Join Us! The 2026 Global Free Speech Summit returns on October 2–3 in Nashville, TN. Hosted by The Future of Free Speech and Vanderbilt University, this event brings together global leaders, thinkers, and change-makers to confront the most urgent threats to freedom of expression and explore bold, resilient solutions. Guests will have the opportunity to attend networking receptions where they can exchange ideas with speakers and other guests.

🎟️ Spots are limited. Get your tickets here.

This Week at a Glance 🔎

• 🇺🇲 U.S. Senate Marks Up “Jawboning” Legislation

• 📲 California Enacts Child-Safety Tech Laws

• 🇪🇺 EU Unveils Kids Act

• 🇹🇷 Turkey Detains Dozens in Anti-LGBTQ+ Raids

• 🇧🇩 Bangladesh Cyber Protection Draft Amendments Threaten Media

First of All 🇺🇲

» Senate Marks Up “Jawboning” Legislation

• The Senate Commerce Committee approved legislation targeting “jawboning,” or government pressure on companies to censor certain speech.

• The Bill:

  • Individuals, broadcasters, and platforms could sue government agencies or employees over coercion to alter or remove speech.

  • It requires a public database of government communications with platforms, broadcasters, and AI providers.

  • It would potentially strip Section 230 protection from platforms that make content decisions based on government communications.

  • Exceptions are carved out for communications that are part of investigations, federal law enforcement, or national security.

  • The bill received bipartisan support in the committee, reflecting frustration with government censorship across the political spectrum.

Our Take: Jeff Kosseff wrote that the bill, building on First Amendment precedent, would better protect the companies and individuals facing government pressure by creating a private right of action and providing transparency.

» Kimmel Shelves Talarico Interview Over FCC Threats

• ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel declined to air his interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico over fears the FCC would target it for violating the equal time rule.

• Details:

  • Instead, Kimmel’s show posted the interview to YouTube, where it drew 3.6 million views in 16 hours – more than double his typical broadcast audience of 1.5 million.

• Context:

  • This is Talarico’s second streaming redirect in 2026 – Stephen Colbert’s CBS show did the same in February, as included in a previous Free Flow.

  • The equal time rule requires that broadcasters give all legally qualified candidates equal airtime.

  • Since 1984, the FCC’s “bona fide news” exemption has let chat shows freely host candidates – including Donald Trump, who appeared twice on Kimmel’s show before his 2016 nomination.

  • FCC Chairman Brendan Carr revoked the exemption in January, as mentioned in a previous Free Flow.

  • ABC pulled Kimmel off air for a week in 2025, after Carr threatened agency action over separate remarks, as detailed in a previous Free Flow.

Our Take: Ashkhen Kazaryan warned that the FCC’s actions send a message to students and future policymakers that agencies can target speech they dislike. “Our constitutional system will withstand and protect the speech rights that are under attack today. But today’s students are tomorrow’s policymakers. If we want them to inherit a First Amendment worth defending, we can’t treat it like an afterthought today.”

We’ve also submitted comments urging the FCC against the early license renewal of ABC stations, and arguing it declares The View, another ABC interview show, exempt from the rule.

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The Digital Age 🤖

» California Enacts Sweeping Child-Safety Tech Laws

• Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of laws restricting how social media platforms and AI chatbots interact with minors.

• Details:

  • The laws ban autoplay and personalized algorithmic feeds for users under 16.

  • AI chatbot providers must alert parents when a young user shows signs of emotional distress.

  • Platforms that negligently harm children face fines up to $1 million per child.

  • The bills also require the state to create a registry of independent AI-safety auditors.

Our Take: Writing on Meta’s $17.1 billion child-safety settlement, Jeff Kosseff argued that government efforts to protect children online risk handing authorities the power to shape content and erode platforms’ First Amendment right to set their own policies.

The Brussels Effect: Europe and Beyond 🇪🇺

» EU Unveils KIDS Act

• The European Commission proposed the “EU Kids Act,” setting bloc-wide age restrictions for social media and other online services.

• Age Restrictions:

  • Under 13: barred from social media unless a parent opens the account and the platform proves it’s a “child-friendly” service.

  • Ages 13–15: parents can open accounts, but with added safeguards — parental oversight, one-hour screen-time limits, and restrictions on contact with strangers.

  • From 15: teens can open their own accounts.

• Additional Provisions:

  • The act covers social networks, video-sharing platforms, AI companions, chatbots, and certain gaming services – a wider net than Australia’s regulations.

  • Companies face penalties up to 6 percent of global annual sales.

• Context: The proposal follows more than a dozen member states floating their own social media bans, pressuring the Commission to act.

• What’s next: Commission officials expect approval in 8–12 months, though approval by Parliament and member states could take up to two years.

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Free Speech Recession 🌍

» Hong Kong Court Jails Tiananmen Vigil Leaders

• A Hong Kong (HK) court sentenced three organizers of annual Tiananmen Square remembrance vigils to up to seven years in prison for inciting subversion under the Beijing-imposed national security law.

• Context:

  • Lee Cheuk-yan received seven years; Chow Hang-tung, seven years and three months; and Albert Ho, who pleaded guilty, five years and two months.

  • They were convicted of “inciting subversion” earlier this month under a 2020 Beijing-imposed national security law, as mentioned in a previous Free Flow.

  • HK activists held vigils for three decades, until China banned the annual event during the pandemic.

  • Lee and Chow plan to appeal.

» Turkey Detains Dozens in Anti-LGBTQ+ Raids

• Turkish police detained at least 63 people in raids on gay bars and activists’ homes across major cities.

• Details:

  • The nation-wide crackdown launched legal proceedings against 162 individuals, nine organizations, and 13 companies, and blocked 100+ LGBTQ+ accounts on X.

  • Justice Minister Akin Gurlek tied the raids to a “Decade of the Family” initiative aimed at “protecting our children, the institution of the family, and social order.”

  • Turkey’s LGBTQ+ community is a symbol of resistance to the country’s conservative rule, making it a target of recurring crackdowns.

  • President Recep Erdogan, in power since 2003, has repeatedly called LGBTQ+ people “perverts” and blamed them for declining birth rates.

» Bangladesh Cyber Protection Draft Amendments Threaten Media

• Draft amendments to Bangladesh’s Cyber Protection Act would jail journalists for up to 10 years for circulating “rumor” and “misinformation” online.

• Details:

  • The amendments criminalize material that authorities deem “unsubstantiated or unverified” and likely to cause public confusion, panic, or unrest.

  • Cases would go before a specialized Cyber Tribunal, which could also suspend or cancel news outlets’ licenses.

  • Information and Broadcasting Minister Andaleeve Rahman said the amendments aim to stop “disorder” online and protect social harmony.

  • Previously, 255+ journalists were sued under Bangladesh’s Digital Security Act, which governed online speech from 2018–2023.

» Iran Advances Bill Restricting Contact With Foreign Media

• An Iranian bill requiring pre-approval from the Intelligence Ministry and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps for foreign interactions is advancing.

• Details:

  • Interviews and communications with “hostile” media, as well as sending materials to foreign media, is punishable by up to 2 years in prison.

  • Publishing articles and joining academic exchanges or conferences also requires pre-approval.

  • Parliament approved the bill’s framework 183- 4 in mid-August; its articles have since expanded from 19 to 33, though only the first two have passed the floor.

  • The bill will still require Guardian Council approval to become law.

» Egypt Holds Sudanese Journalist Incommunicado

• Egyptian authorities detained Al-Sudani editor-in-chief Ataf Mohamed Mokhtar and are holding him incommunicado.

• Details:

  • Authorities have disclosed no legal basis for his detention or whereabouts.

  • The arrest came after Ataf commented on a UN expert’s Sudan report that linked the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to the war, which it has denied.

  • Some outlets suspect UAE complaints led to his arrest.

  • He is being held at an undisclosed location where he is prohibited from speaking with anyone outside.

» Israeli Minister Seeks to Strip Documentary Directors of Citizenship

• Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar formally asked the government to revoke the citizenship of Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, directors of the documentary “NAZA.”

• Details:

  • The documentary examines “the systems behind Israel’s calculated mass killing” in Gaza after October 7, 2023.

  • Abraham says that Israelis need to hear directly from soldiers in the film; the Israeli Film Council accuses the film of maligning the troops.

  • Zohar wants an inquiry into whether the film constitutes “treason” or “aiding the enemy during wartime,” crimes, he argues, that free expression cannot excuse.

  • “Naza” won a prize at the 2026 Venice Film Festival, a year after the directors won an Oscar for “No Other Land,” about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

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Ashley Haek is a Communications Manager at The Future of Free Speech.

Ajdin Muratovic is the Director of Communications at The Future of Free Speech and the Managing Editor of The Bedrock Principle.

Meta’s settlement of the social media addiction case brought by 47 states has attracted substantial criticism for its concessions on speech restrictions and age assurance. But one aspect of the case likely will set a dangerous precedent involving Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Before Meta settled with the state attorneys general, it asked the district court judge in California to dismiss the lawsuits under Section 230, which immunizes online service providers such as Meta from most claims arising from user content. Although the judge concluded that Section 230 applied to some of the claims, she allowed others to proceed.

Typically, a defendant can’t immediately appeal a denial of a motion to dismiss, as appeals generally require final judgments. But there are some narrow exceptions to the final judgment rule that allow such “interlocutory appeals.” Meta attempted to appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals under one of those exceptions, the collateral order doctrine. But to do so, the court would need to agree with Meta that Section 230 provides immunity from suit. If, as the plaintiffs argued, Section 230 merely provides immunity from liability, Meta could only appeal the Section 230 ruling when it received a final judgment (such as a trial verdict).

While this seems like an in-the-weeds civil procedure peculiarity, it matters significantly when it comes to Section 230. One of Section 230’s primary benefits is that it prevents platforms from going through costly discovery and trial. While a huge company such as Meta likely could handle such expenses, the litigation costs could be enormous for a smaller platform.

And the 9th Circuit had never ruled on whether Section 230 losses qualified for early appeals. In its Aug. 10 opinion, the court concluded that they do not, because Section 230 only provides a defense to liability. As Sophia Cope of the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote last month, “the ruling should raise concerns for anyone who cares about an open and free internet.”

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But as Cope correctly notes, the text of Section 230 suggests that it provides immunity from suit, in which case the early appeal would be available. Section 230 states “[n]o cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section.” If Section 230 only protected defendants from liability, this sentence would start with “no liability may be imposed.” But Congress chose to also state that “[n]o cause of action may be brought,” suggesting full immunity from suit. The 9th Circuit acknowledged this, but summarily wrote it off as a drafting quirk: “Whatever Congress’s reason for including both phrases, sometimes the better overall reading of the statute contains some redundancy,” the court wrote.

The 9th Circuit acknowledged that the entire sentence was not in the original version of Section 230 and was added during conference committee. One might see that important change as an intentional move to create immunity from suit. But the court did not see it that way. “It would be surprising if these ‘minor modifications’ included the addition of immunity from suit,” the court wrote.

Surprise! That is exactly what the revisions to Section 230 did. As it was originally introduced, Section 230 also had a provision that barred the Federal Communications Commission from regulating internet content. The conference committee eliminated that section and added the immunity sentence. When Section 230 was initially introduced, its backers focused largely on the bill’s anti-regulatory nature. For instance, when Section 230 co-author, then-Rep. Chris Cox, introduced the bill on the House floor in August 1995, he said that it “will establish as the policy of the United States that we do not wish to have content regulation by the Federal Government of what is on the internet, that we do not wish to have a Federal Computer Commission with an army of bureaucrats regulating the internet.” But by the time it received a final vote in Congress as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Section 230 was more focused on immunity.

Indeed, the 9th Circuit’s conclusion that Section 230 only provides immunity from liability contradicts some of its earlier rulings. For instance, in Barnes v. Yahoo, a 2009 opinion that is one of the most cited 9th Circuit opinions on Section 230, the court wrote that the statute “protects certain internet-based actors from certain kinds of lawsuits.” And one of its earliest Section 230 opinions, Carafano v. Metrosplash, concluded that “Congress intended that service providers such as Matchmaker be afforded immunity from suit.” In its ruling against Meta, the court acknowledged that it used the word “‘immunity’ somewhat loosely in our section 230 jurisprudence” but wrote those cases off as nonbinding because they were not in the context of an interlocutory appeal.

Because of the weaknesses in the three-judge panel’s reasoning, Meta would have stood a reasonable chance of convincing the 9th Circuit to rehear the case en banc before a panel of 11 judges. But now that the parties have negotiated a settlement, such review is highly unlikely, meaning that this opinion will remain the law of the land in the western United States, where many small and large tech platforms are based. And that could translate into fewer options for people across the country to express themselves and receive information.

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Jeff Kosseff is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at The Future of Free Speech and the co-author (with Jacob Mchangama) of the new book The Future of Free Speech: Reversing the Global Decline of Democracy’s Most Essential Freedom (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026).

Join Us! The 2026 Global Free Speech Summit returns on October 2–3 in Nashville, TN. Hosted by The Future of Free Speech and Vanderbilt University, this event brings together global leaders, thinkers, and change-makers to confront the most urgent threats to freedom of expression and explore bold, resilient solutions. Guests will have the opportunity to attend networking receptions where they can exchange ideas with speakers and other guests.

🎟️ Spots are limited. Get your tickets here.

This Week at a Glance 🔎

• 🇺🇸 Judge lets Pentagon fire Stars and Stripes journalists

• 🇺🇸 FCC chair eyes “a lot of actions” after Trump targets NBC anchor

• 🇫🇷 Macron pushes EU-wide social media ban for under-15s

• 🇬🇧 UK police made 62,199 “speech offense” arrests in five years

• 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan jails election monitor for 13 years

First of All 🇺🇸

» Judge Lets Pentagon Fire Journalists

• A federal judge declined to block the Pentagon from firing three Stars and Stripes staffers who say they were punished for speaking out.

• Context:

  • 📰 Stars and Stripes is a military paper partially funded by the Pentagon. It is legally required to remain editorially independent.

  • Editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and reporter Lara Korte got separation notices after a CBS interview on the paper’s independence, as covered in a previous Free Flow

  • Pentagon officials directed publisher Max Lederer to fire the pair; he refused and instead announced his retirement.

• The Ruling:

  • ⚖️ U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden ruled Slavin and Korte spoke in their official roles, making their words speech that the First Amendment does not protect.

  • McFadden said editorial independence “is not at stake here” and that the plaintiffs failed to show that their firing will chill free speech.

  • At least two other suits accuse the Pentagon of interfering with the outlet’s editorial integrity and independence.

» FCC Chair Eyes Action Against Broadcasters

• FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said the agency is “looking at a lot of actions” after President Trump demanded it punish NBC’s Kristen Welker.

• Details: :

  • 📺 Welker argued that Trump-backed candidates had “mixed results” in primaries, as noted in last week’s Free Flow

  • Trump accused her of “purposeful inaccuracy” and said she “will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment.”

  • Carr signaled the FCC is weighing a ban on broadcasting “fake” polls, among other policies on political coverage.

Our Take: The Trump administration has used the FCC to target speech. We’ve been pushing back. At the Washington Examiner, Ashkhen Kazaryan and the ACLU’s Jenna Leventoff wrote: “The FCC has made its goal clear: It wants to retaliate against broadcasters with a different political bent by burying them in baseless regulatory enforcement. Such a move sends a warning to other media that they should walk the administration’s preferred line or else.”

» Court Declines to Block Minnesota “Nudify” Ban

• U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank again denied xAI’s request for a preliminary injunction against a Minnesota ban on AI tools that make sexual images of real people without their consent.

• Details:

  • ⚖️ The law, passed with near-unanimous bipartisan support, was signed in May and took effect August 1.

  • It bans website operators and software developers from using AI to create fake nudes of identifiable people, with fines of up to $500,000 per unlawful download.

  • xAI called the law a “clumsy attempt” and an “overbroad, content-based ban on free speech.”

  • xAI added that it already bars users from making nonconsensual nude images, and it has sued users who bypass its blocks to do so.

Our Take: The law “would likely discourage companies entirely from offering image generation in those states,” Jeff Kosseff warned at The Bedrock Principle. “Companies would fear that they could not guarantee with absolute certainty that users would not misuse their services, and it is unlikely that they would risk a half-million-dollar fine each time a user circumvented their controls.”

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The Digital Age 🤖

» U.S. Slams UK Plan to Boost Traditional Media

• The U.S. Embassy in London warned that a UK plan to make platforms boost traditional broadcasters “risks becoming a mechanism for viewpoint-based censorship.”

• Details:

  • 🇺🇸 The U.S. said it sets “a template that authoritarian regimes could invoke” and risks “extraterritorial censorship of protected speech by Americans.”

  • The Embassy asked what safeguards would keep UK officials’ preferences from sidelining minority viewpoints.

  • Supporters of boosting traditional media outlets such as the BBC argue that it helps combat disinformation and preserve culturally British content.

The Brussels Effect: Europe and Beyond 🇪🇺

» Macron Pushes for Under-15s Social Media Ban

• French President Emmanuel Macron urged Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to pass an EU-wide ban on social media for children under 15.

• Details:

  • Macron is turning to Brussels after France’s Constitutional Council struck down a domestic ban, as covered in a previous Free Flow.

  • Von der Leyen has backed a tiered approach that loosens restrictions as children get older; Macron wants a blanket ban for everyone under 15.

  • Several EU states — including Spain and Denmark — want to copy Australia’s landmark ban, but members differ on how to rein in addictive platforms.

» MEPs Demand EU Action on Meta

• Fifty-two MEPs demanded the Commission force Meta to strip addictive features for European minors, matching the company’s promise to U.S. states.

• Details:

  • ✉️ The letter points to Meta’s $16.7 billion settlement with U.S. states, in which it agreed to limit teen social media use, as detailed in a previous Free Flow.

  • The MEPs argue that EU inaction has left European children less protected than American ones.

  • They are also frustrated that the EU has yet to close its 2024 Digital Services Act probe into Meta.

  • MEPs want immediate fines, and, if needed, court-ordered shutdowns, which bite cash-rich tech companies far harder.

» 62,000 UK “Speech Offense” Arrests

• UK police have arrested 62,199 people for “speech offenses” in five years, per a Big Brother Watch report.

• Details:

  • 🚓 The organization argues that the “elasticity of vaguely defined speech offenses” in legislation enables overzealous policing.

  • Many activists agree that threats of violence warrant police intervention, but they argue officers are increasingly targeting “thought crimes” over physical offenses.

  • Police have arrested parents for complaining about their children’s schools and urged some to complete “online thinking skills” classes.

  • Big Brother Watch is calling on Prime Minister Andy Burnham to launch a “free speech reset” by ordering a review of speech laws and police practices.

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Free Speech Recession 🌍

» Taliban Shutters Shiite TV Station

• Taliban forces raided Rah-e-Farda TV in Kabul, forced it off the air, and took owner Salman Akhlaqi to an unknown site.

• Details:

  • 📡 The raid followed the station’s coverage of a Taliban raid on a Shiite seminary in Kabul.

  • In February, the Taliban shut down the station for three months and revoked its former owners’ license before letting it reopen under Akhlaqi.

  • It is one of the last broadcasters serving Afghanistan’s Shiite community.

» Russia Brands Novaya Gazeta “Foreign Agent”

• Russia’s Justice Ministry designated Novaya Gazeta a “foreign agent”

• Details::

  • 🇷🇺 Authorities claim the outlet publicly opposed the invasion of Ukraine, spread false election information, and collaborated with other “foreign agents.”

  • The label forces disclaimers on all published content, including social media posts.

  • Over 100 individuals tied to the paper were listed as “affiliated with foreign agents.”

  • Russia has expanded its “foreign agents” list to over 1,250 people and entities — including Nobel Prize winners and poets — in an ongoing effort to silence dissent.

» Azerbaijan Jails Election Monitor for 13 Years

• A Baku court sentenced election monitor Anar Mammadli and journalist Anar Abdullayev to 13 and 12 years in prison.

• Details:

  • ⚖️ Mammadli was charged with smuggling, illegal business, money laundering, tax evasion, and forgery.

  • Activists argue the government arbitrarily denied bail, withheld evidence, and barred witness cross-examination.

  • This is not Mammadli’s first conviction — the European Court of Human Rights found that his 2014 pre-trial arrest and detention violated the Convention on Human Rights.

  • Azerbaijan has intensified its crackdown on dissent, sentencing nine Toplum TV journalists to 12 to 15 years in prison on similar charges in July.

» Tunisian Journalists Protest Editor’s Arrest

• Journalists rallied outside a Tunis court after police arrested Mohamed Yousfi, editor of Al-Qatiba and a critic of President Kais Saied.

• Details:

  • 🚔 A judge was questioning Yousfi over illicit enrichment and money laundering charges protesters call fake.

  • Yousfi — a vocal critic of President Kais Saied — is one of several media figures the authorities have arrested this year.

  • While Tunisia saw free speech flourish after its 2011 revolution, critics say President Saied is now consolidating power and silencing dissent.

» Iran Jails Man Over Social Media Posts

• Iran sentenced café chain owner Sadegh Saeedinia to 12+ years and seized all his property for posting in support of January’s protests.

