clearly legitimate content not meant to be targeted by the algorithm. See Breast Cancer Symptoms and Nudity , Oversight Bd. (2020), https://perma.cc/U9A5-TTTJ. However, based on prior training, the algorithm removed the publication because it detected pornography and was unable to factor the contextual consideration that this was a legitimate health campaign. Id .
• 46 See generally Adriano Koshiyama, Emre Kazim & Philip Treleaven, Algorithm Auditing: Managing the Legal, Ethical, and Technological Risks of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Associated Algorithms , 55 Computer 40 (2022).
• 47 Elkin-Koren & Perel, supra note 31.
• 48 Evelyn Douek, Governing Online Speech: From “Posts-as-Trumps” to Proportionality and Probability , 121 Colum. L. Rev. 759, 791 (2021).
• 53 See Martha Minow, Saving the Press: Why the Constitution Calls for Government Action to Preserve Freedom of Speech 20 (2021). For example, the best-selling newspaper in the world, The New York Times , ended the year 2022 with around 10 million subscribers across digital and print. Katie Robertson, The New York Times Company Adds 180,000 Digital Subscribers , N.Y. Times (Nov. 2, 2022), https://perma.cc/93PF-TKC5. The Economist magazine had approximately 1.2 million subscribers in 2022. The Economist Group, Annual Report 2022 24 (2022), https://perma.cc/9HQQ-F7W2. Around the world, publications that reach one million subscribers are rare. These Are the Most Popular Paid Subscription News Websites , World Econ. F. (Apr. 29, 2021), https://perma.cc/L2MK-VPNX.
• 54 Lawrence Lessig, They Don’t Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy 105 (2019).
• 55 Essential Facebook Statistics and Trends for 2023 , Datareportal (Feb. 19, 2023), https://perma.cc/UH33-JHUQ.
• 56 YouTube User Statistics 2023 , Glob. Media Insight (Feb. 27, 2023), https://perma.cc/3H4Y-H83V.
• 57 Brian Dean, WhatsApp 2022 User Statistics: How Many People Use WhatsApp , Backlinko (Jan. 5, 2022), https://perma.cc/S8JX-S7HN.
• 58 Confirmation bias, the tendency to seek out and favor information that reinforces one’s existing beliefs, presents an obstacle to critical thinking. Sachin Modgil et al., A Confirmation Bias View on Social Media Induced Polarisation During COVID-19 , Info. Sys. Frontiers (Nov. 20, 2021).
• 59 Minow, supra note 53, at 2.
• 60 Id. at 3, 11.
• 61 On the importance of the role of the press as an institution of public interest and its “crucial relationship” with democracy, see id. at 35. On the press as a “knowledge institution,” the idea of “institutional press,” and data on the loss of prestige by newspapers and television stations, see Jackson, supra note 20, at 4–5.
• 62 See , e.g. , Jack M. Balkin, How to Regulate (and Not Regulate) Social Media , 1 J. Free Speech L. 71, 89–96 (2021).
• 63 By possible truth we mean that not all claims, opinions and beliefs can be ascertained as true or false. Objective truths are factual and can thus be proven even when controversial—for example, climate change and the effectiveness of vaccines. Subjective truths, on the other hand, derive from individual normative, religious, philosophical, and political views. In a pluralistic world, any conception of freedom of expression must protect individual subjective beliefs.
• 64 Eugene Volokh, In Defense of the Marketplace of Ideas/Search for Truth as a Theory of Free Speech Protection , 97 Va. L. Rev. 595, 595 (May 2011).
• 66 Steven J. Heyman, Free Speech and Human Dignity 2 (2008).
• 67 A Global Dialogue to Guide Regulation Worldwide , UNESCO (Feb. 23, 2023), https://perma.cc/ALK8-HTG3.
• 68 Can We Fix What’s Wrong with Social Media? , Yale L. Sch. News (Aug. 3, 2022), https://perma.cc/MN58-2EVK.
• 69 Lessig, supra note 54, at 105.
• 71 See supra Part III.B.
• 72 Doeuk, supra note 48, at 804–13; see also John Bowers & Jonathan Zittrain, Answering Impossible Questions: Content Governance in an Age of Disinformation , Harv. Kennedy Sch. Misinformation Rev. (Jan. 14, 2020), https://perma.cc/R7WW-8MQX.
• 73 Daphne Keller, Systemic Duties of Care and Intermediary Liability , Ctr. for Internet & Soc’y Blog (May 28, 2020), https://perma.cc/25GU-URGT.
• 75 Decreto No. 12.965, de 23 de abril de 2014, Diário Oficial da União [D.O.U.] de 4.14.2014 (Braz.) art. 19. In order to ensure freedom of expression and prevent censorship, providers of internet applications can only be civilly liable for damages resulting from content generated by third parties if, after specific court order, they do not make arrangements to, in the scope and technical limits of their service and within the indicated time, make unavailable the content identified as infringing, otherwise subject to the applicable legal provisions. Id .
