Search

This article calls for research articles or essays devoted to an exploration of the history of free expression in the U.S.

Acknowledging that the government is a user of social networks may help us to better understand its attempt to regulate them. This paper draws on the French case to show different ways of regulating hate speech online. It then turns to the peculiar case of hate speech expressed by the government. There are good reasons to consider that government hate speech can be restricted in Europe as well as in the United States. Europe and the United States however pull apart when the government regulate the discussion space below its online speech. Here, European governments are under an obligation to fight hate speech, when U.S. government infringes the First Amendment when it attempts to do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe restrictions on freedoms of expression and press that have arisen during the coronavirus pandemic and to show the public health impact of these restrictions. Design/methodology/approach: General PubMed and Google searches were used to review human rights violations both historically and during the current coronavirus pandemic. Special attention was paid to publications produced by groups dedicated to monitoring human rights abuses. Findings: During the coronavirus pandemic, many governments have used the guise of controlling the virus to silence critics and stifle the press. Though these restrictions were supposedly orchestrated to fight the virus, they have done just the opposite: suppression of expression and press has hindered public health efforts and exacerbated the spread of the virus. By reducing case reporting, allowing for the spread of misinformation and blocking productive debate, violations of human rights to free expression and press have worsened the coronavirus outbreak. Originality/value: This study shows the ways in which human rights are both threatened and particularly important in crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decline of interest among sociologists in the works of Talcott Parsons over the last several decades has been driven in substantial respects by a belief that he was personally conservative in his political views and that his theoretical formulations were rigidly tied to a conservative view of social order. The present paper reviews Parsons' major political involvements through the course of his career from his student days through the last decade of his life. The review demonstrates that Parsons was a typical academic liberal of his time and that his liberalism was expressed especially in several major applied essays. In the 1930s, he was an early and active opponent of Nazism. During World War II, he taught professionals to administer occupied territories and nations effectively. After the war, he advocated for government support of the social sciences, citing the important contributions they had made to the war effort. In the 1950s, he wrote a famous critical analysis of the Joseph McCarthy movement in American politics. In the 1960s, he contributed supportive essays to the Civil Rights movement. Later in the decade and in the 1970s, he contributed to the protection of academic freedoms while also proposing accommodations to the demands of the student movement for more "relevant" teaching and greater participation in university governance. Throughout his career, he taught and worked closely with students of various political views and sought to protect their rights of freedom of political expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea that economic activities may be described and studied as ‘embedded’ in social relations has been central to much debate in recent economic sociology. The present paper analyses legal struggles over the status of begging in US law and argues that conflicting rhetorical accounts of begging illustrate social actors’ efforts to articulate the interconnectedness of their social world, including the ways in which economic practices are embedded in their social and institutional contexts. The paper thus suggests that embeddedness is not just something identified by social researchers, but also aproblemfaced by social actors as they try to understand the socio-economic order in which they live and act. By arguing for or against the claim that begging is simultaneously an economic action and the exercise of the right to freedom of expression, the voices in this debate attempted to affect the future of this marginal economic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Revista de Derecho Politico is the property of Editorial UNED and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The relationship between copyright and freedom of expression has long been debated. Unlike the legal discourse in other jurisdictions, most notably the United States, where it is assumed that free speech and copyright do not collide, in Europe both rights have separate legal effect and are considered to be of equal importance. As a result, when an individual refers to the human right of free speech to hold and impart copyright protected material, it triggers the collision between the two rights. This paper highlights and explores these relationships between copyright and freedom of expression in Europe, offering an in-depth analysis of the human rights scope of copyright and free speech, as well as examining the circumstances under which each conflicting right should prevail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on U.S. Court's treatment of campaign speech and individuals' versus political organizations' speech rights in the U.S. Accordingly, the paper discusses the Court's historical approach to free speech jurisprudence, notes the special circumstances carved out for different kinds of speech, and reviews the history of both school and campaign speech law. The paper also posits a different view of free speech rights that, if adopted, could reconcile the inconsistencies in the Court's interpretation of free speech right for different parties. Finally, it demonstrates how adoption of these views would resolve the problematic subversion of individual rights to those of political organizations.