• Details:

  • 🇮🇷 Saeedinia was convicted of “propaganda against national security” and acting “on behalf of hostile groups.”

  • He supported January’s anti-regime protests on Instagram and encouraged his employees to participate.

  • Since 1979, Iran has seized regime critics’ assets — a practice it escalated following January’s protests and a war with the U.S. and its allies.

  • Reports document the seizure of property belonging to more than 400 critics this year.

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Ashley Haek is a Communications Manager at The Future of Free Speech.

Ajdin Muratovic is the Director of Communications at The Future of Free Speech and the Managing Editor of The Bedrock Principle.

Join Us! The 2026 Global Free Speech Summit returns on October 2–3 in Nashville, TN. Hosted by The Future of Free Speech and Vanderbilt University, this event brings together global leaders, thinkers, and change-makers to confront the most urgent threats to freedom of expression and explore bold, resilient solutions. Guests will have the opportunity to attend networking receptions where they can exchange ideas with speakers and other guests.

🎟️ Spots are limited. Get your tickets here.

This Week At A Glance 🔎

• 🇺🇲 Judge Rules Speech-Based Deportation Policy Unconstitutional

• 🇮🇷 Iran Revises Online Regulation Bill

• 🇪🇺 EU Adds New Platforms to DSA

• 🇹🇭 Thai Court Jails Activist Over Livestream

• 🇷🇸 Serbia Targets Opposition with Spyware

First of All 🇺🇸

» Judge Rules Speech-Based Deportation Policy Unconstitutional

• 🧑‍⚖️ A federal judge ruled the Trump administration’s attempts to arrest and deport students who criticized Israel were unconstitutional.

• Details:

  • The case was brought by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) on behalf of The Stanford Daily, a student newspaper at Stanford University.

  • The paper claimed that several members resigned or withdrew stories about Israel or Gaza, fearing it could lead to their deportation.

  • Judge Noel Wise declared that the Trump administration was using a vague provision to revoke visas or deport students over protected speech.

» House of Representatives Passes Bill Limiting University Boycotts of Israel

• 📃 The House of Representatives passed a bill that penalizes universities for participating in boycotts of Israel. The bill heads to the Senate for consideration.

• The Bill:

  • Colleges and universities participating in federal student aid programs are prohibited from participating in boycotts of Israel.

  • Institutions receiving federal funding for international study and foreign language programs must certify that they do not bar students from programs in Israel.

  • They must also not restrict students from Israel from participating in campus programs.

» Trump Asks FCC to Punish TV Host

• 📺 President Trump said he will report NBC “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker to the FCC for “rebuke or punishment” over her read of his endorsement record.

• Details:

  • Trump charged Welker with “purposeful inaccuracy” after she said his candidate endorsements had “mixed results.”

  • “The Press is a Disgrace to our Nation, and I hope that Chairman Brendan Carr, and the fine people of his Commission, will take this Threat to our Country very seriously,” Trump concluded.

  • Trump also walked out on an interview with Welker in June, after she pressed him on claims of “crooked” elections.

Our Take: We’ve submitted public comments on three FCC actions over the past few months targeting viewpoints it dislikes. At the Washington Examiner, Ashkhen Kazaryan and ACLU’s Jenna Leventoff argued, “The FCC is not the speech police, and the First Amendment dictates that it must stay out of our nation’s newsrooms, no matter how much it agrees or disagrees with coverage.”

» Treasury Bars Reporters from G20

• 🚫 The Treasury Department blocked reporters from major outlets from the G20 finance meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, without explanation.

• Details:

  • The G20 meeting gathers finance ministers and senior officials from the world’s top economies.

  • The Treasury blocked several reporters from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg.

  • 💬 Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the denials had “nothing to do with point of view.”

  • The Times said the “stakes of this gathering are significant for the global economy” and excluding reporters is a “disservice to the public.”

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The Digital Age 🤖

» Australia Eyes Curbs on Feeds and Pornography

• 🇦🇺 Australia is considering letting users switch off algorithmic feeds and banning strangulation pornography.

• The Plan:

  • Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek announced that future regulations could allow users to opt out of social media algorithms.

  • Australia is also considering a UK-style ban on strangulation and suffocation pornography following the death of a teen from suspected asphyxiation during sex.

  • Plibersek alleges that social media algorithms are feeding boys and men violent content, including sexual strangulation.

  • The ruling Labor Party will also consult on a “digital duty of care” bill to hold tech companies responsible for users’ online safety.

» California Passes 25+ AI & Social Media Bills

• 📃 California’s legislature passed 26 bills restricting AI and social media.

• The Bills:

  • Seek to ban social media companies from providing “addictive features,” including autoplaying videos, to under-16s.

  • Impose Age-verification requirements on AI chatbots and limit the ads children see.

  • Would hold companies financially liable for not protecting children online.

  • Limit AI use in the state university system, healthcare, employer surveillance, and for retail pricing.

• 🕐 Governor Gavin Newsom has till the end of September to decide which to sign into law.

» Iran Revises Online Regulation Bill

• 🇮🇷 Iran has revised its Cyberspace Protection bill, which seeks to grant the Supreme Cyberspace Council control over the Internet.

• The Revisions:

  • The revised bill, called the Cyberspace Regulation Plan, requires Internet service providers to authenticate users, thus eroding online anonymity.

  • Foreign online platforms are required to establish a physical presence in the country.

  • It also concentrates content moderation powers in the Council, where members are handpicked by the country’s supreme leader.

  • Provisions criminalizing the use of VPNs were removed.

• It is unclear when the bill will be voted on.

The Brussels Effect: Europe and Beyond 🇪🇺

» EU Imposes New Obligations on ChatGPT, Reddit, and Roblox

• 🖥️ The EU designated Reddit and the gaming platform Roblox as “very large online platforms” and ChatGPT as a “very large online search engine,” all subject to additional obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA).

• Context:

  • The designation applies to platforms and search engines with over 45 million monthly active users in the EU, which the services exceeded.

  • ChatGPT is the first AI chatbot to be designated a “very large online search engine”.

• What’s Next:

  • 🕐 The platforms have four months to comply with DSA obligations

  • Obligations include addressing risks related to the spread of illegal content, negative effects on minors, users’ well-being, electoral processes, and more.

  • Companies that violate the law face up to 6% of global annual revenue.

Our Take: “The designation of ChatGPT as a very large online search engine under the DSA expands the range of obligations this product is subject to. OpenAI’s models already fell under the purview of the EU AI Act. ChatGPT itself is now subject to the DSA systemic risk provisions as well.

As we have repeatedly explained, systemic risk provisions are problematic, with vague requirements like mitigating negative effects on civic discourse. There is a real danger that such provisions result in misguided enforcement and self-censorship from companies, limiting the perspectives they provide on contested issues to avoid creating tensions with regulators.” — Jordi Calvet-Bademunt

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Free Speech Recession 🌍

» Serbia Targets Opposition with Spyware

• 🔎 In the most widespread use of spyware in Serbia, the government has been surveilling students and opposition members over the past 9 months.

• Details:

  • The incidents come as President Aleksandar Vučić prepares to hold parliamentary elections in October.

  • A nationwide student movement began after a train station canopy collapsed in November 2024, killing 16 people.

  • The movement represents a clear challenge to the ruling party.

  • Pegasus, which mirrors phones’ content, including encrypted messages, and NoviSpy, have been found on infected phones.

» Thai Court Jails Activist Over Livestream

• 🇹🇭 A Thai court sentenced activist Tantawan “Tawan” Tuatulanon to two years in prison over a 2022 Facebook livestream where she questioned police conduct.

• Details:

  • Tuatulanon questioned police dispersing farmers protesting on King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s motorcade route.

  • The court found she violated the royal insult law; she intends to appeal.

  • Proceedings are still pending for computer crimes and sedition charges for the same incident.

  • Since 2020, Thailand has charged nearly 300 people under its lese-majeste law, which carries up to 15 years in prison for insulting, defaming, or threatening the royal family.

» Cuba Tells Journalist to Leave

• 🚔 Cuban State Security warned journalist Austin Llerandi to leave the country within two months or face jail for reporting without state authorization.

• The Pressure:

  • Llerandi runs the newsletter Amanecer Habanero.

  • He has been detained numerous times, including a July 14 interrogation over “crimes against State Security.”

  • On August 21, they told him he was under investigation for violating Decree 370, which bans media the state hasn’t cleared.

» Uganda Jails Reporter Over Fake News

• 🇺🇬 Uganda has held Daily Express journalist Remmy Asiteza since August 13 on charges of “publishing fake news” and “broadcasting without a license.”

• The Case:

  • Prosecutors allege that Asiteza’s reporting on alleged corruption in the presidential cabinet and in local government is “fake news.”

  • Asiteza faces up to two years in jail and fines up to 960,000 shillings (about $257 USD).

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Ashley Haek is a Communications Manager at The Future of Free Speech.

Ajdin Muratovic is the Director of Communications at The Future of Free Speech and the Managing Editor of The Bedrock Principle.

This article was originally published at Lawfare on August 31, 2026.

Elected officials and commentators hailed Meta’s settlement with 47 states as a massive victory that will protect teenagers from addictive social media. California Attorney General Rob Bonta said that it “institutes real change.” New York Attorney General Letitia James called the deal “groundbreaking.” The Wall Street Journal editorial board deemed it “sensible.”

One more word describes the settlement, which requires Meta to pay the states up to $17.1 billion and make sweeping changes such as screen-time limits for teens: jawboning.

The term refers to the government’s use of pressure on middlemen such as social media platforms to impose limits on speech that the First Amendment prohibits the government from imposing directly on speakers. The Supreme Court has taken a strong stance against jawboning, for good reason. A close examination of the Meta settlement reveals why it should concern anyone who cares about the First Amendment.

The settlement requires Meta to reduce teenagers’ exposure to “age inappropriate content.” While some of this content—such as child sexual exploitation and abuse—is not protected by the First Amendment and some content can legally be withheld from children, the settlement defines the term broadly to include gambling and “risky stunts,” as well.

The deal requires Meta to take steps to reduce teens’ exposure to speech already prohibited by its community standards, on topics such as drug use and eating disorders. Such policies could reduce teenagers’ access to helpful information such as educational materials. Meta is free to set its own rules on such subjects, but it becomes a First Amendment concern when the government uses the heavy leverage of pending litigation to codify those standards.

Not only do these “inappropriate content” standards raise serious First Amendment concerns for Meta’s consumers, but the mandatory content standards also intrude on Meta’s First Amendment right to set its own user content policies. In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protects such choices, as they “give the feed a particular expressive quality.”

Meta also agreed to “disable Teen Users from seeing numbers of likes or reactions” by default on its platforms. While this might sound reasonable, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last year preliminarily blocked a similar provision in a California law, concluding that it “is not the least restrictive way to advance California’s interest in protecting minors’ mental health.” If California cannot restrict a teenager’s ability to view like counts, the states should not achieve this end run around the Constitution through a settlement.

The settlement threatens the First Amendment rights not only of minors but also of adults. The deal requires Meta to adopt an “age assurance framework” to identify whether the user is a minor or an adult. Because the requirement necessarily entails collecting information about every user, it threatens all Americans’ ability to use the internet anonymously, despite the agreement’s attempt to impose privacy protections and minimize the collection of personal data. “Once information is shared to verify age, there’s no way for a website visitor to be certain that the data they’re handing over is not going to be retained and used by the website, or further shared or even sold,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote in 2023.

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The deal’s impact on anonymous speech raises constitutional concerns because the Supreme Court for decades has held that the First Amendment shields the right to speak without having one’s name attached to the expression. “Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind,” the Supreme Court wrote in 1960. “Persecuted groups and sects from time to time throughout history have been able to criticize oppressive practices and laws either anonymously or not at all.” Since the internet’s infancy, courts have applied that precedent to online speech.

These are just a few of the settlement’s many impacts on First Amendment-protected speech. As Mike Masnick summarizes, “a legislature could not have mandated most of these features without running straight into the First Amendment.”

Defenders of the settlement would argue that the content restrictions and age assurance requirements are not direct government mandates but, rather, provisions to which Meta voluntarily agreed. But the Supreme Court has repeatedly questioned the purportedly voluntary nature of such restrictions when the government applies pressure.

Most recently, in 2024, the Supreme Court vacated a decision that allowed New York’s financial regulator to threaten enforcement actions against financial companies that did business with the National Rifle Association (NRA). “A government official can share her views freely and criticize particular beliefs, and she can do so forcefully in the hopes of persuading others to follow her lead,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for a unanimous court. “In doing so, she can rely on the merits and force of her ideas, the strength of her convictions, and her ability to inspire others. What she cannot do, however, is use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.”

The lawsuit against Meta raises similar concerns about jawboning, despite the settlement’s statement that all parties “freely and voluntarily entered into this Consent Judgment without any degree of duress or compulsion.” Although the NRA case involved the executive branch’s threat of enforcement actions and Meta was facing litigation, both ultimately involve state action.

Meta had warned that the litigation could lead to liability of up to $1.4 trillion. Even if Meta has “voluntarily” entered into the settlement, it is difficult to argue that the threat of losing an existential lawsuit did not factor into its decision. And even though Meta is free to enter into this agreement, it should not be able to waive the First Amendment interests of millions of speakers and users. The settlement is particularly concerning for the broader internet because Meta would pay more if TikTok and YouTube adopt similar restrictions.

This is not to minimize the very real concerns about teenage social media use that the states raise. But the government should address those concerns within the bounds of the First Amendment, and should not jawbone its way around the challenge.

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Jeff Kosseff is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at The Future of Free Speech and the co-author (with Jacob Mchangama) of the new book The Future of Free Speech: Reversing the Global Decline of Democracy’s Most Essential Freedom (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026).

Join Us! The 2026 Global Free Speech Summit returns on October 2–3 in Nashville, TN. Hosted by The Future of Free Speech and Vanderbilt University, this event brings together global leaders, thinkers, and change-makers to confront the most urgent threats to freedom of expression and explore bold, resilient solutions. Guests will have the opportunity to attend networking receptions where they can exchange ideas with speakers and other guests.

🎟️ Spots are limited. Get your tickets here.

This Week at a Glance 🔎

• 🇺🇲 Pentagon Fires Stars and Stripes Staffers

• 📲 Meta Settles Child-Safety Case for $18 Billion

• 🇳🇿 New Zealand Proposes Under-16s Social Media Ban

• 🇭🇰 Hong Kong Convicts Tiananmen Square Vigil Organizers

• 🎤 WaPo Ordered to Reinstate Reporter Fired Over Posts

First of All 🇺🇲

» Pentagon Fires Stars and Stripes Staffers for Insubordination

• The Department of Defense fired three employees of Stars and Stripes, a military newspaper, for insubordination over a CBS interview.

• Details:

  • In the interview, Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin and reporter Lara Korte spoke out against potential interference from the Department in editorial decisions.

  • The Defense Department issued the pair a notice of separation shortly after.

  • The Department also dismissed publisher Max Lederer, who recently announced his retirement after disagreements over staffing..

  • The journalists’ lawsuit against Defense Department officials alleges the move is retaliatory over its comments and reporting on conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier.

  • Despite partial Pentagon funding, Stars and Stripes is legally mandated to remain editorially independent.

» CENTCOM Official Confirms Journalist Blacklist

• A U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) public affairs official threatened to add a reporter to a list of “people to disregard” for calling too often.

• Details:

  • An Intercept reporter repeatedly called CENTCOM seeking details about Iranian attacks on U.S. bases.

  • Richard Allee, an Executive Assistant at CENTCOM, eventually answered, threatening to place the reporter on “a list of people to disregard.”

  • CENTCOM’s press office emailed a denial that the “blacklist” exists.

  • The incident follows a wave of press restrictions at the Pentagon, as detailed in previous Free Flows.

» Trump Threatens $5B Lawsuit Against Think Tank

• President Trump threatened to sue the Center for American Progress (CAP), a left-leaning think tank, for $5 billion unless it retracts a report about National Guard deployments.

• Details:

  • The report denied that the deployments reduced crime, arguing instead that Trump took credit for already declining crime trends.

  • Trump’s attorneys demanded CAP remove the report by the end of the week or face a defamation suit.

  • CAP responded that “truth is not and cannot be defamation.”

  • The threat fits a pattern of retaliation by the Trump administration over unfavorable coverage.

» WaPo Ordered to Reinstate Reporter Fired Over Posts

• An independent arbitrator ordered The Washington Post to reinstate Karen Attiah, an opinion writer fired over posts about Charlie Kirk’s killing.

• The Ruling:

  • After Kirk’s assasination, Attiah wrote several Bluesky posts, including that she rejected “performative mourning for a white man who espoused violence.”

  • The Post accused her of “gross misconduct” and violating the paper’s social media policies.

  • An arbitrator found that the paper “did not have good and sufficient cause to terminate” per the collective bargaining agreement with its union.

  • According to Attiah, the arbitrator ordered the paper to reinstate her immediately with back pay.

» Judge Strikes Down Texas Drag Ban

• A federal judge in Texas found a 2023 state law restricting drag shows unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds.

• Context:

  • The law fined business owners who hosted drag events up to $10,000, while performers faced a Class A misdemeanor.

  • District Judge David Hittner ruled the law was unconstitutional in 2023, but the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the case back to him with new instructions.

  • Hittner determined the law was unconstitutional again, and that it was so vague and overly broad that it could criminalize activities like “cheerleading, dancing, live theater, and other public occurrences.”

  • Attorney General Paxton’s office did not provide an immediate comment.

» Court Voids $130,000 Verdict Against Project Veritas Partly on First Amendment Grounds

• A federal appeals court vacated $130,000 in damages against James O’Keefe and Project Veritas over a 2016 undercover sting of Democratic consultant Democracy Partners, ruling the damages improperly punished them for publishing news.

• The Ruling:

  • The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2–1.

  • Judge Henderson wrote that Project Veritas’ lies to enter Democracy Partners’ property was unprotected fraud, but most of the video was lawfully recorded and protected.

  • Henderson added, “The principal question in this appeal is whether the jury’s damages award violated the First Amendment by punishing the defendants for publishing a news story.”

  • The case raised questions about the extent of First Amendment protections for undercover reporting based on deceit, a tactic in decline since the 1990s.

» Judge Rules University Violated Protestors’ First Amendment Rights

• Federal judge Jacqueline Becerra temporarily blocked a policy against “expressive activities” at Florida International University (FIU).

• The Ruling:

  • FIU disciplined students who wore “ICE OFF FIU” shirts at a campus event, as mentioned in a previous Free Flow, under the policy.

  • Internal FIU emails confirmed that the students’ protest was not disruptive.

  • Becerra temporarily barred FIU from disciplining the students and halted enforcement of the policy.

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The Digital Age 🤖

» Meta Settles Child-Safety Case for $18 Billion

• Meta settled a case brought by multiple states over teen social media addiction and safety for $18 billion.

• Details:

  • The case was brought by California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey who accused Meta of designing features to addict children and downplaying harm.

  • The settlement resolves litigation in 47 states (plus DC and and three territories, Texas settled separately), excluding New Mexico and Florida. Meta may still face lawsuits from individuals and school districts.

  • The company also agreed to add stronger child-safety measures to its platforms, such as two-hour daily time limits, push notification restrictions, and “robust” age-assurance.

• What’s Next:

  • Meta conditioned 30% of the settlement to be be released to states only if YouTube and TikTok implement similar safety features and pay the same amount, split between them.

» New Zealand Introduces Bill Barring Under-16s From Social Media

• New Zealand’s Prime Minister announced a proposed law banning children under 16 from social media.

• Details:

  • Platforms would have to take “reasonable steps” to verify user ages, potentially through facial recognition and digital ID services.

  • Messaging and online gaming platforms, as well as AI apps with productivity uses, are excluded.

  • Tech firms could be fined up to 10% of global revenue for violations.

  • Two of the three parties in the PM’s coalition government oppose the law. To pass, it requires the support of opposition lawmakers, who are undecided.

Our Take: Writing about the UK’s proposed ban on social media for under-16s, Jeff Kosseff warned such proposals risk “undermining privacy, anonymous speech, and freedom of expression for everyone,” and there is little evidence to show bans are effective.

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The Brussels Effect: Europe and Beyond 🇪🇺

» Ukraine Sanctions Russian Cartoon “Masha and the Bear”

• Ukraine sanctioned creators and the distributors of“Masha and the Bear,” a Russian cartoon, for spreading “pro-Russian narratives” and threatening national security.

• Details:

  • The sanctions create legal grounds to block the show in Ukraine, and work to restrict it internationally.

  • Ukraine’s allies, including the UK, have criticized the popular show – broadcast in about 100 countries – as an instrument of Russian soft power.

Our Take: Europe has also moved to sanction Russian propaganda, and banned Russia Today TV. At The Bedrock Principle, Natalie Alkiviadou argues, “Liberal democracies are often judged not by how they protect freedom of expression in ordinary times, but by how they protect it during periods of crisis. History demonstrates that exceptional measures have a tendency to expand beyond the circumstances that first justified them.”

