Mediating Print Culture: Censorship, Revolutionary Journalism and the Manifesto of Equals

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanja Perovic
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
First Time ◽  
The French Revolution

Freedom of expression and censorship are frequently cast in opposing but symmetrical terms. According to the conventional narrative, the right to free speech was acquired when first the American and then the French Revolution overthrew the repressive censorship apparatus of the ancien régime. However this account of increasing emancipation overlooks the important role played by the French Revolution in establishing a new definition of censorship that was both tolerant of free speech and repressive of political difference. This paper contends that precisely when political representation in the widest possible sense is at stake, freedom of speech cannot be reduced solely to a question of rights. It begins by revisiting the Directory period when the enlightened ideal of an unmediated public sphere openly clashed for the first time with the opposing ideal of an ‘unmediated’ or ‘popular’ sovereignty promoted by the radical press. It then focuses on the Conspiracy of Equals to show how the presumed neutrality of the liberal press was forged by repressing competing understandings of the right to free speech. Rather than assume that revolutionary propaganda is the ‘other’ of liberalism, this paper demonstrates the joint origins of both liberal and revolutionary understandings of free speech in the new censorship laws that attempted to separate the message from the medium of revolution.

scholarly journals The Natural Right To Parody: Assessing The (Potential) Parody/Satire Dichotomies In American And Canadian Copyright Laws

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 69-98
Author(s):  
Amy Lai
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
Legal Definition ◽  
The Core ◽  
Copyright Laws ◽  
American Law ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right

This paper argues that the right to expressing oneself through parodies should constitute part of the core freedom of expression of a normative copyright regime. By drawing upon natural law legal theories, the paper proposes a legal definition of parody that would help to bring the copyright jurisprudence of a jurisdiction more in line with its free speech tradition. It argues that a broad parody definition, one that encompasses a great variety of expressive works but would not compete with the original and its derivatives in the market, is preferable to a narrow one. The paper then explains why the parody defence in American law and the parody exception in the Canadian copyright statute should follow the proposed parody definition, which would properly balance the rights of copyright owners with those of users.

Governing Fake News: The Regulation of Social Media and the Right to Freedom of Expression in the Era of Emergency

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-41
Author(s):  
Donato VESE
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Media Censorship

Governments around the world are strictly regulating information on social media in the interests of addressing fake news. There is, however, a risk that the uncontrolled spread of information could increase the adverse effects of the COVID-19 health emergency through the influence of false and misleading news. Yet governments may well use health emergency regulation as a pretext for implementing draconian restrictions on the right to freedom of expression, as well as increasing social media censorship (ie chilling effects). This article seeks to challenge the stringent legislative and administrative measures governments have recently put in place in order to analyse their negative implications for the right to freedom of expression and to suggest different regulatory approaches in the context of public law. These controversial government policies are discussed in order to clarify why freedom of expression cannot be allowed to be jeopardised in the process of trying to manage fake news. Firstly, an analysis of the legal definition of fake news in academia is presented in order to establish the essential characteristics of the phenomenon (Section II). Secondly, the legislative and administrative measures implemented by governments at both international (Section III) and European Union (EU) levels (Section IV) are assessed, showing how they may undermine a core human right by curtailing freedom of expression. Then, starting from the premise of social media as a “watchdog” of democracy and moving on to the contention that fake news is a phenomenon of “mature” democracy, the article argues that public law already protects freedom of expression and ensures its effectiveness at the international and EU levels through some fundamental rules (Section V). There follows a discussion of the key regulatory approaches, and, as alternatives to government intervention, self-regulation and especially empowering users are proposed as strategies to effectively manage fake news by mitigating the risks of undue interference by regulators in the right to freedom of expression (Section VI). The article concludes by offering some remarks on the proposed solution and in particular by recommending the implementation of reliability ratings on social media platforms (Section VII).

The Structure of a Free Speech Right

2021 ◽  
pp. 212-230
Author(s):  
Stephen Gardbaum
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Structural Elements ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Right ◽  
Free Speech Rights

This chapter describes the structural elements or components of a free speech right. The nature and extent of a free speech right depends upon a number of legal components. The first is the legal source of the right (in common law, statute, or a constitution) and the force of the right having regard to how it is enforced, and whether and how it can be superseded. The second component is the ‘subject’ of free speech rights, or who are the rights-holders: citizens, natural or legal persons. The third is the ‘scope’ of a free speech right, while the fourth is the kind of obligation it imposes on others: a negative prohibition or a positive obligation. The fifth component is the ‘object’ of a free speech right: who is bound to respect a right of freedom of expression and against whom the right may be asserted. Finally, there is the ‘limitation’ of a free speech right.

scholarly journals Reconstructing the Contours of the Copyright Originality and Idea- Expression Doctrines Regarding the Right to Deny Access to Works

