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My aim in this essay is to scrutinize J.S. Mill and other influential consequentialist liberals, most notably Baker and Scanlon, arguing that the fear of potentially harmful consequences has led them to ignore present tangible harm. The Autonomy Argument is examined and Scanlon's distinction between participant interests, audience interests, and the interests of bystanders is put under close scrutiny. It is argued that democracy is required to develop protective mechanisms against harm-facilitating speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The project of cultivating norms of polite sociability - the project that unites the work of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, with that of Joseph Addison and Richard Steele - can be understood in part as an early modern response to the problem of religious hate speech. Faced with acrimonious debate over orthodoxy and dissent in the Church of England, these writers sought to foster an alternative vision of amiable religious discourse by promoting a conception of a civil subject characterized by well-regulated and refined social interaction. Their strategy, which has become a central legacy of liberalism, conceals its own contestability by shifting from the political to the social realm - from a realm of expected conflict to a realm characterized by mutual benefit and cooperation. This appeal to "coffeehouse civility," however, is unable to answer the challenge of otherworldly commitment and thus fails to achieve its explicit purpose, a social realm free of acrimony. In its failure it risks deepening the very tensions that it aims it relieve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European countries restrict hate speech, the United States does not. This much is clear. What explains this difference? Too often the current discussion falls back on a culturally rich but normatively vacant exceptionalism (American or otherwise) or a normatively driven convergence perspective that fails to address historical, cultural and experiential differences that distinguish countries and legal systems. Inspired by the development discourse of historical sociology, this article seeks to record instances where Americans or Europeans have argued their approach to hate speech laws was more "advanced" or "modern." This article focuses on two authors whose writing appears to make these claims: Karl Loewenstein and Robert Post. A German Jewish émigré fleeing Nazi Germany, Loewenstein warned Americans that fascism was a new, modern phenomenon that required a new democracy, one that could protect itself by restricting speech. Post's position on democracy is quite different - he finds hate speech restrictions largely incompatible with democratic legitimacy. While at times Post shows an exceptionalist unwillingness to judge Europe for its lack of hate speech laws, at other points he is quite willing to say that a stable successful democracy does not ban hate speech. Tracking the competing claims of Loewenstein and Post opens the door to a more fluid analysis of European and American positions on hate speech - one that is both comparative and normative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on substantive issues of free expression and privacy (FE/P), including such specific issues as political speech, hate speech, pornography, and defamation. The ways in which ongoing contestation over FE/P Issues on the Internet is being regularized and institutionalized are discussed. Formal international institutions such as Internet Governance Forum (IGF) are discussed, showing that they have little power over FE/P policy.