Free Speech Debate
Free Speech Debate is a global, multilingual website based at the University of Oxford, UK, for the discussion of freedom of expression in the age of the Internet and mass migration.
Ten draft principles for global free speech are laid out, together with explanations and case studies – all for debate. Prominent figures from diverse cultures, faiths and political tendencies are interviewed and asked to comment through video, audio and text.
Individual users from across the world are strongly encouraged to take part in the online discussion. They can propose new case studies and suggest revised or entirely new principles. The project is programmatically dedicated to taking the free speech debate beyond the west and global north, into the east and south.
The entire editorial content is translated into 13 languages, covering more than 80 percent of the world’s internet users, by native-speakers of those languages. The website is actively moderated by, and the original content generated by, an international team at Oxford University, working under the leadership of historian and journalist Timothy Garton Ash.
Website: www.freespeechdebate.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/onfreespeech
Associate's Articles
Legislation allowing the Olympic organisers to control the “association” of the games with approved products – required by the IOC as a condition of a successful bid – disadvantages the community stakeholders of major sporting events, argues Teresa Scassa.
The downside of open access
Why information philanthropy is bad for the South
The impact of open access publishing models on the developing world is uncertain, writes Jorge L. Contreras. Until “information philanthropy” is supplanted by self-sufficient, south-focused open-access journals, the potential of developing world scientists will not be fully realised.
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, says “climate change sceptics” also enjoy the right to free speech yet advises the media to take more care in identifying the credentials of “experts”.
A new EU data regulation directive fails to relax unduly tight restrictions on collecting and distributing data, writes David Erdos. Despite exemptions for use of private data in journalistic, artistic and research contexts, freedom of expression is still downgraded in European legislation.
In the UK, the use of “superinjunctions” to prevent media from publishing intimate details about the private lives of public figures has been widely condemned by free speech advocates, who see them as a privilege of the wealthy and inimical to the public interest. A recent parliamentary report has, however, endorsed the judgement of the British courts, even recommending that breaches of privacy by online media be “filtered”. Leading free speech expert Eric Barendt defends the report against its critics.
Free speech advocates opposed to the prohibition of hate speech tend to underrate the harm hate speech causes, argues Jeremy Waldron. Where it exists, such legislation upholds a public good by protecting the basic dignitary order of society.
To argue for hate speech legislation on the basis that it protects the dignity of individuals is to confuse an interest with a fundamental right, argues Ivan Hare. Not only is legislation ineffective, it helps disseminate the very thing it intends to suppress.