• 76 Id. art. 21. The internet application provider that provides content generated by third parties will be held liable for the violation of intimacy resulting from the disclosure, without authorization of its participants, of images, videos, or other materials containing nude scenes or private sexual acts when, upon receipt of notification by the participant or its legal representative, fail to diligently promote, within the scope and technical limits of its service, the unavailability of this content. Id .
• 77 Balkin, supra note 2, at 2017.
• 78 Kate Klonick, The New Governors: The People, Rules, and Processes Governing Online Speech , 131 Harv. L. Rev. 1598, 1603 (2018).
• 79 Transparency Reporting Index, Access Now (July 2021), https://perma.cc/2TSL-2KLD (cataloguing transparency reporting from companies around the world).
• 80 Hum. Rts. Comm., Rep. of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, ¶¶ 63–66, U.N. Doc A/HRC/32/35 (2016).
• 81 Paddy Leerssen, The Soap Box as a Black Box: Regulating Transparency in Social Media Recommender Systems , 11 Eur. J. L. & Tech. (2020).
• 82 Daphne Keller, Some Humility About Transparency , Ctr. for Internet & Soc’y Blog (Mar. 19, 2021), https://perma.cc/4Y85-BATA.
• 83 Mark MacCarthy, Transparency Requirements for Digital Social Media Platforms: Recommendations for Policy Makers and Industry , Transatlantic Working Grp. (Feb. 12, 2020).
• 84 2022 O.J. (L 277) 1 [hereinafter DSA].
• 85 The DSA was approved by the European Parliament on July 5, 2022, and on October 4, 2022, the European Council gave its final acquiescence to the regulation. Digital Services: Landmark Rules Adopted for a Safer, Open Online Environment , Eur. Parliament (July 5, 2022), https://perma.cc/BZP5-V2B2. The DSA increases transparency and accountability of platforms, by providing, for example, for the obligation of “clear information on content moderation or the use of algorithms for recommending content (so-called recommender systems); users will be able to challenge content moderation decisions.” Id .
• 86 MacCarthy, supra note 83, 19–24.
• 87 To this end, American legislators recently introduced a U.S. Congressional bill that proposes a model for conducting research on the impacts of digital communications in a way that protects user privacy. See Platform Accountability and Transparency Act, S. 5339, 117th Congress (2022). The project mandates that digital platforms share data with researchers previously authorized by the Federal Trade Commission and publicly disclose certain data about content, algorithms, and advertising. Id .
• 88 Yifat Nahmias & Maayan Perel, The Oversight of Content Moderation by AI: Impact Assessment and Their Limitations , 58 Harv. J. on Legis. 145, 154–57 (2021).
• 89 Auditing Algorithms: The Existing Landscape, Role of Regulator and Future Outlook , Digit. Regul. Coop. F. (Sept. 23, 2022), https://perma.cc/7N6W-JNCW.
• 90 See generally Koshiyama et al., supra note 46.
• 91 In Article 37, the DSA provides that digital platforms of a certain size should be accountable, through annual independent auditing, for compliance with the obligations set forth in the Regulation and with any commitment undertaken pursuant to codes of conduct and crisis protocols.
• 92 Digit. Regul. Coop. F., supra note 89.
• 93 In a transparency report published at the end of its first year of operation, the Oversight Board highlighted the inadequacy of the explanations presented by Meta on the operation of a system known as cross-check, which apparently gave some users greater freedom on the platform. In January 2022, Meta explained that the cross-check system grants an additional degree of review to certain content that internal systems mark as violating the platform’s terms of use. Meta submitted a query to the Board on how to improve the functioning of this system and the Board made relevant recommendations. See Oversight Board Published Policy Advisory Opinion on Meta’s Cross-Check Program , Oversight Bd. (Dec. 2022), https://perma.cc/87Z5-L759.
• 94 Evelyn Douek, Content Moderation as Systems Thinking , 136 Harv. L. Rev. 526, 602–03 (2022).
• 95 The illicit nature of child pornography is objectively apprehended and does not implicate the same subjective considerations that the other referenced categories entail. Not surprisingly, several databases have been created to facilitate the moderation of this content. See Ofcom, Overview of Perceptual Hashing Technology 14 (Nov. 22, 2022), https://perma.cc/EJ45-B76X (“Several hash databases to support the detection of known CSAM exist, e.g. the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) hash database, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) hash list and the International Child Sexual Exploitation (ICSE) hash database.”).
• 97 Jonathan Haidt, Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid , Atlantic (Apr. 11, 2022), https://perma.cc/2NXD-32VM.