Free Speech Recession 🌍

» Hong Kong Convicts Tiananmen Vigil Organizers

• A Hong Kong court convicted two pro-democracy activists who organized vigils marking the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown for “incitement to subversion.”

• Details:

  • Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung face up to 10 years in jail.

  • They have been behind bars since they were charged in 2021.

  • HK activists held vigils for three decades until China banned the annual event during the pandemic and imposed a security law in 2020 to quell anti-government protests.

  • The convictions are part of a broader crackdown: an HK Court sentenced media mogul Jimmy Lai to 20 years prison under the national security law.

» China Investigates Comedian Who Altered a Revolutionary Song

• Local authorities in Wuhan are investigating Guo Degang, a comedian, for changing the lyrics of a revolutionary song during a performance.

• Details:

  • Guo is the country’s most prominent performer of xiangsheng, a form of Chinese comedic dialogue.

  • He changed a popular lyric from “it is quiet along Weishan Lake” to “it is quiet in the Forbidden City,” the former home of China’s emperors.

  • Authorities approved Guo’s performance in advance, but not the lyric change.

  • Guo’s investigation highlights China’s stricter controls of the entertainment and arts industries. Another comedian Li Haoshi has not performed in China since 2023, following a joke mocking the military that cost his employer over $2 million in fines.

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Ashley Haek is a Communications Manager at The Future of Free Speech.

Ajdin Muratovic is the Director of Communications at The Future of Free Speech and the Managing Editor of The Bedrock Principle.

This article was originally published on Jacob Mchangama’s Substack on August 21, 2026

“A man’s right to speak does not depend upon where he was born or upon his color. The simple quality of manhood is the solid basis of the right – and there let it rest forever.”

So ends Frederick Douglass’ famous speech “A Plea for Free Speech in Boston” from December 9th 1860. A Plea is Douglass’ defiant and rousing response to the disruption of an abolitionist meeting in Boston six days earlier. In a mere 1,099 words Douglass writes a gripping and compelling defense of free speech constructed on the mutually reinforcing pillars of universal freedom and equality, natural rights and civic commitment. To embed the foundational value of free speech in the minds of his audience he uses vivid imagery and formulations that have become timeless despite the very specific context in which they were written. Free speech is “The Dread of Tyrants” and the “great moral renovator of society.” So consequential is free speech that “Five years of its exercise would banish the auction block and break every chain in the South.” Therefore to “suppress free speech is a double wrong” that “violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.” No wonder that A Plea is treated as the canonical Douglass text on free speech from which everyone quotes (myself included).

But how important was free speech really to Frederick Douglass? A Plea is deeply inspiring but it’s not a systematic work of philosophy or political theory. Douglass never wrote a longer work specifically dedicated to free speech such as Chapter 20 in Spinoza’s Theological Political Treatise; Cato’s Letters No. 15, 32 and 100; Chapter 2 in Mill’s On Liberty; or Madison’s “Report of 1800”.

I had read a number of other Douglass speeches, his second autobiography “My Bondage and My Freedom” and David Blight’s sublime “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom”. They all seemed to confirm Douglass’ sincere and deep commitment to free speech, but none of these texts are specifically focused on this topic and might give a skewed or incomplete picture. Given my reverence for Douglass and the prevalence of “Milton’s Curse,” I felt that I had to know exactly what his position was on free speech. And specifically whether he, like Milton, Spinoza, Cato’s Letters, Voltaire, J.S. Mill and so many other great champions of free expression, had glaring blind spots or a record of advocating “free speech for me, but not for thee.”

So over the weekend I started a small side-project that quickly got out of hand. With ChatGPT’s help, I created the “Frederick Douglass Free Speech Corpus”. The project is my attempt to identify and log every publicly available speech, article and letter in which Douglass discusses free speech and related freedoms, including press, religion, assembly, petition and literacy. ChatGPT assists with discovery and organization, while I check the entries against original sources. I expected perhaps 15–30 relevant texts. I currently have an index of 203 entries and a 169-page Master Corpus of quotations, summaries and themes, not counting the many repetitive texts logged only as cross-references. To work through all that material, I also vibe-coded an audio app that lets me listen, bookmark and annotate uploaded texts from the corpus while driving, working etc. Both projects remain works in progress, but I eventually intend to publish the corpus and its methodology.

Given the huge number of relevant texts it’s safe to say that free speech was not merely a passing reference for Douglass. It was an obsession both as a practice and a principle. Yet, at this stage, I will resist the temptation to make any categorical claims about Douglass’ free speech philosophy or consistency across all themes. I still have more than a thousand pages of underlying text to trawl through. But in the following I’ll give a (very) preliminary verdict on whether Douglass remained committed to free speech maximalism during wartime.

Take nothing away from A Plea, but it’s not surprising that a man in Douglass’ position would appeal to free speech given the draconian censorship of abolitionist ideas in the South, the hostile mobs he often had to confront and more generally his membership of an unpopular minority that suffered pervasive stigma and discrimination. In such a vulnerable situation it’s not hard to see how the right of free speech can be invoked as a shield against majoritarian intolerance and a precondition for speaking truth to power. But as everyone who cares deeply about free speech knows all too well, the real test for free speech defenders is not whether you advocate free speech for yourself and the ideas you want to advance. The real test is whether you also defend the rights of those you most vehemently disagree with and are willing to take a stand for the right to express deeply unpopular ideas no matter how massive and vocal the public backlash.

A great topic to test Douglass’ free speech philosophy and consistency is wartime restrictions. National security is and remains one of the essential drivers of censorship. As witnessed by World War I and the subsequent First Red Scare, such wartime restrictions can often extend beyond and outlive any genuine and pressing requirements, and end up targeting dissent and opposition alleged to threaten national unity.

Douglass lived through the American Civil War; a war fundamentally fought over the very question of slavery, which also animated Douglass’ personal struggle. He therefore had a deeply personal stake in the outcome of the war and in supporting one side against the other, both when they faced off on the battlefield and when they clashed in the public square. So what does the record say?

On January 14 1862 - nine months after the attack on Fort Sumter - Douglass gave an address “Fighting the Rebels With One Hand” in which he lamented the ruinous costs of the war as measured in blood, property, treasure and rights:

“liberty of speech and of the press have ceased to exist...one stroke of the pen from Davis or Lincoln sends any citizen to prison, as in England, three centuries ago, British subjects were sent to the Tower of London.”

Douglass found this state of affairs “terrible beyond all description,” but ultimately also warranted by the exceptional circumstances:

“We speak and write now by the forbearance of our rulers, not by the sacredness of our rights. I speak this not in complaint; I admit the necessity, while I lament it.”

Whatever necessity Douglass conceded in January, six months later he was sharply limiting its reach. On July 4, 1862, speaking in Yates County, New York, Douglass delivered his “The Slaveholders’ Rebellion”; an incendiary speech highly critical of the way that Lincoln and his generals were conducting the war. More importantly for our purposes, Douglass explains why he feels compelled to so vocally attack the very leaders he wants to succeed on the battlefield:

I am quite aware that some who hear me will question the wisdom of
any criticisms upon the conduct of this war at this time and will censure me
for making them. I do not dread those censures. I have on many occasions,
since the war began, held my breath when even the stones of the street
would seem to cry out. I can do so no longer. I believe in the absence of
martial law, a citizen may properly express an opinion as to the manner in
which our Government has conducted, and is still conducting this war. I
hold that it becomes this country, the men who have to shed their blood and
pour out their wealth to sustain the Government at this crisis, to look very
sharply into the movements of the men who have our destiny in their hands.

To Douglass no less than the “safety of the nation” depends on the public’s ability to hold “every officer of the nation strictly responsible to the people for the faithful performance of duty.” But instead of open discussion Douglass argues that the war has bred a “slavish and abject” tendency to shut the eyes of the nation to the blunders of those in power whose decisions must be accepted blindly. To Douglass this will not do since:

Our rulers are the agents of the people. They are fallible men. They need instruction from the people, and it is no evidence of a factious disposition that any man presumes to condemn a public measure if in his judgment that measure is opposed to the public good.

He then highlights three men whose decisions and conduct warrant special scrutiny: Lincoln and Generals McClellan and Halleck, in other words the President and two of the most senior commanders of the Union Army.

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Douglass goes on a detailed and scathing attack against McClellan, concluding that the general is either a “cold-blooded Traitor” or “an unmitigated military Impostor.” He also turns his fire on Lincoln’s policy—or lack thereof—on slavery. Douglass stops short of saying that the administration has no policy, but observes that “an Administration without a policy” is an administration “without brains,” while anyone who professes the ability to act but cannot explain how “confesses his own imbecility.” If Lincoln does have a policy, Douglass argues, “the people have a right to know what it is” and “to approve or disapprove of it as they shall deem it wise or unwise.”

So Douglass seems to accept the legitimacy of martial law in exceptional circumstances. But outside such genuine and declared emergency, there is neither a legal nor moral duty to refrain from uttering even harsh criticism of government policies and actions that many might view as bordering on disloyalty and sedition.

In February 1863 Douglass professes an even more radical tolerance of wartime speech. In The Proclamation and a Negro Army Douglass celebrates the momentous issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation a month earlier as the triumphant victory of “the glorious liberty of truth” over the “thraldom and darkness of error.” The Proclamation is proof that:

The hope of the world—the progress of nations—the triumph of the
truth and the reign of reason and righteousness among men are conditioned
on free discussion.

Douglass is not praising free speech as an empty and abstract ornament in which this freedom equals pleasant ideas. He is a man deeply committed to principles and who abhors hypocrisy. So much so that Douglass refuses to let the hypocrisy of his most hated opponents defeat his most cherished principles:

One of the peculiarities of our times compels notice here. Parties have to
some extent changed sides on the subject of free speech. The men who
would a few years ago mob and hang Abolitionists for exercising the sacred
right of free thought and speech, have all at once become the most urgent
for the largest liberty of speech. And I must say, detestable as are the
motives that have brought them to the defense of free speech, I think they
have the right in the controversy.

Frustratingly, Douglass does not provide us with a clear doctrinal test on where to draw the line: “I do not know where I would limit the right of simple utterance of opinion.” Yet the bar he sets - and this is during wartime mind you - seems very high indeed:

“If any one is base enough to…shout for Jefferson Davis, let him, and do not lock him up for it.”

Treasonous opinions should be protected, while treasonous acts should be met with force. That’s an almost unbelievably principled position. Douglass is very clear that he regards supporters of the Confederacy as traitorous rebels intent on waging war to keep alive the very institution which he has dedicated his life to abolishing. Yet, even as bloody battles are fought across the nation Douglass is prepared to defend the right to utter support for the supreme leader of the Lords of the Lash.

But to Douglass, it would seem that this presents no Paradox of Tolerance. Free speech is literally the remedy against the erroneous and unjust ideas that support slavery. To underline that position Douglass invokes Thomas Jefferson: “error may be safely tolerated where truth is left free to combat it.” He also points to several historical examples of bigoted intolerance - from the burning of heretics and witches to Christian persecution of Jews - that rested on ideas now widely regarded as erroneous, superstitious and false.

Contemporary proponents of Militant Democracy might argue that a republic fighting a slaveholding rebellion would be suicidal to allow Confederate sympathizers to exploit free speech by voicing support of its destruction. Douglass reaches the opposite conclusion. He views censorship and suppression as vectors of the disease and free speech and open debate as the remedy:

Such is my confidence in the potency of truth, in the power of reason, I
hold that had the right of free discussion been preserved during the last
thirty years, had the Northern parties and politicians been half so diligent in
protecting this high constitutional right, from the first ruthlessly struck
down all over the South, as they have been in framing laws for the recapture of poor, toil-worn and foot-sore slaves, we should now have no Slavery to breed Rebellion, nor war, black with dismal terror, to drench our land with blood, and fill our dwellings with sorrow and mourning. Slavery would have fallen as it fell in the West Indies, as it has fallen in the Free States, as it has fallen in Russia, and elsewhere, and as it will fall everywhere, when men can assail it with the weapons of reason and the facts of experience.

Douglass’ confidence in free discussion ran so deep that, although fiercely committed to winning the war and abolishing slavery, he could contemplate peace on one indispensable condition:

“Much as I hate Slavery, and glad as I should be to see it instantly
abolished, I would consent gladly to any peace if but the right of speech,
and the liberty of peaceably assembling could be secured in every part of
the Union.”

Make no mistake: Douglass (at this point in time) was no pacifist. His position rested on a sharp distinction between speech and violence: “When error consents to reason truth may also consent to reason. But when error takes the sword, truth must also take the sword.”

As long as the Confederacy used arms, Douglass’ response was guns and bullets. But Douglass believed that if the freedoms of speech and assembly were universally protected, truth and reason would ultimately be more powerful than armies.

Douglass’ willingness to accept “any peace” securing free speech and peaceful assembly throughout the Union was obviously hypothetical. No such settlement was on offer, and the suppression on which slavery depended made those freedoms impossible throughout the South. Confronting the concrete question of what peace would actually mean, Douglass called for an “Abolition peace” in his speech “The Mission of the War” at Cooper Institute in New York on January 13, 1864. His refusal to accept any peace preserving slavery did not signal a retreat from his commitment to free speech. Even as Douglass recognized that the Confederate cause was aided by the “national prejudice and hatred” directed against his own people and that even Northern newspapers were “firing the nation’s heart with hatred to Negroes and Abolitionists,” free expression remained central to the country he envisioned emerging from the war:

We want a country, and are fighting for a country, through the length and breadth of which the literature and learning of any section of it may float to its extremities unimpaired, and thus become the common property of all the people—a country in which no man shall be fined for reading a book, or imprisoned for selling a book—a country where no man may be imprisoned or flogged or sold for learning to read, or teaching a fellow mortal how to read.

I started this article by asking the question “Was Frederick Douglass a Free Speech Absolutist?” That framing set an extremely high bar - even modern First Amendment doctrine allows for narrow restrictions on speech. As far as I can tell Douglass never supplied anything like a comprehensive doctrinal test. But based on my (initial and non-exhaustive) reading of Douglass’ wartime speeches, I think he came close to absolutism in his defense of the universal human right to voice any opinion, however repulsive, offensive, hateful or unpopular with magistrates, majorities or mobs.

In future articles I hope to explore other aspects of Douglass’ free speech philosophy, including how it developed over time, his reactions to lies and slander, mob action, counterspeech and the ethical framework of moral rights and duties sustaining a vibrant culture and civic commitment to free speech. This is very much a work in progress and I will undoubtedly revise and refine my writings and conclusions as I delve deeper into the material. No doubt readers with a deeper knowledge of American history than I have will be able to connect some of Douglass’ writings and ideas with relevant contexts of which I am insufficiently aware—or entirely ignorant. I therefore welcome comments and corrections.

Jacob Mchangama is the founder and CEO of The Future of Free Speech and a research professor at Vanderbilt University. He is also the author of Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media and The Future of Free Speech: Reversing the Global Decline of Democracy’s Most Essential Freedom (with Jeff Kosseff).

Join Us! The 2026 Global Free Speech Summit returns on October 2–3 in Nashville, TN. Hosted by The Future of Free Speech and Vanderbilt University, this event brings together global leaders, thinkers, and change-makers to confront the most urgent threats to freedom of expression and explore bold, resilient solutions. Guests will have the opportunity to attend networking receptions to exchange ideas with speakers and fellow guests.

🎟️ Spots are limited. Get your tickets here.

This Week at a Glance 🔎

• 📺 ABC Sues FCC Over Early License Review

• 📲 States Take Meta to Trial

• 🇫🇷 France Blocks Under-15s Social Media Ban

• 🇷🇺 Russia Jails Opposition Leader to 11 Years

• 🇮🇷 Iran Bill Criminalizes Foreign Media Ties

First of All 🇺🇲

» ABC Sues FCC Over License Review

• 📺 ABC sued the Federal Communications Commission after it ordered eight stations to apply for early renewal of their broadcast licenses.

• Context:

  • The order followed a Jimmy Kimmel monologue joking about First Lady Melania Trump, as mentioned in a previous Free Flow.

  • ABC claims the renewals are retaliation over its content.

  • It’s asking the court to stop the FCC from further action against it.

  • The suit indicates ABC does not expect the FCC to renew the licenses.

Our Take: At the Washington Examiner, Ashkhen Kazaryan and the ACLU’s Jenna Leventoff argued the FCC’s action “sends a warning to other media that they should walk the administration’s preferred line or else.” Read our joint comment urging the FCC to drop its order here.

» Judge Faults MN Prison Book Policy

• A federal court found that Minnesota’s Department of Corrections (DOC) book policy is “not necessarily content neutral.”

• Details:

  • ⚖️ The Human Rights Defense Center, an NGO that publishes legal resources for inmates, sued on First Amendment grounds.

  • DOC let only a few approved vendors ship books to prisons, cutting off many publications.

  • It published no guidelines for accepting or rejecting vendor applications – and approved some that never applied

  • The DOC argues that the policy blocks smuggling and cuts assaults and drug incidents

  • The court ordered the DOC to streamline applications and spell out its criteria for approving publishers and nonprofits as vendors.

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The Digital Age 🤖

» Brazil Orders Discord to Suspend Livestreaming

• Brazil’s National Data Protection Authority (ANPD) ordered Discord to suspend its livestreaming features in the country.

• Context:

  • The order comes after users allegedly coerced a 13-year-old girl into suicide during a livestream.

  • Police have detained an adult and five minors.

  • ANPD said the platform’s design prevents real-time monitoring of livestreams, and that Discord failed to take reasonable steps to protect children.

  • Discord faces daily fines of up to 50 million reals (~$9 million) if it does not comply.

  • The livestream ban holds until Brazil approves a Discord safety plan. Other platform features remain accessible.

» Meta Child Safety Trial Begins

• A child-safety trial against Meta, brought by four states, kicked off in California this week.

• Details:

  • California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey argue Meta designed its platforms to be addictive to minors.

  • They say Meta knew the risks and misled the public.

  • Meta argues it has created strong protections for teens.

  • State attorneys put early penalty estimates near ~$1.4 trillion.

Our Take: In POLITICO, Ashkhen Kazaryan warned that letting courts design online communication would “balkanize” the internet, forcing companies to navigate a legal minefield or disable features globally.

The Brussels Effect: Europe and Beyond 🇪🇺

» France Blocks Under-15s Social Media Ban

• 📵France’s top court, the Constitutional Council, blocked a law barring under-15s from social media.

• Details:

  • The court found the ban failed to specify the “conditions and limits” for proving age.

  • It also found the provisions infringed on free expression and privacy.

  • President Macron remains determined that the reform takes effect and has asked the Prime Minister to rework the legislation.

» UK Green Party Emergency Order Targets Online Speech

• The Green Party submitted an emergency motion urging state regulators to “map and address” racism and ableism in the media and to monitor “harrassment” arising from coverage.

• The Proposal:

  • Every major national newspaper would have to join a state-backed press regulator with statutory powers.

  • The country’s media watchdog, Ofcom, would be authorized to order the removal of “hateful, discriminatory and conspiratorial” material on large platforms.

  • Social media companies would have to “promote and protect” a prescribed “diversity of voices.”

• The motion is a direct response to the death of Jason Arday, a former sociology professor at the University of Cambridge.

» University Suspends Academic Who Alleged Arday Plagiarism

• Belgium’s Ghent University suspended Nathan Cofnas, the U.S. academic who raised plagiarism concerns about the late Cambridge University professor Jason Arday.

• Details:

  • Cofnas said on X that he had been suspended and expected to be fired. In an earlier post, he said he was “under investigation by my university for discriminating against Arday.”

  • Ghent confirmed it suspended a staff member as a precaution during an investigation.

  • The University stated, “We attach great importance to academic freedom and to open academic debate, even when views are controversial. However, that freedom is not unlimited.”

• Background:

  • Cofnas wrote on his Substack on July 21 that a source at Cambridge contacted him about the plagiarism claims.

  • The plagiarism allegations triggered intense scrutiny of Arday’s career and personal life — a toll he described before his death as falling on his family too.

  • Cofnas has faced controversy at Cambridge himself. Emmanuel College previously cut ties with him after students raised concerns about his blog posts on race and meritocracy. He denies being racist and is in a legal dispute with the college.

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Free Speech Recession 🌍

» Iran Bill Criminalizes Foreign Media Ties

• Iran’s Parliament has approved a bill that criminalizes interaction with “hostile” foreign media and institutions.

• Prohibitions on Media:

  • Communications with American or Israeli organizations, or any group they fund.

  • Sending videos, photos, audio, or other data to foreign outlets or media workers abroad.

  • Producing or directing “anti-Islamic culture” films, documentaries, theater, music, or books.

  • Violators face six months to two years in prison.

• Prohibitions on Research:

  • Unauthorized academic collaboration with foreign universities or institutions.

  • Organizers of courses or workshops “incompatible with Iranian culture” can face 5-10 years in prison, while attendees can face two.

• The Guardian Council, a body of clerics and legal experts that vets all laws, must approve the bill for it to become law.

» Russian Opposition Leader Sentenced to 11 Years

• 🇷🇺 A Russian court sentenced Lev Shlosberg, a senior member of opposition party Yabloko, to 11 years and one month in prison over his remarks against the Ukraine war.