The People v. Larry Flynt initiated a public discussion in the United States on 'freedom of expression'. By analyzing reviews and discussion of the movie in US news- papers and magazines, I look at the way in which 'freedom of expression' is constructed as a core American liberty. I argue that this construction is an example of ideological fantasy, which relies on a fetishization of individual expression as proof of freedom. The public discussion I analyze constructs a fantasy of exaggerated 'freedom' by focusing on individual and sexual elements of speech and ignoring economic constraints on speech in the movie and in US political and social life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study will contain an analysis on the international and regional standards in the field of freedom of expression, as stipulated in the United Nations conventions and in the European Convention of Human Rights. Further we will establish a link between the breach of the freedom of expression when cases of violence against journalists arise, especially tackling the impunity problem. The paper will focus on the study of the ECtHR judgements regarding freedom of expression and cases of violence against journalists. Also, we will address the recent recommendations at the Council of Europe level. Concluding, the study will attempt to express some recommendations in solving the problem of violence against journalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID‐19 hit the United States in January 2020, quickly resulting in stay‐at‐home orders that sent the U.S. economy into a major recession. The federal government leveraged fiscal, regulatory, and monetary policies to provide relief. Decisions had to be made in a complex environment wrought with difficult choices, complicated by the federalist governing system in the United States. Myers (2016, p. 202) asserted, "If an event like the [1918 influenza] pandemic were to occur in the United States, it is important that the government be prepared, not only in terms of material, but ethically." We analyze the ethical choices of the initial responses by reviewing early U.S. government responses and the impact of culture, federalism, and justice. We conclude that utilitarian analyses of balancing infection rates and economic impacts must be supplemented with Kantian principles of not treating people as means to an end, balancing the protection of individual freedoms with the good of society, and protecting vulnerable groups. As governments prepare for future crises, ethical considerations should be built into those plans as guardrails to guide decision‐makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What follows is an original case study of our First Amendment law of free expression and how it is created by the Supreme Court. Drawing heavily on heretofore unpublished internal papers from the chambers of Justice William Brennan and other Justices, this Article reveals how the 1964 landmark decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan was once in serious jeopardy of being overruled. In the course of this discussion, and in their examination of the evolution of the Court's decision in Dun & Bradstreet v. Greenmoss Builders (1985), the authors describe and analyze: (1) how and to what extent the holdings in Sullivan and Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974) came to be reconsidered; (2) how the nature of the expression at issue in Greenmoss Builders factored into the examination of this defamation case and changed the way the First Amendment limits the common law of defamation; (3) how the members of the Burger Court considered the question of the media versus non-media status of a defendant in a defamation case; (4) how the Justices grappled with the question of the legitimacy under the First Amendment of presumed and punitive damages awards in defamation actions; (5) how the issue of the difference between private speech and public speech came to take on constitutional significance; (6) whether the Court should reconsider the balance it struck in Sullivan between the public's interest in being fully informed about public officials and public affairs and the competing interest of those who have been defamed in vindicating their reputation; and (7) how all of this ultimately influenced and determined the outcome in Greenmoss Builders. In the swirl of this discussion and examination of the historical record, the reader gets a rare glimpse of the inner workings of the Court and its clerks along with a better appreciation of how consensus is built and lost, replete with occasional barbs. Moreover, this Article reveals just how laborious the shaping of First Amendment doctrine can be, given the issues (some never fully discussed in published opinions) raised by the Justices in their consideration of the Greenmoss Builders ease. In these respects and others, this Article informs the reader of some of the central (albeit internal) moments in the history of defamation law following Sullivan and thereby sheds new light on how the law in this area might be shaped in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses on the problems and relevant solutions associated with online intermediaries. It provides information these intermediaries affects user's freedom of expression, privacy and ability of innovate. It depicts that intermediary liability encourages intermediaries to prevent content and built innovative new technologies for surveillance. It reveals that the U.S. government has become attentive to provide protection to public considering intermediary liability legislation.

This article examines the use of originalist citations by Supreme Court justices in First Amendment freedom of expression opinions. It quantitatively examines when justices use originalist citations and qualitatively explores the content of the justices' citations to determine how the justices are describing the original meaning of the First Amendment. The article concludes that justices uncritically relied on the citations as authoritative; that although it is identified with conservatism and judicial constraint, originalism was frequently used by liberal justices to expand constitutional protections; and that the "blank slate" of originalism makes it a useful tool for originalists and non-originalists alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study asks whether tribal journalists appeal to peoplehood or nationhood for authority for their exercise of rhetorical sovereignty and freedom of expression. Freedoms of expression and information, in the context of indigenous tribes in the United States, belong to anyone who practices rhetorical sovereignty of those peoples by communicating what is in the best interests of those peoples. Then, to support that thesis, the study uses rhetorical critiques of writings and historical examples about free expression by tribal journalists and communicators to discuss this issue in a way that helps us understand that freedoms of press and information in their varying forms essential for the survival and prosperity of indigenous peoples, that rhetorical sovereignty is a theoretical framework that helps us to understand how freedom of press or expression comes from the hearts of the tribes, and that tribal journalists are examples of some of the best practices of rhetorical sovereignty and freedoms of press and information for the good of their people. Some of the examples include Elias Boudinot (Cherokee) and William Apess (Pequot) from the early nineteenth century, and Mark Trahant (Shoshone-Bannock) and Tom Arviso Jr. (Navajo) from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at how the U.S. judicial system is interpreting the permissive religious accommodation provisions of the First Amendment of the Constitution. This paper argues that the lack of clear guidance from the court has led to inconsistent results that shrink the space between what the Establishment Clause forbids and what the Free Exercise Clause demands. It also provides a case study on the state of religious accommodation in public schools, focusing on a public elementary school that attempted to accommodate minority religious beliefs.