IELTS Writing Task 2: Sample Essays on Freedom of Speech Limits on Social Media (Band 6-9)

The topic of limiting freedom of speech on social media platforms has become increasingly relevant in recent years. This issue frequently appears in IELTS Writing Task 2 questions, reflecting its importance in contemporary discourse. Based …

Written by: IELTS Mentor

Published on: October 1, 2024

Some people believe that there should be no limits to freedom of speech on social media platforms, while others think that some restrictions are necessary. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.

Table of Contents

Analyzing the Question

This question requires candidates to:

• Discuss arguments for unrestricted freedom of speech on social media
• Examine reasons for imposing some limitations
• Provide a personal stance on the issue

The topic is complex, involving considerations of individual rights, public safety, and corporate responsibility. A well-balanced response should address multiple perspectives before presenting a nuanced conclusion.

Sample Essay 1 (Band 8-9)

Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right, and its application to social media platforms has sparked intense debate. While some argue for absolute freedom of expression online, others contend that certain restrictions are necessary. This essay will examine both perspectives before offering a personal viewpoint.

Proponents of unrestricted freedom of speech on social media platforms argue that any form of censorship undermines democratic values and stifles innovation. They contend that social media should serve as a digital public square, where ideas can be freely exchanged without fear of repression. Furthermore, they warn that giving platforms or governments the power to restrict speech could lead to abuse and the suppression of minority viewpoints. This argument holds merit, as history has shown how censorship can be weaponized against dissenting voices.

On the other hand, advocates for some limitations on social media speech argue that completely unregulated platforms can become breeding grounds for hate speech, misinformation, and extremism. They point to real-world consequences of online radicalization and the spread of false information, such as violence against minority groups or public health crises exacerbated by conspiracy theories. Moreover, they contend that social media companies, as private entities, have a responsibility to create safe environments for their users, which may necessitate content moderation.

In my opinion, while freedom of speech is crucial for a healthy democracy, some restrictions on social media platforms are necessary to protect vulnerable individuals and maintain social cohesion. However, these limitations should be narrowly defined, transparently implemented, and subject to independent oversight. Social media companies should focus on removing clearly illegal content, such as incitements to violence or child exploitation material, while employing a light touch with more ambiguous cases.

In conclusion, the issue of freedom of speech on social media requires a delicate balance between protecting individual rights and safeguarding society. While absolute freedom may lead to harmful consequences, overly restrictive policies could stifle important discourse. The challenge lies in finding a middle ground that preserves the essence of free speech while mitigating its potential for harm.