• Details:

  • The court convicted Shlosberg of “discrediting” and spreading “false information” about the Russian military.

  • Yabloko announced in a public statement that Shlosberg plans to appeal.

• Context:

  • The sentence comes after Russia’s Supreme Court annulled the Yabloko party’s registration, as mentioned in last week’s Free Flow.

  • A Russian court previously convicted Shlosberg of violating foreign agent regulations.

  • The charges came after he called for an end to the war during a debate and criticized President Vladimir Putin on his public channel on Telegram, a social media platform popular in Russia.

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Ashley Haek is a communications coordinator and research assistant at The Future of Free Speech.

Ajdin Muratovic is the communications director at The Future of Free Speech.

Join Us! The 2026 Global Free Speech Summit returns on October 2–3 in Nashville, TN. Hosted by The Future of Free Speech and Vanderbilt University, this event brings together global leaders, thinkers, and change-makers to confront the most urgent threats to freedom of expression and explore bold, resilient solutions. Guests will have the opportunity to attend networking receptions where they can exchange ideas with speakers and other guests.

🎟️ Spots are limited. Get your tickets here.

This Week at a Glance 🔎

• 🧑‍⚖️ Florida Prosecutor Sues DOJ over Alleged Free Speech Violations

• ❌ Judge Rejects Attempted Block on California Social Media Law

• 🇺🇲 Texas Court Orders Locking of Foreign Site's Domain Worldwide

• 🇷🇺 Russia Bars Its only Anti-War Party from Elections

• 🇧🇷 Brazilian Influencer Sentenced over Pronoun Use

First of All 🇺🇸

» Florida Prosecutor Sues DOJ over Alleged Free Speech Violations

• 🧑‍⚖️ Will Rosenzweig, a former federal prosecutor, filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice over years-old blog posts.

• Details:

  • Rosenzweig criticized President Trump in blog posts while working at a private law firm. Trump supporters called for his firing over the posts.

  • Then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi fired Rosenzweig via email without giving a reason.

  • The lawsuit raises free speech concerns, saying, “The Department’s conduct rests on a single premise: a citizen must forever refrain from criticizing the government and its leaders to remain eligible to serve it.”

» Judge Rejects Block on California Social Media Law

• ❌ A federal judge rejected an attempt by Meta, Google and TikTok to block parts of California’s Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act.

• Details:

  • The tech giants wanted to block sections of the act that ban personalized feeds for minors based on their past activity.

  • The companies argued that constraints on suggested content violate protected First Amendment expression.

Our Take: Read our report for a legal analysis of why algorithmic curation is a form of editorial discretion protected by the First Amendment and essential to the functioning of the digital ecosystem.

» Students Sue CU Boulder over Free Speech Policies

• 🪧 Five students filed the lawsuit against the University of Colorado, Boulder, claiming that it unlawfully restricts student speech and protest.

• Details:

  • The students seek an injunction to block enforcement of policies in CU Boulder’s Campus Use of University Facilities Procedures, which they argue violate Colorado’s Students’ Right to Speak Act.

  • The lawsuit was filed after the university sent police to two civil discourse events at the law school.

  • According to the suit, about a dozen students, including student journalists, faced interim exclusion or interim suspension notices after the event.

  • The lawsuit also says that the university has punished certain students for “peaceful First Amendment expression that the University believed to have violated the Restrictive Speech Policies.”

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The Digital Age 🤖

» Texas Orders Foreign Site’s Domain Locked Worldwide

• 🌐 A Travis County judge ordered Verisign, the company that operates the .com registry, to lock the domain of foreign-run adult site over its operator's failure to comply with Texas's age-verification law — pulling the site offline for users everywhere.

• Details:

  • A judge has frozen Motherless.com until it posts a $9.14 million bond and builds a state-approved age verification digital ID system.

  • Attorney General Ken Paxton brought the case under the age-verification statute the Supreme Court upheld last year in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton.

  • The order allows future domain seizures without a judge weighing each one individually.

  • Paxton said the order demonstrates that “Texas has the legal authority” to “reach beyond its border.”

The Brussels Effect: Europe and Beyond 🇪🇺

» Ofcom Investigates GB News Pride Comments

• 🇬🇧 UK regulator Ofcom is investigating GB News after a guest linked London's Pride parade to pedophilia and bestiality, drawing more than 12,000 complaints.

• Details:

  • Commentator Caroline Farrow claimed Pride had “become about celebrating every single sexuality that isn’t heterosexuality,” including “bestiality” and “pedophiles.”

  • Ofcom rules require that offensive material be justified by context.

  • Host Alex Armstrong pushed back on air, later calling the remarks “an age-old gay trope” used to “demonize and slander gay people.”

  • Last year, Ofcom found similar comments by GB News presenter Josh Howie breached the broadcasting code but took no action.

Our Take: We oppose punishing broadcasters for airing content governments do not support. Furthermore, we believe that government meddling in debates based on subjective terms is incompatible with free speech. It is why we urged the FCC to reject efforts to label LGBTQ content with a parental warning.

Free Speech Recession 🌍

» House Republicans Voice Concern over South Korea’s “Fake News” Law

• 🇰🇷 Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the Korea Media and Communications Commission over concerns of government censorship of free speech.

• Details:

  • The concerns center on adopted in July amendments to the Information and Communications Network Act. Under the amendments, the government can fine media outlets and large content publishers for intentionally spreading false information.

  • The members of the Judiciary Committee argue that the law can be used to target “politically disfavored opinions.”

  • South Korean journalists and civil liberties groups have also criticized the law.

» Human Rights Groups File Lawsuit over ICC Sanctions

• ⚖️ Four human rights groups argue that the Trump administration has used sanctions against the ICC to interfere with prosecutions of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

• Details:

  • The lawsuit challenges an executive order Trump signed in 2025, which authorized sanctions on individuals affiliated with the ICC who support its investigation of alleged Israeli crimes in Palestine.

  • The suit argues that Trump’s actions against the ICC violate constitutionally protected free speech and US obligations under international law.

  • Sanctioned individuals face restrictions like travel bans, frozen bank accounts, and denied access to certain digital services.

» Kuwait Arrests Commentator, Revokes Journalists’ Citizenship

• 🇰🇼 Authorities arrested political commentator Mohammed Saleh al-Sabti and stripped two exiled journalists of their citizenship, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

• Details:

  • Al-Sabti was arrested after an interview in which he called for deescalation.

  • CPJ could not verify the charges against al-Sabti or the conditions of his detention, and the Kuwaiti Embassy in Washington did not respond to its request for comment.

  • A July decree revoked the citizenship of six people, including exiled blogger Mansoor al-Muhareb and exiled freelance journalist Abdullah al-Saleh.

  • Since the Iran war began in late February, CPJ has documented a spike in crackdowns on journalists and media outlets across the Gulf.

» Russia Bars Its Only Anti-War Party from Elections

• 🇷🇺 Russia's Supreme Court annulled the registration of the Yabloko party, removing the only registered party opposing the war in Ukraine from the September 18–20 parliamentary ballot.

• Details:

  • The August 10 ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the pro-Kremlin Motherland Party, which accused Yabloko of taking an anti-war stance tantamount to violating Russia’s territorial integrity.

  • The party campaigned on the slogans “For a ceasefire agreement, diplomacy and peace!” and “Our goal is to prevent nuclear war!”

  • Founded in the 1990s, Yabloko was once a leading liberal voice in parliament before losing its State Duma seats as the Kremlin tightened political control.

» Brazilian Influencer Sentenced over Pronoun Use

• 🇧🇷 Bianca Barreto was sentenced to two years of conditional liberty and a fine of about $3,900 for referring to transgender federal lawmaker Duda Salabert with male pronouns.

• Details:

  • Judge Eduarda de Lima Vidal ruled that intentionally using a transgender woman’s birth pronouns to publicly humiliate is not protected free speech.

  • Barreto’s legal team plans to appeal, arguing that her comments are protected free speech and that she never supported violence, persecution, or hatred.

  • In 2019, Brazil’s Supreme Court expanded its hate speech ban to cover LGBTQ+ individuals under a “social racism” framework.

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Isabella Dail is a communications intern at The Future of Free Speech and a recent graduate from Princeton University with a bachelor’s in philosophy.

On Saturday, Minnesota will impose penalties on companies that provide technology for artificial intelligence-generated images of an individual’s “intimate parts.” Although legislators might have intended the law, HF 1606, to crack down on nonconsensual AI-generated intimate deepfakes, the law has serious First Amendment problems.

Elon Musk’s xAI filed a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality. While it is impossible to predict the outcome of such challenges with certainty, xAI has raised strong objections that likely will give the court good reason to carefully scrutinize HF 1606.

The law prohibits companies from allowing their technology to be used for “nudification,” which it defines as “an image or video is altered or generated to depict an intimate part not depicted in an original unaltered image or video of an identifiable individual” and “the altered or generated image or video is so realistic that a reasonable person would believe that the intimate part belongs to the identifiable individual.” If a technology is used for nudification, the company faces an action from the state Attorney General seeking up to $500,000 per image, as well as a lawsuit from the subject of the image. HF 1606 has five primary First Amendment problems.

First, the law broadly applies even to images created with the subject’s consent. Minnesota’s law would not be the first to address intimate images, including those generated by artificial intelligence. All states have passed nonconsensual pornography laws, and last year Congress passed the TAKE IT DOWN Act, which requires service providers to remove nonconsensual pornography within 48 hours of a request. But those laws are limited to nonconsensual publication. Minnesota’s law, in contrast, applies regardless of whether the subject of the image consented. “Liability does not depend on whether the person depicted objected to the image, welcomed it, or even made it personally,” xAI wrote in its complaint. “A service used by an adult to edit a photograph of him or herself or a consenting individual is covered on the same terms as a service used to create an image of an unwilling stranger. The statute’s text draws no distinction among them.”

Second, HF 1606 penalizes companies even if they attempt to prevent nudification. The law is “strict liability,” meaning that it applies regardless of the technology company’s state of mind or the steps that the company took to try to prevent people from using the technology to generate intimate images. So even if a company had a rigorous program designed to block the creation of the images and a user circumvented it, that company would face a $500,000 fine per image.

Third, the law applies to a broad range of images. It defines “intimate part” as “the primary genital area, groin, inner thigh, buttocks, or breast of a human being.” As xAI wrote in its brief, the law “bans ordinary depictions of men without shirts, people in shorts or swimsuits, and other body parts routinely displayed in public—far beyond what an ordinary person would consider ‘nudification.’”

Fourth, unlike other state attempts at regulating deepfakes, this law does not have an exception for satire. The Supreme Court has long held that the First Amendment protects satirical expression. It is not difficult to imagine a politician seeking to use the law as revenge for a viral image that was clear satire.

Fifth, the law’s proponents fail to justify why they are going after the technology companies rather than the individuals who generate nonconsensual intimate images. Minnesota, like every state, has a law that addresses nonconsensual distribution of intimate images, or “revenge porn.” Most of those laws, including Minnesota’s, include AI-generated deepfakes. And last year’s federal TAKE IT DOWN Act creates a criminal prohibition on nonconsensual images and a 48-hour takedown system (though, as Jess Miers has aptly demonstrated, that law suffers from its own constitutional problems).

For these reasons, xAI has a strong First Amendment case and a reasonable chance of convincing a judge to strike down the law. If xAI does not succeed, Minnesota’s law and others like it would likely discourage companies entirely from offering image generation in those states. Companies would fear that they could not guarantee with absolute certainty that users would not misuse their services, and it is unlikely that they would risk a half-million-dollar fine each time a user circumvented their controls.

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Jeff Kosseff is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at The Future of Free Speech and the co-author (with Jacob Mchangama) of the new book The Future of Free Speech: Reversing the Global Decline of Democracy’s Most Essential Freedom (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026).

Editors’ Note: Next week, the Free Flow will be on a hiatus. We will resume publishing the following Thursday, August 13.

Join Us! The 2026 Global Free Speech Summit returns on October 2–3 in Nashville, TN. Hosted by The Future of Free Speech and Vanderbilt University, this event will bring together global leaders, thinkers, and change-makers to confront the most urgent threats to freedom of expression and explore bold, resilient solutions. Guests will have the opportunity to attend networking receptions where they can exchange ideas with speakers and other guests.

🎟️ Spots are limited. Get your tickets here.

This Week at a Glance 🔎

• 🇪🇺 CJEU Ruling Threatens Liability Exemptions for Online Platforms

• 🇮🇳 India Orders GitHub to Restrict Content

• 🇺🇲 Judge Blocks SD Law Against Abortion Advertising

• 🇷🇺 Russia Labels Libertarian Party Foreign Agents

• 🇦🇺 Australian Protesters Challenge Ban on Pro-Palestine Slogans

First of All 🇺🇸

» Judge Blocks SD Anti-Abortion Advertising Law

• A federal judge temporarily blocked the enforcement of a South Dakota law against abortion advertising.

• Details:

  • The state prohibits the advertisement of any “article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing an abortion.”

  • Mayday Health, which runs an informational website about where people can access abortion pills, sued over the law.

  • U.S. District Judge Camela Theeler said the law is a content-based restriction and will have to meet a high bar to be constitutional.

» LA City Council Ban Sparks Speech Concerns

• Civil liberties groups submitted a joint letter to the Los Angeles City Council over its July 2025 ban on using the N-word and C-word during their meetings.

• Details:

  • The council said the words were “fighting words” and unprotected speech.

  • The groups intend to file a lawsuit if the ban is not repealed within 30 days.

  • The letter also argues against a policy barring individuals removed from meetings from attending future ones for a limited time period.

» NC National Guard Settles Free Speech Case

• The North Carolina National Guard settled a case brought by veteran Timothy Stanhope, who alleged it had violated his First Amendment rights.

• Details:

  • Stanhope made several posts on the Guard’s Facebook page criticizing leadership.

  • The Guard revoked his access to the page, removed his posts, and pressured him to retire.

  • The Guard settled the case and restored Stanhope’s access and posts on Facebook.

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The Digital Age 🤖

» India Orders Restrictions on GitHub

• 🇮🇳 India’s Ministry of Home Affairs directed GitHub to restrict content on the grounds that its open-source software could facilitate unlawful activity.

• Details:

  • GitHub operates Bitchat repositories that allow users to communicate amid internet shutdowns and avoid centralized networks’ restrictions.

  • The notice resembled the format of recent government takedown notices, but did not identify specific posts or messages with unlawful material.

  • Instead, it orders GitHub to restrict access to three Bitchat repositories within three hours because its software makes it possible to “circumvent lawful restrictions.”

  • The order comes as authorities crack down on student-led protests over alleged examination paper leaks, as mentioned in last week’s Free Flow.

The Brussels Effect: Europe and Beyond 🇪🇺

» CJEU Ruling Threatens Online Platforms’ Liability Exemptions

• A recent judgment by the European Court of Justice threatens to remove liability exemptions for user-generated content for platforms with certain algorithms.

• Details:

  • The Court evaluated restrictions on Coyote System, a navigation service that notifies drivers about roadside checks.

  • It formulated a general test for when an intermediary is no longer considered a “neutral” host and exempt from liability over user-generated content.

  • It held that when an algorithm determines “under what conditions, how and in which order of priority” information is disseminated, the intermediary loses its liability exemption.

  • The Electronic Frontier Foundation argues the Court’s reasoning could apply to social media platforms’ recommendation algorithms, exposing them to liability and incentivizing them to remove too much content.

» EU Finds TikTok Violated Digital Services Act

• The European Commission found TikTok did not adequately protect children’s privacy rights on its platform by allowing adults to view minors’ accounts.

• Details:

  • Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said allowing children aged 13-15 to “easily” change their accounts from private to public is unacceptable.

  • Regnier argued the action exposed children to cyberbullying, grooming, and predators.

  • TikTok could face fines of up to 6% of its total annual revenue.

» EU AI-Label Mandate to Take Effect

• The EU will begin enforcing artificial intelligence transparency rules on August 2, requiring companies to label AI-generated content.

• Details: Companies must ensure their AI systems inform users when they are using AI, such as a chatbot, or when an image or text was created using AI.

» Italian Journalist Held Liable for Users’ Comments

• 🇮🇹 Italy’s Court of Cassation held journalist Fabio Butera liable for third-party users’ comments on his Facebook page.

• Context:

  • In a 2018 Facebook post, Butera criticized a news report by journalist Valentino Gonzato.

  • Gonzato filed a civil defamation lawsuit against Butera.

  • Lower courts found Butera’s post was not defamatory, but users’ comments on the post were, and ordered Butera to pay damages for failing to remove them.

  • Italy’s Court of Cassation, its highest appellate court, upheld the lower court’s reasoning.

Free Speech Recession 🌍

» Russia Labels Libertarian Party ‘Foreign Agent’

• 🇷🇺 The Russian Ministry of Justice added the Libertarian Party of Russia (LPR) and 24 of its members to its list of foreign agents, barring it from participating in elections.

• Context:

  • Russia’s 2012 foreign agents law allows NGOs to be labeled foreign agents if they receive foreign funding and engage in political activity.

  • In 2022, it was broadened to include media organizations and individuals “under foreign influence.”

  • The registry lists LPR as having disseminated material of other “foreign agents” and “unreliable information” about Russian policies and the electoral system.

  • Designated foreign agents are subject to labeling and reporting rules and can face administrative or criminal liability, including fines, searches, and imprisonment.

» Australian Protesters Challenge Ban on Pro-Palestine Slogans

• 🇦🇺 A group of 7 pro-Palestinian activists filed a lawsuit against a Queensland law banning the slogans “from the river to the sea” and “globalise the intifada.”

• Details: The suit follows the arrest of more than 20 people protesting the ban when it was passed in March, as mentioned in a previous Free Flow.

» Egypt Detains Dozens Over Online Activism

• 🇪🇬 Since late May, Egyptian authorities have arrested at least 50 people part of a Gen Z online group criticizing the government and calling for change.

• Details:

  • The group, known as “Gen Z002,” was formed in October 2025 on Discord and hosts online discussions and live voice chats on political developments.

  • Those arrested are under investigation for terrorism-related and false news charges.

  • Some allege being forcibly disappeared for periods ranging from 6 to 40 days and being tortured.

» U.S. Embassy Concerned Over Georgia’s Hate Speech Department

• 🇬🇪 The U.S. Embassy in Georgia said it is concerned about the state’s new Hate Speech Department.

• Context:

  • The statement was a response to questions around the detention of journalist Vakho Sanaia, which was included in last week’s Free Flow.

  • The Department was created in June to detect statements that “violate/insult human dignity and contain hate speech.”

» Russian Editors Fined For Reporting on Former Official

• 🧑‍⚖️ A magistrate in Moscow’s Tagansky district fined two Russian editors for reporting on remarks made by Andrey Tsyganov, a former member of Roskomnadzor, the country’s communications regulator.

• Details:

  • Tsyganov called for the promotion of domestic heroes and said children were being raised on Western characters, including anime, toy cars, and Spider-Men.

  • The Daily Storm, a Telegram channel, reported on his remarks on February 24.

  • On March 2, the first deputy prosecutor general demanded that the post be restricted as material “aimed at destabilizing socio-political situations.”

  • RusNews reported on the remarks in March, adding that Tsyganov proposed substituting Western characters with war veterans.

  • A magistrate fined the heads of the two outlets 30,000 rubles ($385), arguing the editors failed to send an official inquiry to Roskomnadzor to verify the information.

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Ashley Haek is a communications coordinator and research assistant at The Future of Free Speech.

Audrey Campbell is a communications intern at The Future of Free Speech and an international relations major at American University.

Isabella Dail is a communications intern at The Future of Free Speech and a recent graduate from Princeton University with a bachelor’s in philosophy.

History shows that freedom of expression comes under its greatest pressure during periods of war. Faced with military conflict or perceived threats to national security, governments have repeatedly concluded that exceptional dangers justify exceptional restrictions on speech. During the First World War, the United States enacted the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, leading to the prosecution and imprisonment of thousands of individuals for anti-war speech, including the socialist leader Eugene Debs. Similar patterns emerged in Germany. The Weimar Republic did not collapse because it tolerated Nazi speech. It imposed extensive censorship and emergency restrictions, many of which were later exploited by the Nazis themselves to dismantle democracy after taking power. This demonstrates a recurring constitutional challenge. Exceptional measures rarely remain confined to their original purpose. Instead, they often expand in scope, applying to new actors, new forms of communication and new circumstances.

The European Union’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine fits within the above historical tradition. Describing Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik as central components of “an international campaign of media manipulation and distortion of facts,” the Council of the European Union prohibited the broadcasting and distribution of their content throughout the region. The legality of those measures was subsequently upheld by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU/Court), which accepted that the circumstances created by Russia’s aggression justified the action taken. The broader sanctions regime also illustrates the progressive expansion of these exceptional measures. In fact, the EU has imposed restrictive measures not only on Russian state-controlled media, but also on individuals alleged to have engaged in “information manipulation and interference.” For example, Jacques Baud, a former Swiss army colonel and former NATO official, was one of several persons subjected to travel restrictions and an asset freeze after the Council alleged that he promoted pro-Russian narratives through media appearances

The Court’s recent judgment in Case C-67/25 concerns a different question, but one with potentially broad implications. It does not ask whether RT itself may lawfully be prohibited from broadcasting. That has already been settled. Rather, it asks how far that prohibition extends once RT’s content leaves the broadcaster. Can a private individual who republishes RT material through a free website become subject to the same restriction?

