Tag: free speech
Why Republicans Are Turning Against Free Speech
The American right has lost the plot on free speech. The passage of Florida’s House Bill 1557, which bans “classroom instruction” on “sexual orientation and gender identity” in kindergarten through third grade and in a manner that isn’t “age appropriate or developmentally appropriate” in all grades, K–12, is merely the latest in a string of what the free-speech-advocacy organization PEN America has called “education gag orders” that have been proposed by Republicans and passed by red-state legislatures from coast to
Maria Ressa: How Disinformation Manipulates Elections
In the Philippines, we’re 33 days before our presidential elections. Filipinos are going to the poll and we are choosing 18,000 posts, including the president and vice president. And how do you have integrity of elections if you don’t have integrity of facts? That’s a reality that we’re living with.
I put all of this stuff together in a book, and this is part of the reason you’ll see these ideas over and over. And the question I really want
Of Course Elon Musk Wanted Twitter
Long before the rockets and the electric cars, before the high-speed trains and the brain implants and the flamethrowers, Elon Musk was in the content business.
In 1996, Zip2, the company he’d founded with his brother, started courting newspapers with a service that would allow them to build online directories of classified ads, real-estate listings, car deals, and entertainment events. The internet was still new and mysterious, and news organizations around the country were glad to have help getting online.
Canadian Truckers Polarize American Commentators
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely, intriguing conversations and solicits reader responses to one question of the moment. Every Friday, he publishes some of your most thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
With another Valentine’s Day just behind us, I’m reminded of the profound changes in social conceptions of love, marriage, sex, and romance across centuries, and the smaller changes that I’ve witnessed personally during
What College Students Really Think About Cancel Culture
Every couple of months it seems the news features another college-campus free-speech incident. In 2021, for instance, a University of Rochester professor was suspended after quoting texts that contained a racial slur; MIT canceled a lecture by a speaker who’d criticized diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; and a handful of students across the country felt they were kept out of campus leadership positions due to their conservative beliefs.
Because of events like these, many political commentators write about the threat
‘There’s So Much That’s Not in the Constitution’
During oral argument at the Supreme Court in December over Mississippi’s abortion ban, Justice Sonia Sotomayor laid bare a fundamental truth: “There’s so much that’s not in the Constitution.”
Her point is a deep one, and salient to the abortion debate: The text of the Constitution does not explicitly affirm the right to abortion; no one disagrees with that. But the Constitution protects far more than what it literally describes. Unwritten ideas necessarily guide even the strictest readings of the
These Progressives Fought the Good Fight in 2021—and Gave Us Hope for 2022
Facebook Papers: ‘History Will Not Judge Us Kindly’
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Before I tell you what happened at exactly 2:28 p.m. on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, at the White House—and how it elicited a very specific reaction, some 2,400 miles away, in Menlo Park, California—you need to remember the mayhem of that day, the exuberance of the mob as it gave itself over to violence, and how several things seemed to happen all at once.
At 2:10 p.m., a live microphone captured a Senate aide’s panicked warning that “protesters
Elnathan John on Satire and Cancel Culture
Few observers of global discourse range as widely as Elnathan John, the novelist, satirist, and lawyer who frequently participates online and off in conversations about art, politics, and culture pertaining to at least three continents. His novel, Born on a Tuesday, is a coming-of-age story set in his native Nigeria. In Becoming Nigerian: A Guide, he tried his hand at satire.
Today, John lives in Berlin, where, in addition to writing, he works with academic institutions to foster
North Carolina Finds That Banning Indoctrination Is Hard
Among the dozens of bills filed by Republicans to restrict how educators teach about race, perhaps none was more carefully written than the one in North Carolina. And therein lies the larger problem with such bills: The downside of even the most cautious efforts likely outweighs their benefits.
In numerous other states, legislators purporting to target critical race theory or “divisive concepts” have packaged sensible reforms—including prohibitions on requiring students to proclaim particular points of view—together with irresponsible clauses