(Word count: 339)

Sample Essay 2 (Band 6-7)

The question of whether there should be limits on freedom of speech on social media is a hot topic these days. Some people think there should be no restrictions at all, while others believe some rules are needed. In this essay, I will discuss both sides and give my opinion.

Those who support complete freedom of speech on social media say it’s important for democracy. They think everyone should be able to share their ideas without fear. For example, social media has helped people organize protests and speak out against bad governments. If we start limiting what people can say, it might be used to stop important voices from being heard.

However, others argue that some limits are necessary. They say that without any rules, social media can become dangerous. People can spread hate speech, fake news, and bully others. This can lead to real problems in society, like violence against certain groups or people believing false information about health issues. Also, they point out that social media companies are private businesses, so they have the right to set some rules for their platforms.

In my opinion, I think there should be some limits on what people can say on social media, but these limits should be careful and fair. It’s important to stop things like threats of violence or sharing private information without permission. However, we should be careful not to go too far and stop people from sharing different opinions or criticizing powerful groups.

To conclude, while freedom of speech is very important, I believe some restrictions on social media are needed to protect people and society. The challenge is finding the right balance between allowing free expression and preventing harm.

(Word count: 292)

Sample Essay 3 (Band 5-6)

Nowadays, many people use social media to share their thoughts. Some think there should be no limits on what people can say online, but others believe we need some rules. I will talk about both sides and give my idea.

People who want no limits say freedom of speech is very important. They think everyone should be able to say what they want on social media. This is good because people can share new ideas and talk about problems in their country. If we have limits, maybe some important things won’t be said.

But other people think we need some rules for social media. They say that without rules, bad things can happen. For example, people might say mean things about others or share fake news. This can make people angry or scared in real life. Also, they say social media companies can make their own rules because they own the websites.

I think we need some rules, but not too many. It’s important to stop people from saying very bad things, like threatening others. But we should also let people share different ideas, even if we don’t agree with them.

In conclusion, freedom of speech on social media is important, but we also need to think about keeping people safe. We should have some rules, but be careful not to stop people from sharing their thoughts.

(Word count: 218)

Explaining the Band Scores

Band 8-9 essay:.

• Task Response : Fully addresses all parts of the task with a well-developed response. Presents a clear position throughout the essay.
• Coherence and Cohesion : Ideas are logically organized with clear progression. Uses a range of cohesive devices effectively.
• Lexical Resource : Uses a wide range of vocabulary with very natural and sophisticated control of lexical features.
• Grammatical Range and Accuracy : Uses a wide range of structures with full flexibility and accuracy.

Band 6-7 Essay:

• Task Response : Addresses all parts of the task, though some parts may be more fully covered than others.
• Coherence and Cohesion : Information and ideas are arranged coherently and there is a clear overall progression.
• Lexical Resource : Uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task. There may be some errors in word choice but these do not impede communication.
• Grammatical Range and Accuracy : Uses a mix of simple and complex sentence forms. There are some errors, but these rarely reduce communication.

Band 5-6 Essay:

• Task Response : Addresses the task only partially. The format may be inappropriate in places.
• Coherence and Cohesion : Presents information with some organization but there may be a lack of overall progression.
• Lexical Resource : Uses a limited range of vocabulary, but this is minimally adequate for the task.
• Grammatical Range and Accuracy : Uses only a limited range of structures. Errors may frequently prevent meaning from coming through.