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From Broadcasters to Disseminators

The case reached the Court through the preliminary ruling procedure under Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Under that procedure, national courts may ask the CJEU to interpret EU law where the answer is necessary to resolve proceedings before them. The CJEU does not determine whether the defendants are guilty of a criminal offence. Rather, it provides an authoritative interpretation of EU law that the referring court must subsequently apply to the facts before it.

The reference arose from criminal proceedings before a German court concerning three individuals accused of repeatedly making RT Germany videos available through a publicly accessible website financed exclusively through voluntary donations. The referring court asked whether such individuals could qualify as “operators” within the meaning of Article 2f(1) of the aforementioned Regulation. The article prohibits operators from broadcasting, enabling, facilitating or otherwise contributing to the broadcast of, amongst others, RT Germany, including through distribution through internet service providers, internet video-sharing platforms or applications.

The Court noted that the concept of ‘operator’ extends to “any natural or legal person directly or indirectly responsible for making available or transmitting that content to the public,” including where the activity is non-remunerated or carried out through a website financed by voluntary contributions. Specifically, the CJEU noted that, because the website relied on voluntary contributions from third parties, identifying the origins of its funding and, consequently, any potential influence over the content it broadcast could help prevent interference by foreign nationals. As such, the CJEU found that the website “may be used to relay the propaganda campaign which the Russian Federation engages in and which Regulation No 833/2014 seeks to prohibit.”

One may argue that a prohibition applying only to RT itself would be easy to circumvent in an online environment where information is replicated instantaneously by countless intermediaries. Yet every extension of an exceptional speech restriction raises a fresh constitutional question. Restricting the broadcaster itself is one thing. Extending that restriction to those who subsequently disseminate its content is another. It is that question, rather than the fate of RT itself, that makes Case C-67/25 a deeply concerning judgment for freedom of expression.

Beyond RT: Effectiveness, Proportionality and the Limits of the Ban

At its core, Case C-67/25 permits national courts to treat the republication of RT content by third parties as falling within the EU prohibition on dissemination, even where those third parties are independent, volunteer-funded websites and do not themselves produce or control RT’s broadcasts.

In grappling with the question posed by the German court, the CJEU proceeds on the implicit assumption that once the restriction imposed on RT has been accepted as proportionate, extending that restriction to others becomes primarily a question of ensuring the Regulation’s effectiveness. The result is a judgment in which effet utile largely eclipses proportionality. The CJEU said remarkably little about why the broader interpretation it adopts represents the least restrictive means of achieving the same objective. It did not examine whether extending the prohibition to non-profit-making third parties who merely reproduce RT material strikes a fair balance between the objective of combating Russian state propaganda and the right to freedom of expression guaranteed by Article 11 of the Charter if Fundamental Rights of the European Union (Charter) on the right to freedom of expression. Instead, the restriction is largely treated as self-justifying.

This is particularly notable because the Court has demonstrated elsewhere that it is capable of undertaking rigorous proportionality review where freedom of expression is at stake. In Commission v Hungary, the CJEU carefully assessed whether the measures in question were suitable, necessary and proportionate in light of the Charter before concluding that they could not be justified. No comparable exercise appears in Case C-67/25. The contrast raises legitimate questions about the consistency of the Court’s approach. It gives the impression that proportionality is applied selectively, rather than forming an indispensable component of the Court’s fundamental rights analysis.

Nor does the Court identify a principled limiting criterion. If liability depends upon making prohibited content available, how should courts distinguish between dissemination intended to amplify RT’s messaging and dissemination undertaken for entirely different purposes? Investigative journalists regularly reproduce original broadcasts to expose disinformation. Researchers preserve and analyse the material for historical and academic purposes. Documentary filmmakers rely upon authentic footage because it provides the most accurate record of events. Civil society organisations monitoring foreign influence operations frequently publish examples of the material they analyse. None of these actors share RT’s objectives. Yet each may, in one sense, make the prohibited material available to others. The Court offers almost no guidance as to where the legal boundary lies.

Admittedly, those questions were not directly before the Court. Under Article 267 TFEU, the Court answers the questions referred by the national court rather than constructing a comprehensive framework governing every conceivable factual situation. Even so, the broader the interpretation adopted, the greater the need for clear limiting principles. Those principles are largely absent from the judgment.

However, the right freedom of expression depends not only upon substantive protection, but also upon legal certainty. Individuals should be able to foresee, with reasonable confidence, whether their conduct falls within the scope of a legal prohibition. The CJEU’s interpretation undoubtedly makes it more difficult to circumvent the prohibition on RT content. Whether it provides equally clear guidance to journalists, academics, researchers and others who reproduce such material for legitimate public interest purposes is considerably less obvious.

Conclusion

The significance of Case C-67/25 extends beyond RT or the facts of the German proceedings. It reflects a broader constitutional shift. A severe restriction, originally directed at a specific state-controlled broadcaster during a geopolitical crisis, has been extended to encompass independent third parties who reproduce the broadcaster’s content, including operators of websites funded solely through voluntary donations. Whether every such reproduction will ultimately attract criminal liability remains a matter for the national courts. What the CJEU has done is make that possibility legally conceivable.

Liberal democracies are often judged not by how they protect freedom of expression in ordinary times, but by how they protect it during periods of crisis. History demonstrates that exceptional measures have a tendency to expand beyond the circumstances that first justified them. That is precisely why proportionality and legal certainty matter. They ensure that exceptional restrictions remain exceptional. The concern raised by Case C-67/25 is not simply that the CJEU interpreted Article 2f broadly. It is that, in doing so, it offered little explanation of where the constitutional limits of that interpretation lie.

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Natalie Alkiviadou is a Senior Research Fellow at The Future of Free Speech. Her research interests lie in freedom of expression, the far-right, hate speech, hate crime, and non-discrimination.

TL;DR

• Colorado Overhauls Its AI Law After a First Amendment Challenge: A federal court stayed enforcement of Colorado’s AI Act weeks before its June 30 effective date after xAI argued its disclosure requirements as compelled speech and the DOJ intervened on equal protection grounds; the legislature replaced it with a narrower statute and separately enacted a companion chatbot safety law for minors, both taking effect January 1, 2027.

• FTC Targets State AI “Truthful Output” Laws: The FTC opened public comment on a policy statement arguing that state laws forcing AI models to alter truthful outputs, including Colorado’s previous AI Act, may be preempted as unfair or deceptive practices under federal law.

• US Export Controls Force Anthropic to Suspend Its Newest Models: The government ordered Anthropic to cut off foreign nationals’ access to its newest models in June, citing national security; the controls were lifted three weeks later, and OpenAI similarly limited its own new releases at the government’s request amid growing federal oversight of frontier AI.

• “Preventing Woke AI” Order Takes Effect for Federal Contractors: As of July 1, agencies must apply “ideological neutrality” criteria to AI procurement, requiring vendors to document that their models avoid “ideological bias” or risk losing their federal contracts.

• EU Finalizes “Digital Omnibus on AI,” Bans “Nudifier” Apps: Parliament and Council reached final political agreement in early May on a package that delays high-risk compliance deadlines while banning AI tools that generate non-consensual intimate imagery or CSAM, giving companies more time to comply.

• US Circulates Draft UN Declaration Targeting EU Tech Rules: Ahead of September’s UN General Assembly, the Trump administration is lobbying world leaders to sign a declaration on free expression that challenges the EU’s Digital Services Act and its approach to online speech.

• China Partially Bans AI “Companion” Apps: New rules effective July 15 ban virtual romantic or family partners for minors and require pre-launch review of any AI with a human-like personality, prompting ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent to pull their companion features.

• South Korea’s Amended AI Basic Act Takes Effect: A revised enforcement decree took effect July 21 as Seoul announced a free, domestically built chatbot meant to reduce reliance on foreign platforms like ChatGPT, in an explicit bid for “AI sovereignty.”

• German Court Rules Google Liable for AI Overviews: A Munich court held Google directly liable for false AI-generated claims about two publishers.

• New York Passes Bill Requiring AI-Content Disclosure by News Outlets: The FAIR News Act, passed in the final hours of the legislative session, would let the state Attorney General fine outlets for failing to disclose AI-generated content; press groups warn its copyright exemption is illusory, and it now awaits Governor Hochul’s decision.

• Meta Built, Then Removed, Facial-Recognition Code From Smart Glasses App: Reporting revealed dormant code that would have identified strangers in public through Ray-Ban smart glasses; Meta pulled the code the day after the story broke, following earlier warnings from lawmakers and advocacy groups.

Major Stories

» Colorado Overhauls Its AI Law After a First Amendment Challenge

• Federal court stayed the enforcement of Colorado’s Consumer Protections for Artificial Intelligence Act (SB 24-205), the country’s most comprehensive AI accountability statute. Then, the law was repealed and replaced weeks before its long-delayed June 30 start date. Two weeks after, Governor Polis had already signed a separate law creating a new safety track for AI chatbots that interact with children.

• Details:

  • On April 9, xAI sued in federal court, arguing the law’s algorithmic-discrimination and disclosure duties compelled speech in violation of the First Amendment; the Department of Justice filed a companion complaint on April 24 supporting that position, the first time the DOJ has intervened in a lawsuit challenging a state AI law.

  • A federal magistrate judge stayed enforcement on April 27, and the legislature quickly passed a narrower replacement, SB 26-189 before Governor Polis signed it on May 14. It drops the mandatory bias-audit and algorithmic-discrimination duties for a narrower disclosure-and-notice framework, with a new effective date of January 1, 2027.

• A Second Colorado Law:

  • On May 29, Polis signed the Chatbot Safety Act, requiring conversational AI operators to disclose that a service is AI, estimate users’ age, and implement a suicide/self-harm response protocol.

  • Output also cannot be presented as equivalent to licensed professional services and must report annually to the Attorney General. The law shares SB 26-189’s 2027 effective date.

  • For minors, operators must additionally block sexually explicit content and statements simulating emotional dependence, stop engaging if a user prompts about sexual conduct involving a minor, avoid using points or rewards to encourage engagement, and provide privacy/account-management tools for the minor or their parent/guardian.

Free Speech Implications: The case illustrates how First Amendment compelled-speech arguments, backed by the federal government, can unwind an enacted state AI law. The Chatbot Safety Act targets product design and disclosure rather than content, though its requirements to detect and interrupt certain conversations could still push companies toward more moderation of sensitive discussions with young users.

For insight into Colorado’s now-repealed AI Act, see the US chapter of FoFS’s report: “That Violates My Policies: AI Laws, Policies, and the Future of Expression.”

» FTC Targets State AI “Truthful Output” Laws Like Colorado’s

• On July 1, the FTC opened public comment on a proposed policy statement arguing that AI companies which distort their models’ outputs to satisfy undisclosed ideological objectives may be engaging in unfair or deceptive practices, and that state laws compelling such alterations may be preempted.

• Details:

  • The statement, issued under a December 2025 executive order, invokes the FTC’s authority under Section 5 of the FTC Act to police “unfair or deceptive” conduct, arguing that AI companies distorting outputs for undisclosed ideological reasons may be deceiving consumers about their products’ objectivity. It names Colorado’s previous AI Act as coercing companies into altering outputs to serve state ideological objectives, and states such a law is “impliedly preempted” where it conflicts with federal policy.

  • Chairman Andrew Ferguson framed the goal as advancing US “dominance in artificial intelligence” by preventing ideological subversion of AI systems, and noted the statement follows the FTC’s 2025 inquiry into AI companion chatbots.

Free Speech Implications: In line with other efforts to write culture-war framing into AI policy, the proposed statement risks substituting one orthodoxy for another. Under the banner of truth-seeking and neutrality, these actions give providers a reason to align their outputs with the views of whichever administration is in office.

» US Export Controls Force Anthropic to Suspend Its Newest Models

• On June 12, the US Department of Commerce ordered Anthropic to cut off foreign nationals’ access to its newly launched Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, citing national security. Unable to verify users’ nationality in real time, Anthropic suspended both models for everyone.

• Details:

  • The trigger was a jailbreak technique found by Amazon researchers that could bypass a Fable 5 safeguard; Anthropic says the flaw is now largely fixed.

  • The Commerce Department lifted the controls on June 30; Fable 5 returned globally July 1, while Mythos 5 had already been restored for vetted US organizations on June 26.

  • Days later, OpenAI similarly limited new GPT-5.6 models to trusted partners at the government’s request, and by mid-July the administration was reportedly dictating frontier-model access decisions directly.

  • Both episodes trace back to a June 2 executive order asking AI developers to voluntarily give the government advance access to their most capable models before public release.

  • This follows our previous coverage of Anthropic’s suit over a Pentagon “supply-chain risk” designation, where a CA court sided with Anthropic on First Amendment grounds.

Free Speech Implications: The existing opaque and case-by-case system in which officials can suspend a newly launched model overnight, and shape who gets early access to others, gives real leverage over when and to whom new AI capabilities become available.

» “Preventing Woke AI” Procurement Order Takes Effect for Federal Contractors

• Executive Order 14319, signed in July 2025 to bar the federal government from buying AI models with “ideological biases or social agendas,” became operative for new acquisitions on July 1, 2026, after OMB issued implementing guidance in December 2025 and gave agencies until March to update their procurement policies.

• Details:

  • Vendors supplying large language models to federal agencies must document adherence to the order’s “Unbiased AI Principles” of truth-seeking and ideological neutrality, providing acceptable-use policies and model cards, or risk having contracts terminated if an agency finds a model’s outputs reflect prohibited “ideological bias.”

  • The order exempts national security systems, open-source models, and incidental administrative use, but covers most commercial LLM procurement; it does not ban any specific model outright, only requiring disclosure of how it was built and trained.

Free Speech Implications: A state-defined “neutrality” standard, backed by the threat of lost federal contracts, gives vendors a strong incentive to sand down substantive answers on contested topics, and that caution can follow into their commercial products as well.

» EU Finalizes “Digital Omnibus on AI,” Bans “Nudifier” Apps

• Parliament and Council finalized the “AI Omnibus” in June, an agreement first struck in early May that pushes back key AI Act deadlines while adding, for the first time, an EU-wide ban on AI tools built to generate non-consensual intimate imagery or CSAM. Parliament adopted the deal June 16 and the Council followed June 29.

• Details:

  • The main change delays compliance for high-risk AI systems, things like biometrics, hiring tools, and law enforcement uses, from August 2026 to December 2027; AI used as a safety component in other products gets even longer, until August 2028. Watermarking requirements for AI-generated content are also pushed back, to December 2026.

  • The new “nudifier” ban prohibits any AI system built or sold in the EU for generating non-consensual intimate or sexually explicit images of real people or that does not have reasonable safety measures to prevent such creation; companies have until December 2026 to comply.

  • The package also narrows which AI features count as “high-risk” and gives the EU’s AI Office more centralized power to enforce the rules.

  • Separately from the Digital Omnibus on AI, the Commission adopted the guidelines on Article 50 of the AI Act, which deals with transparency obligations for interactive AI systems and the marking and labelling of AI-generated content.

Free Speech Implications: The omnibus resets the AI Act’s clock for key provision without settling what it requires. For expression, the substance now moves to the guidelines, codes of practice and early enforcement decisions that follow, which is where the Act’s practical reach over generative systems will actually be determined, and which we will continue to track.

» US Circulates Draft UN Declaration Targeting EU Tech Rules

• Ahead of the UN General Assembly’s September session, the Trump administration is circulating a draft declaration on freedom of expression that would conflict with the EU’s approach to platform regulation.

• Details:

  • Signatories would “commit to recognizing” that punishing alleged “disinformation,” “false information,” or “hate speech” risks freedom of expression unless the material directly incites violence, and the draft would shield platforms from government mandates to proactively fact-check or remove such content, creating a tension with key provisions in the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

  • The push extends a year of US-EU friction over the DSA, including a February 2025 presidential memorandum reviewing whether EU and UK rules “undermine free speech” and a December 2025 decision barring five European officials and activists linked to DSA enforcement from entering the US; the US mission to the UN has separately stated that it “will not accept suppression of the freedom of expression under the guise of combatting ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation.’”

Free Speech Implications: Laws targeting hate speech and disinformation are producing real and documented restrictions on expression worldwide, and a standard confining punishment to speech that directly incites violence or causes other clear harms would be a genuine step forward. Its credibility, however, hinges on the administration’s willingness to live up to its own principles. Washington is asking other governments to stop policing false speech at the same moment its own consumer-protection regulator is proposing to police how AI companies handle accuracy, as discussed above, within a wider push for “truth-seeking” AI.

» China Partially Bans AI “Companion” Apps

• China’s first regulations on AI companion services took effect July 15, banning virtual romantic or family partners for minors and requiring pre-launch review of any AI with a human-like personality.

• Details:

  • The rules, issued in April by China’s Cyberspace Administration and four other agencies, target bots that simulate a consistent personality and sustained emotional relationship with users, and require reminders every two hours for users flagged as overly reliant on a service.

  • ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent all discontinued companion features in Doubao, Qianwen, and Yuanbao around the deadline, prompting an outpouring of grief online from users who described their AI companions as partners or family members.

Free Speech Implications: Banning simulated relationships limits the expressive experience users seek from these tools, and the pre-launch review requirement leaves little public visibility into how regulators are actually applying that standard.

For insight into China’s AI policies, see the China chapter of FoFS’s report: “That Violates My Policies: AI Laws, Policies, and the Future of Expression.”

» South Korea’s Amended AI Basic Act Takes Effect

• A revised enforcement decree under South Korea’s AI Basic Act, the world’s second comprehensive AI law after the EU’s, took effect July 21, as the government announced plans for a free, state-backed chatbot to compete with foreign platforms.

• Details:

  • The AI Basic Act has been in force since January 22, with fines generally deferred during a grace period; the July 21 amendment expands procurement preferences for domestic AI and requires labeling of generative AI content across ten sensitive sectors, including healthcare, education, and criminal investigations.

  • Science Minister Bae Kyung-hoon said the government aims to roll out a free public chatbot and AI agent by year’s end, an explicit bid for “AI sovereignty,” as nearly 23 million of South Korea’s 51 million residents currently use ChatGPT.

Free Speech Implications: A state-subsidized, domestically developed alternative to foreign chatbots does reduce reliance on any single foreign platform which diversifies the information ecosystem, but a chatbot built and promoted by the government itself invites questions about whether its outputs on politically sensitive topics will be shaped by the same authority funding it.

For insight into South Korea’s AI policies, see the Republic of Korea chapter of FoFS’s report: “That Violates My Policies: AI Laws, Policies, and the Future of Expression.”

» German Court Rules Google Liable for AI Overviews

• The Regional Court of Munich ruled in May that Google may be held directly liable for false claims made by its AI-generated search overviews.

• Details:

  • The case arose after Google’s AI Overviews falsely linked two Munich publishers to scams and “dubious business practices,” drawing connections that did not appear in any underlying source; the court issued a preliminary injunction and ordered Google to cover 80 percent of legal costs.

  • The court held that AI Overviews generate “independent, new, and substantive statements,” making Google itself responsible for what the AI says, and that AI-generated opinion carries markedly weaker expressive protection than human speech since it is “the result of an algorithm” rather than a genuinely held view.

Free Speech Implications: The ruling suggests AI-generated expression may not carry the same weight as human expression when courts balance it against other rights, a doctrine with major implications for how liability, and possibly protection, will be allocated as AI-generated content displaces more human-authored text across the web.

» New York Passes Bill Requiring AI-Content Disclosure by News Outlets

• In the final hours of its session on June 5, the New York Legislature passed the FAIR News Act, which would require news publishers to conspicuously disclose when content is “substantially composed” using generative AI; the bill now awaits Governor Hochul’s signature or veto, which she has until the end of the year to decide.

• Details:

  • The bill would empower the state Attorney General to determine what content is “substantially” AI-generated and fine outlets $1,000 for a first violation and $5,000 for subsequent ones.

  • Senator Patricia Fahy says the bill targets “fly-by-night” outlets, not mainstream newsrooms, which are shielded by a copyright exemption; press groups, including the New York News Publishers Association argue that carve-out is illusory and the bill could reach any newsroom.

  • The FAIR News Act is one of several AI bills passed by Albany lawmakers before adjourning, alongside a companion-chatbot safety bill for minors and an AI training-data transparency measure.

Free Speech Implications: The bill has the potential to force newsrooms to publish a government-mandated disclaimer, and it hands the Attorney General discretion to decide which outlets’ editorial processes trigger that obligation, and potentially, its fines.

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» Meta Built, Then Removed, Facial-Recognition Code From Smart Glasses App

• Meta had quietly embedded dormant facial-recognition code, internally called “Name Tag,” inside the Meta AI companion app used to pair its Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses. Reported on June 4, the code was stripped from the app the very next day.

• Details:

  • The code, present in an app downloaded more than 50 million times, would have converted faces into biometric “faceprints” and matched them against a database, even though Meta had publicly said no decision had been made to launch the feature.