Copyright of Policy & Internet is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the separation of church and state in the U.S. It is stated that the issue of separation of church and state has great moral, legal, and political importance, and the subject currently holds special interest. Moreover, the author discusses the separation of church and state from a conceptual and moral standpoint and builds a framework that clears up certain moral, legal and political questions about religion and civil life. The paper also discusses several aspects of the separation including the content of the separation doctrine, normative grounds for separation of church and state, applications of the institutional doctrine, separation of church and state as a doctrine of conscience and the religion and morality in a free and democratic society.

Since World War II, U.S. citizens have reported overwhelming agreement that freedom of expression is a basic right. But, like the law on free expression, public opinion shows that citizen rights to free expression are not absolute or unidimensional, but conditional. To better understand the extent of citizen rights to free expression according to the U.S. public, this study examines data from an online national survey (N = 2,600) in which twenty-five types of expression were offered for respondent agreement that "U.S. citizens should have a right to...." According to the respondents, the free expression types to which citizens have the most rights were expressing political opinions, making a political speech, picketing as a union member, and wearing a black armband in protest. The least endorsed rights were lying in the news, lying generally, protesting outside a church funeral service for a veteran, using racist language in a speech, and burning the American flag. Demographic analyses showed agreement with rights to free expression was highest among younger respondents, non-whites and males. Further analysis confirmed that freedom of expression is not unidimensional, with four main dimensions underlying perceptions of the twenty-five types. These dimensions were identified as repugnant expression, historical political expression, un-patriotic expression, and avoiding compelled expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Article provides a comparative critique of hate speech jurisprudence in New Zealand and the United States by building on insights from Critical Race Theory (CRT) scholars. My main argument is that neither of these liberal democracies protect the right to freedom of expression/speech as they claim, but in fact dishonestly protect a right to "freedom of expression of racism" or "freedom of racist speech." They do this by telling lies that inflate the value of free expression/speech and diminish and dismiss the harms that hate speech inflicts on marginalized groups. To move towards honest hate speech laws in both jurisdictions, I propose a communications strategy that seeks to reframe hate speech from a free speech issue to a public health issue. This is in order to push for reforms that will enable the courts to better protect people of color from the physical, mental, psychological or spiritual harms of racist hate speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines questions relating to the appropriate role of digital intermediaries in regulating online terrorist-related content and the extent to which proponents of human rights should be concerned with the free speech implications of intermediary liability, through a comparative analysis of recent developments in Europe and the United States. While Europe is contemplating introducing compulsory frameworks to regulate intermediaries, the United States is continuing to apply existing frameworks that incorporate traditional notions of harm and causation and immunise intermediaries for the expression of third party users. Ultimately, this examination leads to the conclusion that compulsory regulation of intermediaries for online terrorist-related speech creates significant dangers to the exercise of free speech, the effects of which ripple far beyond the terrestrial borders of those jurisdictions engaging in such regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues in favour of the use of Investor–State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) as a mechanism for enforcing global freedom of the press. Commentators have increasingly recognized the potential of investor–State arbitration as a method for promoting good governance by host States. Given the shared preoccupation of international human rights law and ISDS with the protection of the individual against State action, it is unsurprising that the right to property, due process, and non-discrimination each has its analogue in investment treaty standards. This article summarizes disputes in which news and media organizations, as commercial actors, have successfully sought provisional measures and awards to address State controls on freedom of expression, through common investment protections such as Fair and Equitable Treatment (FET). Through this, the article highlights both the substantive and procedural advantages of this mode of dispute settlement, as well as the risks inherent in initiating arbitration against a State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prison libraries have traditionally fulfilled many purposes for their incarcerated patrons, and these libraries often carry a diverse collection to serve varied patron needs. However, during the trial of Steven Hayes for the Petit family murders, the prosecution questioned the collection development policies of the institutions where Hayes had previously been incarcerated, requesting the reading lists in efforts to prove that his salacious choices in literature fueled his crimes. This request by prosecution brought two major issues into question, including (1) the collection development policies of US prison libraries and (2) the question of patron privacy in prison libraries. This article investigates current prison library policies on collection development and confidentiality of patron borrowing records through an exploratory survey of seventeen librarians currently working in correctional institutions throughout the United States. Their responses detail collection development policies in the prison library and present the ambiguity for handling the confidentiality of patron borrowing records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses whether the 2017 model state legislation titled Campus Free Speech Act developed by the Goldwater Institute is legal based on the First Amendment's Free Speech Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Other topics include the student protests in public colleges and universities due to speaking invitations of controversial personalities, the promotion of university policies on freedom of expression, and the similar laws passed by such states as Arkansas, Colorado, and Florida.