Key Vocabulary to Remember

Freedom of speech (noun) – The right to express opinions without censorship or restraint Pronunciation: /ˈfriːdəm əv spiːtʃ/

Censorship (noun) – The suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security Pronunciation: /ˈsensərʃɪp/

Misinformation (noun) – False or inaccurate information, especially that which is deliberately intended to deceive Pronunciation: /ˌmɪsɪnfərˈmeɪʃən/

Radicalization (noun) – The action or process of causing someone to adopt radical positions on political or social issues Pronunciation: /ˌrædɪkəlaɪˈzeɪʃən/

Content moderation (noun phrase) – The practice of monitoring and applying a pre-determined set of rules and guidelines to user-generated submissions Pronunciation: /ˈkɒntent ˌmɒdəˈreɪʃən/

Oversight (noun) – The action of overseeing something; supervision, vigilant care Pronunciation: /ˈəʊvəsaɪt/

Incitement (noun) – The action of provoking unlawful behavior or urging someone to behave unlawfully Pronunciation: /ɪnˈsaɪtmənt/

Dissenting (adjective) – Holding or expressing opinions that are at variance with those commonly or officially held Pronunciation: /dɪˈsentɪŋ/

Extremism (noun) – The holding of extreme political or religious views; fanaticism Pronunciation: /ɪkˈstriːmɪzəm/

Cohesion (noun) – The action or fact of forming a united whole Pronunciation: /kəʊˈhiːʒən/

In conclusion, the topic of limiting freedom of speech on social media platforms is a complex and nuanced issue that requires careful consideration. As demonstrated in the sample essays, there are valid arguments on both sides of the debate. Future IELTS examinations may present variations on this theme, such as:

• Should social media companies be held responsible for the content posted on their platforms?
• How can governments balance national security concerns with freedom of expression online?
• Is anonymity on social media beneficial or harmful to public discourse?

To prepare for such questions, it’s advisable to stay informed about current events related to social media regulation and to practice writing balanced arguments that consider multiple perspectives. Remember to always support your points with relevant examples and to clearly state your own position.

We encourage readers to practice writing their own essays on this topic and share them in the comments section below. This exercise can help improve your writing skills and prepare you for the IELTS Writing Task 2. Good luck with your IELTS preparation!

Should social media platforms be regulated more strictly? This article provides additional insights into the debate surrounding social media regulation, which can further enhance your understanding of the topic.

Mastering IELTS Writing Task 2: Sample Essays and Expert Analysis on the Role of Governments in Supporting the Arts

November 1, 2024

Mastering IELTS Writing Task 2: Sample Essays and Analysis on Cultural Diversity in Schools

Mastering ielts writing task 2: sample essays on peer-to-peer finance for entrepreneurs, mastering ielts writing task 2: sample essays on the importance of keeping low debt-to-income ratios, boost your financial prospects: ielts writing task 2 sample essays on credit repair impact, leave a comment cancel reply.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

About IELTS Mentor

IELTS Essay

Mastering ielts speaking: how to describe a book that made a strong impression on you, ielts writing task 2: sample essays on stricter food labeling regulations (band 6-9).

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Student Opinion

Why Is Freedom of Speech an Important Right? When, if Ever, Can It Be Limited?

By Michael Gonchar

• Sept. 12, 2018

This extended Student Opinion question and a related lesson plan were created in partnership with the National Constitution Center in advance of Constitution Day on Sept. 17. For information about a cross-classroom “Constitutional Exchange,” see The Lauder Project .

One of the founding principles of the United States that Americans cherish is the right to freedom of speech. Enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of speech grants all Americans the liberty to criticize the government and speak their minds without fear of being censored or persecuted.

Even though the concept of freedom of speech on its face seems quite simple, in reality there are complex lines that can be drawn around what kinds of speech are protected and in what setting.

The Supreme Court declared in the case Schenck v. United States in 1919 that individuals are not entitled to speech that presents a “clear and present danger” to society. For example, a person cannot falsely yell “fire” in a crowded theater because that speech doesn’t contribute to the range of ideas being discussed in society, yet the risk of someone getting injured is high. On the other hand, in Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969, the court declared that even inflammatory speech, such as racist language by a leader of the Ku Klux Klan, should generally be protected unless it is likely to cause imminent violence.

While the text and principle of the First Amendment have stayed the same, the court’s interpretation has indeed changed over time . Judges, lawmakers and scholars continue to struggle with balancing strong speech protections with the necessity of maintaining a peaceful society.