  • More than 70 advocacy organizations had already urged Meta to abandon the plans; Meta’s June 5 update stripped the recognition pipeline out, though the company did not explain why the code was there or whether the feature will return. Meta executives criticized the reporting that surfaced the code as misleading.

  • We flagged the early warning signs of this story in our March-April edition, when senators and a 75-organization coalition first pressed Meta over the same underlying facial-recognition plans.

Free Speech Implications: Always-on, AI-enabled cameras capable of identifying strangers in public without their knowledge or consent threaten the anonymity that underlies free association and expression in public spaces.

The Future of Free Speech in Action

Registration is open for the third annual Global Free Speech Summit, hosted by The Future of Free Speech and Vanderbilt University on October 2-3, 2026, which will again convene scholars, policymakers, and industry representatives to discuss threats to free expression worldwide, including AI’s growing role in shaping public discourse across democracies and authoritarian states alike.

The Future of Free Speech joined a coalition in a letter urging the Senate Judiciary Committee not to advance the NO FAKES Act of 2026 in its current form, warning that its takedown regime creates a “heckler’s veto” over lawful speech by pushing platforms to remove content first and sort out satire, parody, or commentary later.

The Future of Free Speech also joined a letter to the ITU Secretary-General urging meaningful civil society participation in the AI for Good Global Commission. The Commission brings together more than 40 Founding Members — governments, companies, and UN agencies — to help define practical pathways for AI governance. Yet it included no civil society representatives, a departure from the multistakeholder tradition that leaves important voices unheard, including those of disadvantaged communities.

Senior Research Fellow Jordi Calvet-Bademunt spoke at the 2026 Internet Communications Governance Forum, held in Taipei on May 12–13, 2026, where he discussed developments in international AI legislation and their implications for free speech. The event is organized by Taiwan’s National Communications Commission and the Taipei Computer Association.

Jordi also presented findings from our ongoing project on AI and freedom of expression at Columbia University, Esade Law School, and a meeting of the Freedom Online Coalition, which brings together representatives of 41 countries. He additionally discussed these findings bilaterally with representatives of EU institutions.

Senior Legal Fellow Ashkhen Kazaryan joined the Business Untitled podcast to discuss chatbot liability, algorithmic “hidden editors,” and the free-speech stakes of the TikTok debate and deepfake regulation.

Executive Director Jacob Mchangama spoke at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on May 12, 2026, where he discussed the “AI and Censorship” dilemma.

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Isabelle Anzabi is a research associate at The Future of Free Speech, where she analyzes the intersections between AI policy and freedom of expression.

Jordi Calvet-Bademunt is a Senior Research Fellow at The Future of Free Speech and a Visiting Scholar at Vanderbilt University.

Join Us! The 2026 Global Free Speech Summit returns on October 2–3 in Nashville, TN. Hosted by The Future of Free Speech and Vanderbilt University, this event brings together global leaders, thinkers, and changemakers to confront the most urgent threats to freedom of expression and explore bold, resilient solutions. Guests will have the opportunity to attend networking receptions to exchange ideas with speakers and fellow guests.

🎟️ Spots are limited. Get your tickets here.

This Week at a Glance 🔎

— 🇺🇲 New Rules Target Foreign Journalists’ Visas

— 🇦🇺 X Appeals Block on Footage of Aftermath of Bondi Beach Attack

— 🇬🇧 UK Report Labels Political Claims ‘Misinformation’

— 🇹🇳 Tunisian Journalist Jailed Over Social Media Posts

— 🇯🇵 Japan Bans Desecration of National Flag

First of All 🇺🇲

» New Rules Target Foreign Journalists’ Visas

• The Trump administration announced new visa rules that will cut the duration of foreign journalists’ visas from five years to 240 days.

• Details:

  • 🇨🇳 Visas for Chinese journalists will be shortened to 90 days.

  • The new rules will also introduce “clear, finite limits” on visas for exchange visitors and foreign students.

Our Take: In a statement, Jacob Mchangama argued, “Press freedom is enshrined in the Constitution, yet these policies treat journalists with suspicion, leaving foreign correspondents to weigh honest reporting against the risk of losing their ability to work in the country.”

» D.C. Circuit Upholds Pentagon Journalist Escort Policy

• In a case brought by The New York Times, the D.C. Circuit Court ruled that the Pentagon can continue enforcing its journalist escort policy in a split 2-1 decision.

• Details:

  • The decision pauses a district judge’s preliminary ruling suspending the policy, as mentioned in a previous Free Flow.

  • The majority found the policy did not constitute unlawful retaliation because The Times did not argue that the policy unfairly targeted it.

  • ✍️ Judge Bradley Garcia dissented, saying a “retaliatory government policy should not be immunized simply because it is broadly and evenly applied.”

  • The Times plans to continue litigation on the merits.

» DOJ Seeks Phone Records of Journalists and Their Families

• The Department of Justice is reportedly seeking the phone records of three journalists who covered security concerns over the Qatar-gifted Air Force One jet.

• Details:

  • The news comes after the department issued subpoenas to the reporters, summoning them to testify before a grand jury.

  • The New York Times reports the DOJ is seeking records from third-party communications companies, including those of two of the reporters’ spouses.

  • The DOJ insists that “reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.”

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The Digital Age 🤖

» X Appeals Bondi Shooting Video Ban

• X has appealed a decision by the Classification Review Board that a video showing fallen and dying victims in the aftermath of the December 14 shooting on Australia’s Bondi Beach could not be shown in the country.

• Context: The Classification Review Board is a statutory body that guides Australia’s national classification of various content.

• Regulators’ Perspective:

  • Regulators claim that the video is too violent and that platforms are attempting to monetize harmful content.

  • Richard Lancaster, lead lawyer for Australia’s antisemitism royal commission, questioned: “whether X Corp has or ought to have a social license to operate in Australia.”

• X’s Perspective:

  • 🇦🇺 X said the decision violates Australia’s free speech protections and argued the film provides evidence “against anyone seeking to deny” or minimize the event.

  • It also noted that graphic depictions of historical events — the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, Australian special forces’ war crimes in Afghanistan — are permitted in Australian media.

» Meta Report Warns of Cross-Border AI Restrictions

• A Meta Oversight Board study found that AI systems are more likely to refuse to criticize restrictive governments or leaders.

• Details:

  • 💻 The study asked 10 large language models to give reasons to join a protest, write a critical pamphlet, or write a limerick.

  • The report said models responding to an Australia-based user were less likely to generate political criticism of leaders from places where such criticism is penalized.

  • A separate report from American universities found that models gave different responses to questions when asked in different languages.

  • Together, the reports indicate that speech restrictions and biases could be extending beyond the borders where they apply,

Our Research: For more, view our report that examines safeguards for freedom of expression in AI policies from six global jurisdictions, and measures openness of the world’s leading AI models.

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The Brussels Effect: Europe and Beyond 🇪🇺

» France Bans Social Media For Under-15s

• France’s Parliament passed a bill banning social media for children under 15.

• What’s Next:

  • In September, age verification will be required on all new accounts, and under-15s will be prohibited from opening accounts.

  • Beginning January 2027, users will undergo age verification for all existing accounts.

  • Social media platforms must use age-verification tools approved by the country’s privacy regulator.

» Digital Rights Groups Warn Over DSA Draft Rules

• 🚩 The Electronic Frontier Foundation and ARTICLE 19 have submitted joint comments to the European Commission on draft guidelines for the Digital Services Act’s trusted flagger mechanism.

• Details:

  • New guidelines could allow governments to suppress speech without securing a court order or providing a legal basis, according to the orgs.

  • The “trusted-flagger” mechanism requires platforms to prioritize illegal content flagged by designated organizations.

  • Under Article 9 of the DSA, national authorities can issue legally binding removal orders to platforms–but only with a legal basis, a legitimate aim, and evidence of necessity.

  • The draft guidelines would let police and prosecutors bypass those safeguards by designating them as trusted flaggers.

  • The organizations argue that combining those powers “creates a risk that platforms may treat trusted flagger notices as de facto removal orders.”

» UK Report Labels Political Claims as ‘Misinformation’

• 🇬🇧 A study commissioned by the UK government classified ideas, including “anti-LGBTQ+ narratives” and “electoral fraud claims,” as “misinformation.”

• The Report:

  • The study, conducted by a group of seven academics, urges the government to use psychology to prevent spreading narratives deemed potentially “misleading.”

  • Public communications and schools are encouraged to implement these methods to prevent the spread of “false” ideas.

  • The government said the report did not represent official policy.

• Categories of ‘Misinformation’:

  • Anti-LGBTQ+ narratives, gender ideology claims targeting institutions, Pride event misrepresentation, and transgender athlete controversies.

  • 🇪🇺 Electoral fraud claims and the “institutional delegitimization” of the EU.

  • False claims about migrant entitlements, arrival demographics, and criminal acts.

  • Content “associating minority communities with crime or cultural threat.”

» Georgian Journalist Jailed for Facebook Post

• Vakho Sanaia, a journalist and TV host, was sentenced to 14 days of administrative detention over Facebook posts flagged by Georgia’s Hate Speech Department.

• Details:

  • Sanaia was initially fined for posting about a lawmaker: “I hope no one called [Vladimer Bozhadze] d**k, because the law prohibits calling Lado d**k. I would also like to urge everyone not to call Lado a d**k.”

  • A subsequent post resulted in administrative detention: “I wrote a post saying, ‘Don’t call Papuashvili and Bozhadze d**k,’ and I was fined 6,000 lari. Am I missing something? Give them a call.”

  • Georgia’s recently formed Hate Speech Department can initiate administrative cases over public speech.

Our Take: This comes after the European Court of Human Rights upheld a fine against a Georgian man who criticized local public transportation. At Persuasion, Jacob Mchangama wrote, “The implication is stark: online speech, precisely because it travels further and faster, warrants more restriction, not less. That gets the logic of democratic accountability exactly backward. “

Free Speech Recession 🌍

» Japan Bans Desecration of National Flag

• 🇯🇵 Japan enacted a law prohibiting the desecration of its national flag in ways that “cause extreme discomfort or sense of disgust to others.”

• Details:

  • Violators could face up to two years in prison or fines of up to 200,000 yen ($1,230 USD).

  • Legal experts warn the law’s vague wording criminalizes speech based on hurt feelings and could be turned against government critics.

  • Critics also note that flag desecration laws in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere come with clearer criteria and stronger free speech protections.

» Tunisian Journalist Sentenced to Prison Over Social Media Posts

• 🇹🇳Tunisian journalist Haythem El Mekki was sentenced to one year in prison over posts on social media criticizing conditions at a public hospital morgue.

• Details:

  • The Habib Bourguiba University Hospital filed a public lawsuit against Mekki in 2023 for saying its morgue exceeded its capacity.

  • A lower court dismissed the case, but an appeals court convicted him of “insulting others through public telecommunications networks.”

  • Mekki has been prosecuted three times since 2023 for remarks made online or in the media.

» Crackdown on New Delhi Education Protests Escalates

• Social media videos and accounts allege police in New Delhi threw stones, fired tear gas, and beat peaceful protesters.

• Details:

  • On July 20, protesters marched to the Parliament of India to demand the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, the Union Education Minister.

  • Demonstrators demanded accountability after alleged leaks of medical school entrance exam questions forced officials to cancel all results.

  • Protesters also seek compensation for families whose students committed suicide following the distress.

  • Amnesty International reports that police also installed barricades and suspended metro services and mobile internet to curb the protests.

» Cambodia Imprisons Journalist Over Water Shortage Report

• Cambodia sentenced journalist Luot Sophal to two years’ imprisonment for reporting that frontline soldiers lacked water.

• Details:

  • He was convicted on charges of demoralizing the armed forces and incitement to commit a felony.

  • Sophal was arrested after posting a video on his personal Facebook page in February discussing the shortage.

  • Authorities ordered him to delete the post and apologize while in custody.

  • Cambodia has punished critical coverage of its conflict with Thailand with sentences as harsh as 14 years for treason.

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Ashley Haek is a communications coordinator and research assistant at The Future of Free Speech.

Audrey Campbell is a communications intern at The Future of Free Speech and an international relations major at American University.

Isabella Dail is a communications intern at The Future of Free Speech and a recent graduate from Princeton University with a bachelor’s in philosophy.

Adapted from my keynote at the Amerikahaus in Munich, July 2026. Edited for length and readability. The full talk and the Q&A that followed are here.

It is an honor to speak in Germany, a country where discussions about the limits of free speech are almost existential given its history. I do so knowing that my take is a heretical one from a European perspective, if such a perspective exists, and perhaps that is easier for a European who lives in the United States.

We have heard a great deal about the state of free speech in the United States, and conspicuously little about the state of free speech in Europe. So I will venture to talk about developments in this country, even though I am not an expert in German law, because it is always good to look inward as well.

Dachau

The afternoon before this talk, I left this beautiful city and went to one of the darkest places in Bavaria. It struck me how much relevance Dachau has to the question we are here to discuss, not least because in its opening years it was primarily political prisoners who were interned there.

One story struck me in particular. Fritz Gerlich was the Catholic conservative editor of Der gerade Weg, a newspaper published here, and he had become increasingly critical of Nazism, of antisemitism, and of Hitler. In 1932 he published a deeply satirical article which, in a very primitive form of photoshopping, showed Hitler being wedded to a Black African woman under the caption “Does Hitler have Mongolian blood?” It was an effective satirical takedown of Nazi racial-scientific theories.

Unfortunately, Hitler would have the last laugh. Once he came to power, Gerlich was arrested, taken to Dachau, and executed there in 1934. The Nazis, of course, had very harsh rules about spreading so-called fake news and hate speech about Nazi leaders, institutions, and ideas.

That history is relevant in another sense too. Regardless of our different positions, all of us here are united by a deep commitment to keeping Dachau a museum and a warning, rather than reopening it and once again becoming a place where you put people with the wrong ideas, the wrong skin color, the wrong religion.

When it comes to free speech, that poses some questions. Is the best way to avoid new Dachaus to be intolerant of the intolerant, to paraphrase Karl Popper, to build a militant democracy the way Germany has done, and to insist that the enemies of democracy, dignity, and equality should not be allowed to abuse their freedom? Or is that a cure worse than the disease? Does it in and of itself create the risk of an authoritarian state using these powers to entrench itself, paving the way to new camps, or at any rate restricting the freedoms of unpopular minorities in ways that are incompatible with democratic ideals?

This is also, in a generalized way, the competing vision between the American and the European models, and especially between the American and German ones.

He had a point

Someone who mentioned that not far from here was US Vice President JD Vance, who last year launched an incendiary attack on European democracies, saying they had abandoned common transatlantic values, not least free expression. He did so in a way that shocked a lot of Europeans. It was a moment when the transatlantic rupture was made manifest.

I think Vance did so in a calculated way, to demonstrate the contempt the Trump administration has for its European allies. As a Danish citizen, I am not sure how reliable an ally the Trump administration is, given that they want to invade our territory. And it was framed around particular culture war grievances.

Nonetheless, I want to be provocative myself and say that he had a point. Of course, he failed to look in the mirror. But it is the truth, in my opinion, that we are living through what I call a global free speech recession, one that has crashed ashore not only in authoritarian states but in democracies too, including Europe and especially the United States under this administration.

A golden age

To show the drift, I want to start somewhere happier: a golden age, if you like, from around the 1970s to the early 2000s. This was the third wave of democratization, when democracy swept from continent to continent, and there was an optimistic feeling that free speech and democracy went hand in hand. These two values were the north star in the constellation of transatlantic values. They were present in the Helsinki Final Act, the document Western states and the Soviet bloc agreed on, which promoted freedom of expression and became deeply empowering for dissidents behind the Iron Curtain. There were philosophical and doctrinal differences between America and Europe, but they were minor, and they paled in comparison to the systematic censorship of the common geopolitical enemy on the other side.

There were iconic moments of triumph. Václav Havel, the Czechoslovak dissident, playwright, and co-author of Charter 77, stood before a joint session of Congress in 1990 and told the incredible story of how, only a few months earlier, he had been a political prisoner in one of the most reactionary communist regimes in Central Europe. Now he stood there as the democratically elected leader of a country with complete freedom of speech. Many dissidents behind the Iron Curtain saw free speech as the most important freedom.

This was not only a European phenomenon. Before assuming office in 1994 as the first democratically elected leader of a free and multiracial South Africa, Nelson Mandela paid homage to the essential role free speech and a free press had played in shedding light on the evils of white supremacy. Apartheid South Africa had a very harsh censorship system. It had, ironically, hate speech laws that protected the white minority, and which could land you in prison. And of course the regime was not above killing people if that was necessary. Mandela said that free speech would be a cornerstone of the new South African democracy, and that no person, doctrine, institution, or government can claim a monopoly on truth, and that it is therefore a disservice to humanity to adopt any restrictions on free speech.

This is interesting, because thirty years earlier Mandela had given another speech. At the Rivonia trial in 1964, on trial for sabotage, he explained eloquently why the ANC had abandoned nonviolent action and turned to sabotage. Every step until then had been one of protest, speech, civil disobedience, and all of them had been progressively shut down by the apartheid regime. Only then, he said, did we decide we had to use violence.

Mandela gives us what we might call a pressure cooker theory of free speech. Free speech acts as a safety valve for grievances, one that lets them out in a peaceful manner. Remove it, and grievances turn into a pressure cooker that can explode into violence. If a person like Nelson Mandela says that, perhaps we should take heed of what others who are not as committed to democratic values have to say as well.

Then came the World Wide Web, ushering in a techno-optimistic belief that authoritarianism and censorship would be consigned to the ash heap of history, because no country would ever again be able to control what people said.

The recession

Fast forward to today and the situation looks quite different. According to V-Dem, the biggest data set on democracy, the number of countries where free speech is worsening has grown almost exponentially over the past twenty years. Almost thirty years of democratic gains have been rolled back.

It is no surprise that authoritarian states adopt censorship. That has been page one of the dictator’s playbook ever since the Athenian democracy was first overthrown in an oligarchic coup. You have to control the public sphere; you cannot allow dissent. But some things have changed. Authoritarian states, China most prominently, have learned to reverse-engineer the technological promise and supercharge censorship and surveillance at a scale previously unimaginable. Imagine what an Adolf Hitler or a Josef Stalin could have done with AI, as if their societies were not sufficiently unfree already.

What concerns me most, though, is that democracies have become much more defensive about freedom. Democracies once looked at free speech as a competitive advantage against authoritarian states. Today, and especially in our digital age, they increasingly look at it as a Trojan horse, a tool weaponized against democracy that empowers enemies both within and without, whether Russian disinformation or right-wing extremism.

Germany’s militant turn

This has manifested itself here in Germany, where my argument is that the militant part of German democracy has been re-emphasized and the liberal part de-emphasized.

We all know the historical reasons. There are also more recent developments that I understand can make Germans deeply apprehensive: the attack in Halle in 2019, the assassination of Walter Lübcke, the mass killings in Hanau the following year. These are a few examples of right-wing extremist violence that give many Germans deeply uneasy feelings about repeating history, about whether democracy will hold this time or whether we are living through a Weimar 2.0. That is reinforced by the fact that the AfD is polling well and looks like it might become the most popular party in the country.

So there is a relevant context, and I want to emphasize up front that I am not following the American attacks on Germany. Germany is not an authoritarian state. It has a vibrant political and media landscape, political pluralism, competitive elections, peaceful transfers of power, and judicial independence, all the ingredients that go into a democracy.

Nonetheless, there has been an increasing focus on restricting speech. In 2017 Germany introduced the NetzDG, which required social media platforms to remove manifestly illegal content within twenty-four hours or risk fines of up to fifty million euros. It has now been replaced by the Digital Services Act across the European Union. The flip side is that this makes large private platforms the arbiters of speech and incentivizes them to remove content that may be perfectly legal, without the due process one would normally expect.

It is not only platforms that have been cracked down on. In 2022 the New York Times documented at least 8,500 open online speech cases in Germany. Very often these are coordinated days of action where police go to private homes early in the morning, present people with charges of incitement to hatred, using anticonstitutional symbols, or insulting politicians, and sometimes confiscate laptops and other devices for forensic analysis. I am sure some of these people are genuine neo-Nazis who threaten politicians and incite violence. But there are numerous documented examples of people caught in the dragnet who have engaged in what many would label satire, using Nazi symbols not to advocate for Nazism but to criticize someone, perhaps by making a hyperbolic comparison.

It has also spread to the physical world, and this is where the inherent contradictions of militant democracy come to the fore. Iris Hefets is an Israeli Jew who has lived in Germany for more than twenty years. She is an anti-Zionist on the far left, very critical of the Israeli government, and she believes Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. After October 7, several German cities made blanket bans on pro-Palestinian protests out of fear of antisemitic statements. Hefets went out in a multicultural neighborhood in Berlin with a placard saying “As an Israeli Jew, stop the genocide in Gaza.” Within minutes, two German police officers detained her and put her in a police van, where she spent a couple of hours. She was not charged. On at least four occasions the same thing has happened.

So we have a situation where the descendant of a people subjected to genocide in Germany is being censored by the descendants of those who committed the genocide, all in the name of protecting people like her from antisemitism. And there are other contradictions. These laws are meant first and foremost to protect minorities, yet many Muslims have been caught up in them too.