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 921-940
Author(s):  
Michael D. Murray
Keyword(s):  
First Amendment ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Fair Use ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
Content Development ◽  
Proper Definition ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Access To Knowledge ◽  
The Right

ccess to innovative scientific, literary, and artistic content has never been more important to the public than now, in the digital age. Thanks to the digital revolution carried out through such means as super-computational power at super-affordable prices, the Internet, broadband penetration, and contemporary computer science and technology, the global, national, and local public finds itself at the convergence of unprecedented scientific and cultural knowledge and content development, along with unprecedented means to distribute, communicate, and access that knowledge. This Article joins the conversation on the Access-to-Knowledge, Access-to- Medicine, and Access-to-Art movements by asserting that the copyright restrictions affecting knowledge, innovation, and original thought implicate copyright’s originality and idea-expression doctrines first and fair use doctrine second. The parallel conversation in copyright law that focuses on the proper definition of the contours of copyright as described in the U.S. Supreme Court’s most recent constitutional law cases on copyright—Feist, Eldred, Golan, and Kirtsaeng—interprets the originality and idea-expression doctrines as being necessary for the proper balance between copyright protection and First Amendment freedom of expression. This Article seeks to join together the two conversations by focusing attention on the right to access published works under both copyright and First Amendment law. Access to works is part and parcel of the copyright contours debate. It is a “first principles” question to be answered before the question of manipulation, appropriation, or fair use is contemplated. The original intent of the Copyright Clause and its need to accommodate the First Amendment freedom of expression support the construction of the contours of copyright to include a right to access knowledge and information. Therefore, the originality and idea-expression doctrines should be reconstructed to recognize that the right to deny access to published works is extremely limited if not non-existent within the properly constructed contours of copyright.

Freedom of Expression and Democracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 81-105
Author(s):  
Ashutosh Bhagwat ◽  
James Weinstein
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Popular Government ◽  
The Press ◽  
Political Association ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter focuses on the relationship between freedom of expression and democracy from both a historical and a theoretical perspective. The term ‘freedom of expression’ includes free speech, freedom of the press, the right to petition government, and freedom of political association. Eighteenth-century proponents of popular government had long offered democratic justifications for freedom of expression. The chapter then demonstrates that freedom of political expression is a necessary component of democracy. It describes two core functions of such expression: an informing and a legitimating one. Finally, the chapter examines the concept of ‘democracy’, noting various ways in which democracies vary among themselves, as well as the implications of those variations for freedom of expression. Even before democratic forms of government took root in the modern world.

Nothing Personal

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Stout
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Logical Consequence ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The People ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
The Right ◽  
The French Revolution

Chapter four looks at Charles Dickens’s 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities. By examining parallels between the novel and Robespierre’s political philosophy, this chapter argues that Dickens’s novel understands the French Revolution not as an event that gave individuals the right of self-governance but as the event that formalized a conception of citizenship in which individual persons stand as avatars for the national will. The Revolutionary Terror and the guillotine are thus seen as the logical consequence of a theory of the nation that prioritized the People over individual persons.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Anushka Singh
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
University Of California ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Mob Violence ◽  
A Chain ◽  
The Right ◽  
The University ◽  
Public Lecture

On 1 February 2017 at the University of California, Berkeley, USA, mob violence erupted on campus with 1,500 protesters demanding the cancellation of a public lecture by Milo Yiannopoulos, a British author notorious for his alleged racist and anti-Islamic views.1 Consequently, the event was cancelled triggering a chain of reactions on the desirability and limits of freedom of expression within American democracy. The Left-leaning intellectuals and politicians were accused of allowing the mob violence to become a riot on campus defending it in the name of protest against racism, fascism, and social injustice. In defending the rights of the protesters to not allow ‘illiberal’ or hate speech on campus, however, many claimed that the message conveyed was that only liberals had the right to free speech....

The Nature of Offence

2021 ◽  
pp. 7-34
Author(s):  
Nicholas Hatzis
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Special Problem ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Narrow Definition ◽  
State Coercion ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Offensive Speech

The experience of suffering offence relates to a constellation of unpleasant feelings stirred up when one’s expectations of being treated in a certain way are frustrated. This chapter explores how the nature of offence matters for the way the law responds to offensive conduct. Prohibiting speech which offends poses a special problem because it clashes with the free speech principle, i.e. the idea that there is something particularly important in being allowed to speak our minds, which sets free expression apart from a general liberty claim to choose a way of life. It is suggested that when deciding what should count as properly offensive for the purpose of exercising state coercion, only a very narrow definition of offensive speech is compatible with the values underlying freedom of expression. Then, offensive speech is distinguished from hate speech. As the two are morally different, it is inappropriate to borrow arguments from the hate speech debate to justify restrictions on offensive speech.

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