Against the backdrop of the regulatory furore over 'fake news', this article examines the protection that is afforded to untruthful expression by the European Court of Human Rights and by national courts in Germany, the UK and the US. It argues that the suppression of 'fake news' in the face of uncertainty over the contours of this highly politicised term and of the evidentiary vacuum as to the harm posed, may run counter to constitutional guarantees of free speech. Regulatory interventions seeking to curb the flow of 'fake news', which is not per se illegal, require careful consideration lest they should empower governments or unaccountable technology corporations without editorial culture to become the arbiters of truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on novelty and depth of challenge that online platforms present to free speech and provides a conceptual overview of the risks. It mentions eclectic range of interventions policymakers might someday bring to the platformed public sphere and decision of U.S. supreme Court in the case Schenck v. United States on Speech Clause of the First Amendment. It also mentions principles for courts to consider as they adapt First Amendment law to the new technological and social reality.

Recently, scholars have developed and debated an account of the U.S. Supreme Court's First Amendment freedom of expression agenda that connects the ideological identity of the speaker to the justices' votes. Paralleling this discussion, others have debated whether the Roberts Court has been distinctively "pro-speech" or politically conservative in these decisions. These accounts meet in that they share a concern, explicit or implicit, for the importance of content-valid decision direction indicators. This article develops a provisional alternative to conventional and more recent indicators of ideological decision direction (or case polarity) in modern freedom of expression decisions. This "composite indicator" is constructed as a series of "INUS Conditions," or "an insufficient but non-redundant part of a condition which is itself unnecessary but sufficient for the result," that takes into account the speaker, speech suppressor, and valence of the speech act identified in each free speech decision issued during the 2005-2014 terms of the Roberts Court and 1994-2004 terms of the Rehnquist Court. In other words, membership in the sets of "conservative," "liberal," or "undetermined" categories of Supreme Court decisions follows from the presence of multiple conditions—the type of speaker, speech act, and the partisan identity of the speech suppressor—which can be configured in multiple ways. In assessing the performance of this new concept measurement through a series of fundamental models, I find that conventional indicators may overstate the conservatism of the Court in free expression cases, and that—during the Roberts Court era—the relationship between values and votes becomes more tenuous under the composite indicator. More broadly, it is hoped that this project will encourage continued discussion across the quantitative and qualitative cultures in the course of developing accounts of judicial behavior at the U.S. Supreme Court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent application of the right of publicity doctrine to interactive media has led to inconsistent rulings and uncertainty as to the doctrine's scope when pitted against First Amendment considerations. These recent court decisions have inadequately explained the disparate application of legal principles, raising serious free speech concerns for expressive activities with other emerging interactive media platforms such as virtual reality. However, these recent decisions have unveiled discernible principles that help explain the disparate approach of the right of publicity doctrine to new interactive media. This Article articulates the assumptions guiding the disparate application of the right of publicity doctrine. This Article begins with a historical overview of the right of publicity doctrine and the various approaches adopted by the courts. It will then focus attention on the transformative work test and address the recent analytical pivot--from a holistic examination of the interactive work "as a whole" to a myopic focus on the individual avatar--by employing a natural rights theory argument to explain the courts' narrow approach to transformativeness. Furthermore, this Article makes the case that the courts' discordant doctrinal treatment of interactive entertainment media is premised in the misplaced notion that the medium lacks artistry and authorial signature (i.e., interactive games are not art, but rather craft). Finally, this work advances the argument that while today's interactive games present rich historical and pedagogical content, courts have failed to adequately apply common law and statutory exemptions that not only include news, but works of fiction, entertainment, public affairs, and sports accounts, from right of publicity liability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on U.S. President Donald Trump's contribution to women's human rights. It mentions about claims made by marchers that are better understood as emerging human rights law, such as the claims against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and the right to a healthy environment. It also mentions about rights to freedom of expression, access to the courts, to associate with others, and the rights to vote and to be elected.