That is not even the most far-reaching way speech is restricted here. After the assassination of Walter Lübcke, the criminalization of malicious gossip and insult was expanded to persons in political life. In other words, and this is my interpretation, a special protection of politicians against insult. And it is being used by the most powerful people in office in this country.

As leader of the opposition in 2021, Friedrich Merz retained a law firm specializing in scanning social media to identify insulting content and report it to police, and brought hundreds of cases. This has continued since he became chancellor. A few weeks ago someone was fined roughly a month’s wages for calling him a “Lügen-Fritz.” In my view that is a very mild insult of the most senior political leader in the country. And even if Merz might not be in the same class as Donald Trump, I am fairly sure you can find examples of Merz and many other politicians saying things that are not entirely true. Robert Habeck, the former vice-chancellor, had something like 800 cases against people, including someone who posted a meme calling him a Schwachkopf. Again, a very mundane insult. And again, police are being sent to the homes of Germans who criticize their political leaders.

So my question becomes: is this really a defense of democracy, or has it become a tool for protecting those who derive their democratic power from the people against the very people they derive it from? I lean very heavily toward saying this is an indefensible tool, and one not required under any meaningful definition of militant democracy.

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Does it work?

Another question I think Germans and Europeans should ask themselves is whether militant democracy is mostly a psychological mechanism, something symbolic, or whether it actually works.

Let us ask the German domestic intelligence services. Their own overview of right-wing extremism shows criminal and violent offenses rising steeply from 2018 to 2025. Look at where that begins. By 2018 the NetzDG was already in place, and several other speech-restrictive measures had already been adopted. You see the same pattern for antisemitism. And the rise of the AfD in the polls, even after members such as Björn Höcke have been convicted several times, does not inspire confidence that this is an effective remedy.

That does not necessarily mean the idea must be abandoned. But you should at least have a conversation about whether the mechanism is defensible, given that Germany is also committed to freedom of expression.

Germany is not alone. Across the European Union there is a push to criminalize hate speech further. The European Commission has proposed making it an EU crime across all twenty-seven member states, harmonizing and further restricting it, with harsher punishments and more emphasis on prosecutions. This would be deeply detrimental to free speech in Europe, because the differences are not only between Germany and the United States; they exist within Europe. My country, Denmark, is very different from Germany. We do not ban Holocaust denial. We do not ban swastikas. We have never banned communist parties; they sat in parliament. We had revolutionary socialists whose platforms were explicitly to overthrow the bourgeoisie and capitalism. The Danish tradition has been to say that it is better to combat these things out in the open. And Denmark has never had any real threat from political violence, nor neo-Nazi parties of any meaningful size.

Forcing a country like Denmark to adopt a militant democracy model is indefensible, and not something a European Union committed to freedom and democracy should be doing. Germany has its historical reasons. But forcing those reasons onto states with a different tradition, a different history, a different reality would, in my view, be illiberal.

European courts have not been willing to extend much protection either. The European Court of Human Rights has long insisted that hate speech is not protected. Even offensive speech, even blasphemy, can be criminalized in Europe. That is incredible to me. Look at the history of free speech. Why was Socrates sentenced to death? One of the reasons was impiety. We have not made progress since the trial of Socrates.

Earlier this year the Court also ruled in a case from Georgia, brought by a food courier who was upset that Georgian officials used bus lanes to race to and from the office while couriers were being fined. He insulted the officials on TikTok. The Court in its wisdom said it is very important to protect the functioning of civil servants and to protect them from offensive and abusive verbal attacks, especially online, because the online sphere is dangerous. So with this in hand, Friedrich Merz could go to Strasbourg and say: if you want to call me a Lügen-Fritz, I can punish you, and this is completely compatible with human rights. That is a simplistic take, since these cases are highly contextual, but essentially that is the message sent.

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What America learned

It is worth looking at why the First Amendment, in its current interpretation, differs from the European approach, and at the fact that Americans have grappled with these questions rather than simply inheriting the answer.

In 1949 in Chicago, a former Catholic priest with incendiary views on Jews and Black Americans was to give a speech, and he said a lot of horrific things. A large group of counter-protesters, agitated by his views, broke into the building, and violence ensued. The city fined Terminiello for breaching public order, on the theory that by giving such an offensive speech he had invited others to attack him. The Supreme Court, five to four, said no: the whole point of free speech is to invite dispute. If you allow someone to use violence to stop speech, and reward them for it, you defeat the entire purpose.

One of the justices who disagreed was someone whose views were shaped right here in Bavaria. Robert H. Jackson had been the chief American prosecutor at Nuremberg. He had put Nazi war criminals on trial, including Julius Streicher, the editor of Der Stürmer, sentenced to death for incitement to genocide in his antisemitic writings. Jackson was deeply concerned about how totalitarian movements in Europe had used democratic freedoms to get into power. His democratic bona fides are unimpeachable. He wrote a dissent, often quoted, arguing that if we allow freedom without balancing it with order, the Bill of Rights will be converted into a suicide pact. Democracies that allow too much freedom, in other words, hand totalitarian movements a gun they will use to end freedom. That was not an unreasonable statement for a man who had just tried Nazi war criminals.

But look at what happened. Fourteen years later, in 1963, 187 African American students protested against white supremacy outside the capitol in South Carolina. They used no violence. They sang, they chanted, they held placards. The white police force told them to disband because they were endangering public order. Why? Because white citizens might be so offended that they would use violence against them. The students refused, were arrested, and brought their case to the Supreme Court. The Court said what it had decided fourteen years earlier in Terminiello: that holding and expressing views deeply offensive to others is not a ground for restricting them.

Terminiello did not become a suicide pact. It became a deeply empowering tool for a persecuted minority to speak truth to power in a hostile environment.

That underscores an argument the civil rights movement made again and again. When The Birth of a Nation came out, the NAACP initially campaigned to have it banned, and occasionally succeeded. But they discovered two things. Their campaigning vastly increased the audience for the film and made its director a martyr who could claim the mantle of free speech. And Thurgood Marshall, then at the NAACP’s legal arm, wrote an internal letter saying they could not go to Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana to argue that banned films showing interracial marriage must be protected by free speech, and then go to Ohio the next day and argue that The Birth of a Nation must be prohibited. The NAACP changed its position.

Marshall argued against hate speech laws before the Supreme Court. In Beauharnais, about anti-Black leaflets, he said the comments at issue were thoroughly repulsive and nonetheless comments on the burning political and social issues of the day, and that there was a grave danger that such bills, when enacted, would serve to throttle any speaker who sought to champion the cause of minority groups.

By 1969 Marshall had become the first African American justice on the Supreme Court. The canonical case that cements American free speech exceptionalism is Brandenburg v. Ohio: a Klansman, in full regalia and armed, making thinly veiled threats against Black people and Jews in front of cameras. He was convicted under an Ohio law. He was defended, interestingly, by the ACLU, by two staff lawyers, one of them Jewish, the other Eleanor Holmes Norton, who would later become a delegate to Congress for Washington, DC. She defended Clarence Brandenburg on principle. The Supreme Court ruled in his favor, unanimously, and one of the justices was Thurgood Marshall.

We can assume that Norton and Marshall did not do so because they sympathized with a man who wanted to take away their rights, and who knows, perhaps even kill them. They did it because Marshall saw that the values of free speech and equality were not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing. The equal dignity of racial minorities depends on a principled and consistent application of free speech. He did not argue that free speech is a sufficient condition for racial equality, or a magic wand that makes racism disappear. He saw it as deeply instrumental and empowering in that fight.

On his first day in office Donald Trump signed an executive order promising to restore the First Amendment. Just about every action he has taken since has repudiated it. Once you see this history, it should not surprise us that his administration is hostile to core principles that have served, however imperfectly, to protect unpopular minorities throughout American history, and that it has tried to repurpose them for its own ideological agenda.

Only a majority away

If we accept that free speech and equality go hand in hand, and if we accept that it is dangerous for minorities to advocate restrictions, because those restrictions will always be defined and enforced by majorities, then it follows that if you are a minority you will only ever be a political majority away from being the target rather than the beneficiary of free speech restrictions.

That is not enough, though. There are other assumptions underlying free speech, and one of them is the tired cliché that bad speech is answered with better speech, as though this happens automatically. It does not. It requires effort. And we live in an imperfect world, so we will never have a utopia, not least because we disagree about first principles. Your utopia might be different from mine.

But let me give one concrete and recent example from Europe.

In April, Viktor Orbán was voted out of office after sixteen years, in a landslide. In theory this was not supposed to be possible. Orbán had built an illiberal and increasingly authoritarian state. His allies controlled eighty percent of traditional media and ninety percent of advertising revenue. Universities had been closed down. Civil society groups had been marginalized. LGBT protests were banned.

There was one thing Orbán did not control: the internet. A small group of independent online outlets kept trying to hold him accountable, and they broke a corruption story about child abuse that ultimately led to the resignation of the president and the minister of justice. On the day of that resignation, a Fidesz insider named Péter Magyar went on Partizán, a YouTube channel discussing public affairs, and made incendiary allegations, really tearing into Orbán over the level of corruption built around the state apparatus. Very quickly that interview garnered a million views in a country of ten million citizens. It now has more than two million. He followed up on Facebook. Two years later he had not only built a political party but won a two-thirds majority in a democratic election in which he was heavily outspent and had everything stacked against him.

That was only possible because of the internet, because of the social media we so often treat as a threat to democracy. Here it was a lifeline for democracy. And that is why Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin would call Orbán a lousy amateur. They know very well that it is not enough to control the press. If you do not control the internet, you cannot be a dictator.

A spirit of tolerance

I want to close with a line from someone who was born in this country and had to flee it, even though he was probably the smartest man in it. Albert Einstein wrote that laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression, and that in order that every man may present his views without penalty there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population.

That spirit is difficult. It is challenging, and in many ways counterintuitive. Human beings are not necessarily wired for a principled, consistent approach to free speech. We are very good at telling ourselves why particular kinds of speech should not be protected, why they are really dangerous, and why, purely by coincidence, the dangerous ones happen to align with our underlying ideological priors.

You can have the First Amendment. It can be the greatest paper on earth. But if you do not have a critical mass of people committed to a robust conception of free speech, it will not mean anything. We would go back to the days when you were sent to prison for ten or twenty years for opposing American involvement in the First World War, if you were an anarchist or a socialist.

That is the challenge for us. I think that spirit of tolerance demands an open democracy rather than a militant one. I understand that the German experience speaks in the other direction. But it may be worth a conversation about how militant, and how liberal, that democracy should be going forward.

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Jacob Mchangama is the Executive Director of The Future of Free Speech and a research professor at Vanderbilt University. He is also the author of Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media and The Future of Free Speech: Reversing the Global Decline of Democracy’s Most Essential Freedom (with Jeff Kosseff).

Join Us! The 2026 Global Free Speech Summit returns on October 2–3 in Nashville, TN. Hosted by The Future of Free Speech and Vanderbilt University, this event brings together global leaders, thinkers, and change-makers to confront the most urgent threats to freedom of expression and explore bold, resilient solutions. Guests will have the opportunity to attend networking receptions to exchange ideas with speakers and fellow guests.

🎟️ Spots are limited. Get your tickets here.

This Week at a Glance 🔎

— 🇯🇵 Japan Mandates AI Labels for Social Media Content

— 🇪🇺 EU Pledges to Ban Social Media for Children

— 🇺🇸 Massachusetts Senate Passes Youth Social Media Bill

— 🤖 EU Preliminary Report Finds Meta Violated DSA

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Court Bans Investigative Report Ahead of Publication

First of All 🇺🇸

» Faculty Sue Texas Tech Over Requiring Approval to Teach Race and Gender

• Faculty unions have sued Texas Tech University System leaders over two memos from Chancellor Brandon Creighton that dictate curriculum disclosures and restrictions.

• Details:

  • 📑 The first memo requires professors to disclose whether course materials address race, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

  • 🛑 The second memo requires professors to stop teaching these subjects until they receive approval from the Board of Regents.

  • The new rules apply to five institutions within the Texas Tech System.

  • The American Association of University Professors and the Texas AAUP-AFT sued the chancellor and members of the Board of Regents.

  • The lawsuit claims the policies are unconstitutional, citing subject matter that will be removed from curricula under the new rules.

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The Digital Age 🤖

» Japan Mandates AI-Labels for Social Media Content

• 🇯🇵 Japan has enacted new legislation that will require certain AI-generated or altered images and videos on social media to be clearly labeled.

• Details:

  • The legislation will take effect on March 1, 2027.

  • It applies to AI-generated or modified content that could reasonably be mistaken for being authentic, with exemptions for illustrations and animated material.

  • Platforms must take measures to curb the harmful effects of misinformation on elections.

  • 📃 The internal affairs and communications minister will set guidelines for the expected measures, and companies will publish annual reports detailing their efforts.

  • The law does not include criminal penalties.

» Massachusetts Senate Passes Youth Social Media Bill

• 📲 The Massachusetts Senate has passed a bill that would disable certain social media features for minors.

• The Bill:

  • The bill amends House Bill 5366, which sought to ban under-14s from social media platforms and require parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds.

  • Under the new bill, social media platforms would have to set default settings for minors to limit “addictive” features and increase safety.

  • ⚙️ Defaults include: disabling algorithmic feeds, autoplay, and infinite scroll, notifications from midnight to 6 a.m., and sharing precise geolocation data.

  • ⚙️ It also requires platforms to notify users after one hour of daily use, with follow-up alerts every 30 minutes.

  • 🚸 Minors cannot change these settings, but adults can. Minors can change settings that limit posts and direct messaging to their social media “friends.”

  • Age assurance methods must allow users to remain anonymous or not rely solely on a government-issued ID.

  • The amendment to change age-verification requirements from opt-out to opt-in failed.

  • The House must pass the amended bill for it to head to the Governor.

The Brussels Effect: Europe and Beyond 🇪🇺

» EU to Implement Social Media Ban for Children

• 📵 European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has promised a draft law this fall that would ban social media for EU children.

• Details:

  • Her pledge followed an expert panel’s call to restrict social media and other platforms that have similar features, such as video games and AI chatbots, for under-13s.

  • Von der Leyen declined to specify a minimum age for the draft bill.

» EU Preliminary Report Says Meta Breaches Digital Services Act

• 🇪🇺 An EU preliminary report found that Instagram and Facebook’s “addictive design” has violated the Digital Services Act.

• Details:

  • The EU Commission said Meta failed to weigh the risks of design features that harm users’ physical well-being.

  • 📲 The features include infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications, and personalized recommendation systems.

  • The Commission also accused Meta of ignoring data on how much time young people spend on its platforms at night and how different types of content lead to excessive use.

  • Since the investigation began, Meta introduced Teen Accounts that allow parents to block access to platforms at night and cap daily screen time at 15 minutes.

  • If the Commission’s findings are confirmed, Meta faces a fine of up to 6% of its total annual turnover.

» EU Commission Responds to Claims that Meta is Censoring Activists

• 🇪🇺 The European Commission has responded that it is “aware of the issue” and “in touch with relevant stakeholders” after an MEP asked what it will do about allegations that Meta censors progressive advocates.

• Details:

  • MEP Alexandra Geese filed a parliamentary question asking whether the Commission will launch formal proceedings to assess Meta’s compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA).

  • 🏳️‍🌈 Geese’s question stems from allegations that Meta is “censoring women, progressives, and LGBTQ accounts.”

  • Geese accused the platform of failing to meet DSA obligations to provide clear and specific reasons, effective and accessible internal complaint procedures, and risk assessments.

  • The Commission’s response noted that very large online platforms must assess systemic risks, including hindering freedom of expression and information.

  • It added that it cannot share details of its investigation, but that proceedings were opened in 2024 against Meta on suspicion that its platform’s recommendation systems penalized political content.

» Germany Advances Bill Criminalizing ‘Denying Israel’s Right to Exist’

• 🇩🇪 Germany’s upper house of parliament has advanced a bill that would criminalize publicly denying Israel’s right to exist or calling for its destruction.

• Details:

  • To trigger penalties, statements must encourage “a willingness to commit acts of antisemitic violence or arbitrary acts.”

  • Violators face up to five years in prison or a fine.

  • 🏛️ The bill now heads to the lower house of the national parliament.

» Swedish MEP Files Police Complaint Against Fellow MEP Over Hate Speech

• 🇸🇪 A Swedish MEP has filed a police complaint against a Danish MEP, accusing him of racist hate speech after she was targeted on social media.

• Context:

  • 💬 Danish MEP Kristoffer Storm responded online to a clip of Al-Sahlani addressing parliament, saying she “should go home.”

  • Al-Sahlani filed a police complaint against Storm for using racist and hateful speech against her.

  • 💬 Her complaint did not include a Finnish MEP, who responded to the clips with “cry more,” because police were unsure of how to handle the post.

  • The Finnish MEP said he planned to file a complaint over accusations that he threatened or made racist comments.

  • The Parliament’s services said they are looking into the incident, and Parliament President Roberta Metsola said her office would “take appropriate action” to prevent a repeat.

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Free Speech Recession 🌍

» Ukraine Court Bans Investigative Report Ahead of Publication

• 🇺🇦 A Kyiv court issued a temporary injunction blocking the publication of a joint investigation by an independent Ukrainian outlet and NGO.

• Details:

  • The report, by Slidstvo.Info and the Anti-Corruption Action Center (CPK), concerned the business dealings of the brother of the head of the country’s State Investigation Bureau (DBR).

  • CPK sent questions to the siblings, after which Parkovyi-2 LLC, a company linked to the brother who was the subject of the report, requested an injunction.

  • 🏛️ The court found that publication could cause irreparable harm and disclose trade secrets.

  • ⚖️ It did not weigh the public interest of the reporting, as national law requires.

  • Slidstvo.Info maintains that the report was based on publicly available documents.

» Israel Wants to Enforce ‘Institutional Neutrality’ on Universities

• 🇮🇱 Israeli proposals seek to impose “institutional neutrality” on the country’s universities by barring them from taking political stances, organizing strikes, or halting teaching as a protest.

• Details:

  • 🎓 University presidents would also be barred from voicing views that might be perceived as political or could prompt them to do so.

  • Lecturers and students are exempt from the rules if their political activity is private, “not specific to the institution or done by virtue of their academic or administrative role, and does not harm the institution’s regular activity.”

» Report Reveals 1,500+ Rulings Under Russia’s Law Against ‘Discrediting’ the Army

• 🇷🇺 A report from the Regional Centre for Human Rights shows Russian occupation courts have issued at least 1,529 rulings under a 2022 law against “discrediting” the Armed Forces.

• Details:

  • 🔎 Law enforcement agencies monitoring social media comments, likes, and posts–some from years earlier—opened 80% of the cases.

  • The report also detailed procedural violations, noting that proceedings in some cases lasted less than a minute.

  • 🇺🇦 One woman faced administrative charges for selling yellow and blue pillowcases at a market, the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

» Russian SpongeBob Viewers Suspect Rainbow Removed Under LGBTQ+ Propaganda Law

• 🇷🇺 Russian viewers suspect that the removal of a rainbow in an episode of the animated series, SpongeBob SquarePants, is due to the country’s ban on LGBTQ+ propaganda.

• Details:

  • 🌈 In the original episode, a rainbow appears over SpongeBob’s head as he discusses the fun of using one’s imagination–a scene that has become a viral meme.

  • Now, the episode shows only a blurred yellow arc.

  • Viewers suspect the change was made to comply with Russia’s ban on “any action or the spreading of any information that is considered an attempt to promote homosexuality.”

» Turkish Comedian Sentenced Over Ottoman Joke

• 🇹🇷 An Istanbul court issued a suspended five-month sentence to comedian Tuba Ulu after her sexually explicit joke about Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent circulated online.

• Details:

  • Ulu was charged under Article 216 of the Turkish Penal Code, which criminalizes public denigration of a group based on race, class, gender, religion, sect, or region.

  • The law calls for six months to a year in prison, but prosecutors sought three years for “insulting historical, national, and moral values.”

  • Ulu will not go to prison unless she commits another offense within the supervision period.

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Ashley Haek is a communications coordinator and research assistant at The Future of Free Speech.

Audrey Campbell is a communications intern at The Future of Free Speech and an international relations major at American University.

Join Us! The 2026 Global Free Speech Summit returns on October 2–3 in Nashville, TN. Hosted by The Future of Free Speech and Vanderbilt University, this event will bring together global leaders, thinkers, and change-makers to confront the most urgent threats to freedom of expression and explore bold, resilient solutions. Guests will have the opportunity to attend networking receptions where they can exchange ideas with speakers and other guests.

Spots are limited. Get your tickets here.

This Week at a Glance 🔎

— 🇺🇲 Federal Judge Suspends Pentagon’s Journalist-Escort Policy

— 🇰🇷 South Korean Disinformation Amendment Sparks Censorship Concerns

— 🇪🇺 ECJ Says Individuals Can Be Criminally Liable for Sharing RT Content

— 🇫🇷 French Prosecutors Launch Hate Speech Probe Against Paraguayan Senator

— 🇹🇿 Tanzanian Authorities Arrest Dozens Ahead of Planned Protests

First of All 🇺🇸

» Federal Judge Suspends Pentagon’s Escort Policy for NYT Journalists

• U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman issued a preliminary ruling ordering the Defense Department to halt its policy requiring journalists to be escorted in the Pentagon.

