“Internet Speech Will Never Go Back to Normal”, wrote Jack Goldsmith and Andrew Keane Woods in a recent Atlantic article, where they stated that the U.S. must learn from China in regulating the internet, and that “significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing internet, and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the internet is compatible with a society’s norms and values.”&nbsp;   But is this conclusion the only one available from the fallout of the coronavirus crisis? Or are there other ways to ensure a mature and flourishing internet, where free speech and public health go hand in hand? Here to discuss the issue is two of the biggest experts on the subject on internet law and platform regulation: Daphne Keller and Kate Klonick.&nbsp;   In this episode we discuss:&nbsp;   - whether social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube been paragons of responsibility or the lapdogs of censorious governments when it comes to content moderation?&nbsp;   - if the current crisis justifies lowering the threshold for when content is deemed “harmful” or should we be even more vigilant about keeping stuff up and accessible?&nbsp;   - are there specific problems in the policy of following the guidelines of health authorities like WHO and CDC which have changed on issues like facemasks and included inaccurate information about the nature of COVID-19?&nbsp;   - what is the impact and promise of automated content moderation based on the performance during the pandemic?&nbsp;   -&nbsp; whether democracies – particularly European ones – have weakened the immune system of online freedom because they have chosen to respond to legitimate concerns about hate speech, disinformation and terrorist content with illiberal laws?     Daphne Keller is the Platform Regulation Director at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, and has formerly been an Associate General Counsel at Google. She tweets @daphnehk&nbsp;   Kate Klonick is a Assistant Professor at St. John’s University teaching in internet Law and information privacy and a fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project. Se tweets @Klonick&nbsp;&nbsp;   Links to readings discussed in the podcast:&nbsp;   Jack Goldsmith and Andrew Keane Woods: “Internet Speech Will Never Go Back to Normal”: &nbsp;   Samuel Walkers book “Hate Speech”: &nbsp;   Daphne Keller: ”Who Do You Sue”: &nbsp;&nbsp;

Special Edition - Daphne Keller & Kate Klonick

In this Special Edition, we will zoom in on current challenges to free speech – specifically in the US. With me to discuss this timely subject, I have&nbsp; CEO of PEN America, Suzanne Nossel, who has just published her new book Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All. The conversation evolves the main conclusions of Suzanne's book including matters such as:  How Suzanne´s fight against an international blasphemy law at the UN inspired her to write the book How Suzanne's 20 principles for free speech aims to provide a toolset needed to speak one's mind in today's diverse, digitized, and highly-divided society without resorting to curbs on free expression How we deal with hate speech without sacrificing free speech What we can do to avoid harm when speaking How so-called cancel culture has migrated from campus to elite media, corporate and cultural institutions How to balance social media platforms right to control public discourse and the snowballing societal consensus that media platforms need to do more to mitigate the harms of content posted on their services.  Suzanne Nossel is the CEO of PEN America. She has also served as the Chief Operating Officer of Human Rights Watch and as Executive Director of Amnesty International USA; and held senior State Department positions in the Clinton and Obama administrations. Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall. You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on&nbsp;,&nbsp;,&nbsp;,&nbsp;, and&nbsp;,&nbsp;or download episodes directly from&nbsp;. Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;pages, or visit the podcast’s website at&nbsp;. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Special Edition - Suzanne Nossel

In May 2020, protests erupted all over the U.S. after a video emerged of a white police officer killing a black man named George Floyd. Millions took to the streets in support of racial justice under the rallying cry “Black Lives Matter.” Most protests were peaceful, but several cities experienced large-scale violence. Free speech was also affected in the process. A disturbing number of incidents of police brutality and excessive force against peaceful protesters and journalists were documented. President Trump accused a Black Lives Matter leader of “treason, sedition, insurrection” and labelled protestors as “terrorists.” But demands for structural change also led to calls for de-platforming people whose views were deemed hostile to or even insufficiently supportive of racial justice. A Democratic data analyst named David Shor was  after tweeting a study that showed that nonviolent black-led protests were more effective than violent ones in terms of securing voter support. In another instance, New York Times staffers protested that the newspaper put “Black @NYTimes staff in danger” by running a provocative  by Republican Senator Tom Cotton, which argued for deploying the military to quell riots. The newsroom revolt led to opinion editor James Bennet resigning.&nbsp; Academia was affected too. A  signed by hundreds of Princeton faculty members, employees and students demanded a faculty committee be established to “oversee the investigation and discipline of racist behaviors, incidents, research, and publication” and write “Guidelines on what counts as racist.” Social media companies came under  to take a more robust stand on “hate speech.”&nbsp; The entrenchment of so-called “cancel culture” caused around 150, mostly liberal, writers and intellectuals to sign an open “.” The letter argued against what the signers saw as “intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty.” The letter drew sharp criticism from many journalists, writers and intellectuals for being “tone-deaf,” “privileged,” “elitist” and detracting from or even hurting the struggle for racial justice.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The wider debate often turned nasty — especially on social media — with loud voices on each side engaging in alarmist, bad faith arguments ascribing the worst intentions to their opponents. Many of those concerned about free speech warned of creeping totalitarianism imposed by “social justice warriors” run amok, intent on imposing a stifling orthodoxy of “wokeism.” Some confused vehement criticism of a person’s ideas with attempts to stifle that person’s speech. On the other hand, some racial justice activists outright denied the existence of “cancel culture” and failed to distinguish between vehement criticism of a person’s ideas and calling for that person to be sanctioned by an employer, publisher or university. Some even accused free speech defenders of being complicit in or actual defenders of white supremacy and compared words deemed racially insensitive with violence.&nbsp; Underlying these debates is a more fundamental question. Is a robust and principled approach to free speech a foundation for — or a threat to — racial justice?&nbsp; To help shed light on this question, this episode will focus on what role the dynamic between censorship and free speech has played in maintaining and challenging racist and oppressive societies. The episode will use American slavery and segregation, British colonialism, and South African apartheid as case studies.&nbsp;&nbsp; In this episode we will explore:  How Southern legislators and congressmen adopted some of the most draconian restrictions of free speech in American history, while Southern mobs enforced a “slaver’s veto” to curb abolitionist speech and ideas; How Southern demands that the Federal government and...

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