What do you think? Why is the freedom of speech an important right? Why might it be important to protect even unpopular or hurtful speech? And yet, when might the government draw reasonable limits on speech, and why?

Before answering this question, read the full text of the amendment. What does it say about speech?

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

Next, read these excerpts from three recent articles about free speech cases that might affect your life:

In a September 2017 article, “ High Schools Threaten to Punish Students Who Kneel During Anthem ,” Christine Hauser writes:

The controversy over kneeling in protest of racial injustice moved beyond the world of professional sports this week, when a number of schools told students they were expected to stand during the national anthem. On Long Island, the Diocese of Rockville Centre, which runs a private Catholic school system, said students at its three high schools could face “serious disciplinary action” if they knelt during the anthem before sporting events.

In a June 2018 article, “ Colleges Grapple With Where — or Whether — to Draw the Line on Free Speech ,” Alina Tugend writes:

It has happened across the country, at small private colleges and large public universities: an invited guest is heckled or shouted down or disinvited because of opposing political views. And the incident is followed by a competing chorus of accusations about the rights of free speech versus the need to feel safe and welcome. It’s something those in higher education have grappled with for decades. But after the 2016 presidential election and the increasing polarization of the country, the issue has taken on a new resonance.

In another June 2018 article, “ Supreme Court Strikes Down Law Barring Political Apparel at Polling Places ,” Adam Liptak writes:

The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Minnesota law that prohibits voters from wearing T-shirts, hats and buttons expressing political views at polling places. In a cautious 7-to-2 decision, the court acknowledged the value of decorum and solemn deliberation as voters prepare to cast their ballots. But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that Minnesota’s law was not “capable of reasoned application.”

Students, read at least one of the above articles in its entirety, then tell us:

— Why is the freedom of speech an important right? Why do you think it’s worth protecting?

— What is the value in protecting unpopular speech?

— The Supreme Court has determined that certain types of speech, such as fighting words, violent threats and misleading advertising, are of only “low” First Amendment value because they don’t contribute to a public discussion of ideas, and are therefore not protected. Even though the text of the First Amendment does not make any distinction between “low” and “high” value speech, do you think the court is correct in ruling that some categories of speech are not worth protecting? What types of speech would you consider to be “low” value? What types of speech are “high” value, in your opinion?

— What do you think about the free speech issues raised in the three articles above? For example:

• Should students be allowed to kneel during the national anthem? Why? • Should colleges be allowed to forbid controversial or “offensive” guests from speaking on campus? Why? • Should individuals be able to wear overtly political T-shirts or hats to the polling booth? Why?

— When might the government draw reasonable limits to the freedom of speech, and why?

— We now want to ask you an important constitutional question: When does the First Amendment allow the government to limit speech? We want to hear what you think. But to clarify, we’re not asking for your opinion about policy. In other words, we’re not asking whether a certain type of speech, like flag burning or hate speech, should be protected or prohibited. Instead, we’re asking you to interpret the Constitution: Does the First Amendment protect that speech?

Do your best to base your interpretation on the text of the amendment itself and your knowledge of how it can be understood. You may want to consult this essay in the National Constitution Center’s Interactive Constitution to learn more about how scholars and judges have interpreted the First Amendment, but rest assured, you don’t have to be a Supreme Court justice to have an opinion on this matter, and even the justices themselves often disagree.

— When you interpret the First Amendment, what do you think it has to say about the free speech issues raised in the three articles. For example:

• Does the First Amendment protect the right of students at government-run schools (public schools) to protest? What about students who attend private schools? • Does the First Amendment allow private colleges to prohibit certain controversial speakers? What about government-run colleges (public colleges)? • Finally, does the First Amendment protect voters’ right to wear whatever they want to the polling booth?

Are any of your answers different from your answers above, when you answered the three “should” questions?

— When scholars, judges and lawmakers try to balance strong speech protections with the goal of maintaining a peaceful society, what ideas or principles do you think are most important for them to keep in mind? Explain.

Students 13 and older are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.