• Context:

  • The New York Times brought the case, taking its second legal action against the Pentagon in five months over newly enacted press restrictions.

  • The escort policy was enacted in March, as mentioned in a previous Free Flow, after Friedman struck down earlier restrictions.

  • Friedman ruled the Defense Department violated the First Amendment and blocked enforcement while the Times’ lawsuit proceeds.

  • Friedman did not specify whether journalists from other news organizations would also get relief from that policy.

» Homeland Security Agents Attempt to Warn Man Over Email to Former ICE Head

• Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents tried to give a warning notice to a man for potentially violating the law after he sent an email to the former head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Todd Lyons.

• Context:

  • In a January 26 email, David Streever compared Lyons to a Nazi and said he would be tormented by his own conscience.

  • On June 23, two HSI agents left a warning notice at Streever’s home with his wife for him to sign.

  • The notice said that ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility is requesting he “remove/or discontinue” the behavior.

  • Streever, who was in Finland when agents visited his home, returned to the U.S. two days later and stayed at a hotel near JFK airport.

  • Hotel staff told him that a Department of Homeland Security agent had come to see him and left a business card.

• What’s Next:

  • The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a lawsuit asking the court to find that Streever’s email was protected speech and to bar further action against him.

  • The suit also cites similar actions by HSI agents and asks the court to declare that such warning notices are “sufficient” to chill protected speech.

  • A statement from DHS said anyone who assaults or threatens officers “will face consequences.”

» University Threatens Diplomas Over Silent Protest

• Florida International University (FIU) threatened to withhold diplomas from students who stood up during a March event to reveal the slogan “ICE OFF FIU” on their shirts.

• Details:

  • Students silently stood at the event while the school president was speaking.

  • Emails obtained by news outlets show school officials admitting the students’ actions “did not disrupt the event.”

  • Months later, the school told students they must make a two-minute “video reflection” on their actions to receive a diploma, citing policies on “student conduct” and expression.

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The Digital Age 🤖

» Supreme Court Declines to Block Texas Age-Verification Law

• The Supreme Court denied petitions to block enforcement of a Texas law requiring app stores to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent for minors who download apps or make in-app purchases.

• Context: In June, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law can take effect, suspending a district court’s ruling that it was unconstitutional.

» South Korean Disinformation Amendment Sparks Censorship Concerns

• An amendment to South Korea’s Act of Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection that targets disinformation has sparked censorship concerns.

• Details:

  • The amendment took effect July 7, and allows courts to impose damages of up to five times the harm caused by “false and manipulated” information online.

  • Courts may also fine anyone up to 1 billion won (approximately $660,000) for repeatedly sharing such content.

  • Platforms with at least 1 million users per day are subject to the law.

  • The People Power Party (PPP) argued that the law empowers the government to decide what is false or hateful and risks causing citizens to self-censor.

  • PPP said it will file a constitutional complaint. The law can be paused only if the Constitutional Court grants a temporary suspension before a final ruling.

The Brussels Effect: Europe and Beyond 🇪🇺

» ECJ Says Individuals Can Be Criminally Liable for Sharing RT Content

• The Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) ruled that individuals can face criminal liability for sharing content from Russia Today TV.

• Details:

  • In 2022, EU sanctions prohibited the broadcasting of RT channels.

  • Three individuals in Germany are accused of posting RT Germany content on a website.

  • A German court asked the ECJ whether individuals who finance websites solely through user donations can be considered “operators” and subject to sanctions.

  • The ECJ concluded that the sanction restrictions apply to official broadcasters and the owners and administrators of public websites.

  • The ruling emphasized the restrictions apply to all materials regardless of content, duration, format, or the source of the website’s funding.

» ECtHR Says Suggesting Soccer Referees are Corrupt or Criminal Not Protected Speech

• The European Court of Human Rights ruled that while criticism and insults directed at soccer referees are protected speech, suggesting officials are corrupt or criminal is not.

• Details:

  • The ruling involves cases brought by Porto soccer club concerning a series of punishments imposed by Portuguese authorities and courts.

  • The punishments were tied to attacks and “conspiracy theories” spread by Porto’s media outlets against named referees.

  • The ECtHR ruled against Porto in the majority of the cases. It said Porto’s “accusations of corruption and match manipulation” were made “without a minimal factual basis.”

  • However, it deemed a 2019 article that said a named referee had “a problem with impartiality” and a career “full of untenable decisions” to be permissible value judgments.

  • The ECtHR said that Portuguese punishments for these remarks violated free speech protections and ordered payment of damages.

» French Prosecutors Launch Hate Speech Probe Against Paraguayan Senator

• French prosecutors launched an investigation into aggravated public insult and incitement to hatred over Paraguayan senator Celeste Amarilla’s social media posts about a French soccer player.

• Details:

  • After Paraguay’s loss to France at the World Cup, Amarilla mocked France captain Kylian Mbappe’s origins, upbringing, education, and appearance on X.

  • The Paris prosecutor’s office can investigate statements made abroad if the victim is a French national.

  • Amarilla could face penalties of up to one year’s imprisonment and a €45,000 fine for her remarks.

  • Yet questions remain how the French government would enforce a potential conviction in this case.

» EU Parliament Shields Encrypted Chats from CSAM Bill

• The European Parliament voted to exclude end-to-end encrypted apps, such as WhatsApp and Messenger, from a bill that allows platforms to scan for child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

• Details:

  • The original bill exempted platforms from certain obligations under EU privacy law, allowing them to scan private messages for CSAM.

  • Parliament rejected a proposal to extend the bill in March, and the rule expired in April.

  • Parliament President Roberta Metsola forced the bill back onto Parliament’s agenda with no changes.

  • Her party attempted to use a rare procedure that requires an absolute majority vote to amend or reject the bill.

  • However, a majority of MEPs voted to amend the bill to exclude end-to-end encrypted communications services.

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Free Speech Recession 🌍

» Tanzanian Authorities Arrest Dozens Ahead of Planned Protests

• Tanzanian authorities arrested dozens of people accused of recruiting youth to join planned anti-government protests.

• Details:

  • On June 26, Tanzania banned political rallies as protesters planned to demonstrate against last year’s election and the detention of opposition leader Tundu Lissu.

  • Army spokesperson Sylvester Mangure asked the public to report anyone recruiting or organizing protesters.

  • Police spokesperson David Misime said, “Strong action will be taken against anyone who participates in the unlawful riots being mobilized through social media.”

» Pakistan Supreme Court Dismantles Press Office

• Pakistan’s Press Association of the Supreme Court sent a letter to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after its press room was vacated and dismantled last month.

• Details:

  • The press room was vacated on June 15, leaving journalists without a workplace in the Court.

  • Journalists tried to set up a temporary workspace with chairs and sofas, while some worked outside in extreme heat.

  • The letter reports that the registrar’s office ordered the furniture confiscated, leaving journalists to carry out duties on the ground.

  • The Association demands a working environment for court reporters and the addressing of restrictions on media access.

» Iran’s Parliament Protests State Broadcaster

• Iran’s parliament is protesting against the country’s state broadcaster after a pre-recorded interview with Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was abruptly cut.

• Details:

  • A statement from parliament’s media office said the cut portion included the most sensitive political issues in the interview.

  • It also said the broadcaster should have coordinated with them if it chose not to air parts of the interview.

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Ashley Haek is a communications coordinator and research assistant at The Future of Free Speech.

Audrey Campbell is a communications intern at The Future of Free Speech and an international relations major at American University.

This Week at a Glance 🔎

— 🇺🇸 Justice Department Issues, Withdraws Subpoenas Against Reporters

— 🇦🇺 Australia to Strengthen Enforcement of Social Media Ban for Under-16s

— 🇧🇪 Belgian Police Detain Journalists at US Embassy Event

— 🇺🇬 Ugandan Government Shuts Down Multiple Independent News Outlets

— 🇭🇰 Two Hong Kong Booksellers Arrested for “Seditious Publications”

First of All 🇺🇸

» Justice Department Issues, and Then Withdraws Subpoenas Against Reporters

• The Justice Department issued and then withdrew subpoenas that sought to compel reporters at The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal to testify before a grand jury.

• Details:

  • Reporters from The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post received grand jury subpoenas, which were later rescinded, though the reasons for the withdrawal are unclear.

  • The subpoenas are part of a larger crackdown by the Trump administration on media leaks.

  • Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that “reporters are not our targets,” but that “we’re not going to stop investigating people who work in this administration who think it’s OK to leak classified information.”

  • The subpoenas come after an April 2025 decision by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi to revoke policy that protected journalists from having their phone records secretly seized during leak investigations.

  • The move gave prosecutors the power to use subpoenas, court orders, and search warrants to unmask sources who make “unauthorized disclosures” to journalists.

  • In January of this year, the Trump administration searched a Washington Post reporter’s home and seized her electronics as part of a leak investigation into a Pentagon contractor, as mentioned in a previous Free Flow.

» Maryland Student Journalists Sign Open Letter Against Prior Restraint Policy

• Around 150 student journalists from high schools in Montgomery County, Maryland have signed an open letter questioning the legality of a policy from a leaked memo, that would require all student articles to receive administrative approval ahead of publication.

• Details:

  • Previous guidelines allowed prior restraint only in narrow categories permitted by the New Voices state law (such as unlawful content).

  • Free speech organizations have come out in support of the students, including the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) and Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

  • Jonathan Gaston-Falk, an SPLC attorney, argued that “A vague memo that confuses administrators, chills reporting, and muddies rights protected by established Maryland law cannot stand.”

  • After hearing students’ testimony, Montgomery County Board of Education Superintendent Dr. Thomas Taylor said that while “students have a right to appeal decisions that are made… we do also have a responsibility and that responsibility we are going to follow as adults in compliance with the Maryland New Voices Act.”

» California Professor Wins Job Back After Firing for Pro-Palestine Activism

• Sang Hea Kil, a tenured professor at San Jose State University, has won her job back after being fired last year for participating in pro-Palestinian campus protests.

• Details:

  • An arbitrator reduced her termination to a one-month suspension and ordered the school to reinstate her with backpay.

  • She was terminated despite the recommendation of a faculty committee that reviewed the incident and advised against dismissal.

  • Kil filed a lawsuit against the state university system, alleging it had violated employment law and the First Amendment.

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The Digital Age 🤖

» Australia to Strengthen Enforcement of Social Media Ban for Under-16s

• Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced that the government is planning to strengthen laws barring under-16s from social media platforms.

• Details:

  • The move is a response to evidence that the ban, which came into effect in December as mentioned in a previous Free Flow, has failed to keep under-16s off social media.

  • A British Medical Journal study found that 85% of a group of Australian 12 to 17-year-olds were using restricted platforms

  • Fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars on platforms that do not take reasonable steps to remove children’s accounts have also failed as a deterrent. .

  • Albanese told Parliament that the government is considering options to strengthen the ban’s enforcement, and that the government is asking whether “laws are as strong as possible” and whether eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has “every power at her disposal.”

» Democratic Project 2029 Calls for Child Social Media Ban & Online Safety Rules

• The first proposal to be released by Democrats working on Project 2029, a policy plan ahead of the 2028 presidential election, calls for a ban on social media for kids under 16 and stronger privacy protections.

• Details:

  • The proposal, “Kids Over Clicks,” calls for lawmakers to ban social media platforms for kids under 16 and implement safety measures at the system’s design level.

  • It also proposes updating Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to exempt AI firms from liability shields for their systems’ outputs.

  • Other recommendations include cellphone bans in schools and a campaign to discourage giving kids smartphones until the age of 14.

» Second Circuit Clears New York Online Hate Speech Law

• The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded that a New York law requiring social media companies to deter hate speech does not violate the First Amendment because platforms aren’t required to adhere to the state’s definition of “hateful conduct.”

• Details:

  • In its order certifying questions to the state court, the Second Circuit said that if companies can comply with the law without fully adopting the state’s definition of hateful conduct, the law survives constitutional scrutiny.

  • The law defines hateful conduct as content that is used to humiliate or incite violence against a group based on race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation.

  • It does not require platforms to explain or publicize their reporting mechanisms with reference to the law’s definition, just that the mechanism be clear and accessible to users.

  • Judge Anthony Cannataro said the statute requires that a company’s disclosure must include only how it will respond to reports of hateful content, rather than compelling networks to specifically address hateful content.

  • The decision will affect how the Second Circuit proceeds with a lawsuit brought by legal expert Eugene Volokh and video site Rumble Inc. against the state, challenging the law as unconstitutional.

» Federal Judge Blocks Nebraska Age-Verification Law

• A federal judge has blocked Nebraska’s Parental Rights in Social Media Act, also known as LB 383, which would have required all users to undergo age verification for social media account creation and required minors to have parental consent to create an account.

• Details:

  • In a case brought by NetChoice, a tech trade association, the judge partially granted an injunction to stop the law from going into effect in July.

  • Judge John Gerrard said the provisions likely violate the First Amendment rights of both the users and the platforms.

  • “On the whole, the law is not tailored to solve the identified problem,” Gerrard wrote. “LB 383 too broadly restricts minors’ ability to access and engage in protected speech, even where speech does not pose the identified risk of harm.”

  • Gerrard, however, allowed a provision requiring companies to create a dashboard for parents to access and monitor children’s posts, interactions, and private messages, to be enforced.

The Brussels Effect: Europe and Beyond 🇪🇺

» Czech Bill Targets Funding for Czech Television & Radio

• A Czech bill that would allocate funding for Czech Television (CT) and Czech Radio (CRo) to the state budget, rather than through the current monthly license fee that households and businesses pay, has sparked concern among experts.

• Details:

  • The change would reduce each outlet’s annual budget to its level before the previous government increased the license fee last year, cutting CT’s 2027 budget by about €41 million and CRo’s by €16 million.

  • The government argues that most EU states have moved away from the license fee model and the country is merely joining the majority.

  • Vaclav Stetka at the European New School of Digital Studies warned that the cuts represent an act of “cultural vandalism” and that “the political elite has never accepted the independence of public media.”

  • The International Press Institute said they had not seen proposals for legislative safeguards to protect the outlets from political influence over future funding decisions.

  • The legislation will take effect next year if approved by both houses of parliament and signed by the president.

» Belgian Police Remove Journalists from US Embassy Event

• Brussels police removed two journalists after they tried to question U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Bill White at an embassy event they were invited to

• Details:

  • Video shows European Correspondent reporter Samuel Dempsey asking White a question before a member of the ambassador’s team cuts him off.

  • Dempsey and editor Julius Fintelmann said local police then surrounded them, questioned them about their outlet’s political agenda, and escorted them from the event—despite the U.S. embassy having officially invited them.

  • Brussels-Ixelles police confirmed their involvement in addressing an “active threat” on behalf of the embassy’s protocol unit.

  • When the European Correspondent later sought comment, White replied: “Both of you are losers.”

» Irish Regulator Adds to ‘Trusted Flaggers’ List

• Ireland’s media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, has granted three additional organizations “trusted flagger” status under the EU Digital Services Act, allowing them to notify online platforms of illegal content for takedown.

• Details:

  • The added organizations include the Irish Internet Hotline, the Irish Music Rights Organization, and the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland.

  • Platforms must prioritize notices from trusted flaggers and decide on content takedown without undue delay.

  • The new accreditations will remain valid for three years, and can be reviewed or revoked after the period expires.

» Poland Passes Anti-SLAPP Legislation

• On June 19, Polish President Karol Nawrocki signed a law against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs).

• Details:

  • The law, titled the Act on Special Protection Measures in Civil Proceedings for Persons Participating in Public Debate, will provide safeguards to journalists and media outlets against vexatious lawsuits.

  • It includes early dismissal mechanisms for SLAPP lawsuits, detailed definitions to identify SLAPPs, the introduction of security deposits for claimants, and a reversal of the burden of proof on the claimant in such cases.

  • Defendants are not allowed to seek compensation within the same proceedings and must file a separate legal claim for damages.

» Hungary Passes Public Media Reform Law

• Hungary’s new Tisza government seeks to restore independent public service broadcasting through a law amending the governance structures of public media and media regulatory bodies.

• The Law:

  • The law establishes a new Press Fund to support community and minority media, as well as a multi-year funding model for public media.

  • The International Press Institute has urged the government to ensure the legislation is followed with further reforms that target transparency around state advertising, media ownership, and media concentration.

» ‘Citizen Vigilante’ Director Says Germany Banned Movie Over its Messages

• Uwe Boll, the director of action thriller “Citizen Vigilante” starring Armie Hammer, said the film was banned in Germany for its extreme violence and alleged anti-migrant message.

• Details:

  • The film begins with a mother being stabbed to death by migrant criminals in front of her sons, who then dedicates himself to delivering justice to criminals and corrupt officials who protect them. The character primarily targets migrants, though not exclusively.

  • Boll said the country’s ratings board declined to classify the film, leaving audiences to import Blu-ray copies from abroad in order to watch it.

  • He said he challenged the decision in court but lost, claiming authorities argued the film incited violence against migrants.

  • Since the ban, the film has been posted on X for 48 hours, attracting 5 million views, and has been shared by Elon Musk, garnering more than 10.5 million views.

  • The plot was inspired by a 2016 Hamburg case in which a group of teenagers walked free with suspended sentences after raping a 14-year-old girl and leaving her dead.

» Oxford University Reported for Alleged Free Speech Failures

• Free speech advocates have reported Oxford to the Office for Students (OfS), England’s independent regulator of higher education, after the university canceled several lectures.

• Details:

  • Associate Professor Michael Foran canceled his talks on “gender critical and gender identity belief” after protests interrupted opening events.

  • Faculty have said that the canceled lectures will be rescheduled for the next academic year.

  • Groups like the Alumni for Free Speech (AFFS) have criticized the response, arguing that the university should not have allowed protestors in the lecture space, per OfS guidelines.

  • AFFS believes that protestors should face discipline, the university should draft an apology, and that a free speech officer should be appointed.

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Free Speech Recession 🌍

» Canada Passes Combating Hate Act

• Canada’s Combating Hate Act, or Bill C-9, which strengthens prosecution of hate crimes while removing a long-standing protection for expressing religious beliefs, has received Royal Assent and is set to take effect July 18.

• Details:

  • The law bans promotion of terrorism and hate symbols, which include Nazi signs and any flag or symbol of designated terror groups.

  • It also criminalizes intimidation or blocking access to places of worship and increases penalties for offenses motivated by hate.

  • Bill C-9 also removes a section of the Criminal Code that exempts persons who express an opinion on a religious subject or based on a religious text “in good faith.”

Our Take: In a guest post at The Bedrock Principle, Josh Dejaas, the Interim Litigation Director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, warned that “C-9 is just the latest in a series of laws restricting free expression that Canada’s Liberal government has passed or proposed. A worse one may be on the way”

» Turkey Bans Protests Ahead of NATO Summit

• Turkish authorities have begun enforcing a blanket ban on all protests in Ankara, the capital, ahead of the NATO Summit on July 7 and 8.

• Details:

  • On June 22, the Ankara governorate issued a statement announcing special security measures ahead of the Summit.

  • On June 25, the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office announced that 225 people had been linked to ISIS and leftist groups and detained under the measures.

  • 135 of the arrested individuals were referred to court with requests for pre-trial detention.

  • Turkish authorities argue the ban and detentions are necessary to ensure public order and counter alleged terrorist threats ahead of the Summit.

» Hundreds Arrested in Kenya as Families of Deadly 2024 Protest Victims Demand Compensation 2 Years Later

• Police in Kenya have detained hundreds of people and deployed tear gas, as families of those killed in 2024 anti-government protests marched to the Parliament building to demand transparency regarding their compensation.

• Details:

  • In 2024, at least 60 people protesting tax increases were killed while police opened fire outside the Parliament building in Nairobi.

  • On June 15 of this year, families of the victims gathered to protest what they said was a lack of transparency regarding compensation that was promised by the government.

  • President William Ruto said their protest would be allowed, but warned against attempts to “shut down the country,” adding that the government would protect schoolchildren and workers.

  • Protesters barricaded Parliament and highways to Nairobi. Police arrested 335 individuals, with journalists and witnesses claiming that ordinary Kenyans were among those detained.

» Uganda Military Head Shuts Down Independent Media Stations

• Muhoozi Kainerugaba, son of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and head of the country’s military, has announced that NTV Uganda and The Daily Monitor, both part of the Nation Media Group, will be shut down.

• Details:

  • Kainerugaba announced the shutdown in a June 27 social media post on X, and added that “In Uganda, I DO NOT believe in a free press! The press should be guided by cadres of the revolution,” Kainerugaba added.

  • The Daily Monitor reported that armed soldiers were gathered outside its offices in the capital Kampala.

  • A senior NTV reporter said that the military shut down the station’s studios and offices, and those who were working in the building were ordered to leave.

  • The stations went off air the following day, and Kainerugaba said they will not reopen without his permission.