free speech
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Excitement over Incitement
The UK law on incitement and its enforcement go off the rails Continue reading
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Creative, Not Compelled
Noteworthy comments on compelled speech by Gorsuch J Continue reading
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Consequences
Are demands that speech not be punished just a childish attempt to escape consequences? Continue reading
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Bad Taste
Overzealous prosecutors in Québec charge the author and publisher of a novel with child pornography for describing a rape Continue reading
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Platonic Guardians 2.0?
The New York Times has published an essay by Eric Schmidt, the Chairman of Google, about the role of the Internet, and especially, of the exchange of ideas and information that the Internet enables, in both contributing to and addressing the challenges the world faces. The essay is thoroughly upbeat, concluding that it is “within Continue reading
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Searching Freedom
I have already blogged (here and here) about the debate on whether the output of search engines such as Google should be protected by constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression, summarizing arguments by Eugene Volokh and Josh Blakcman. These arguments are no longer merely the stuff of academic debate. As both prof. Volokh and prof. Blackman report, Continue reading
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All Quiet on the Western Front
The confrontation between freedom of expression and protection of individual reputation by the law of defamation is as good an example of interminable global legal trench warfare as any. (Well, except in the United States, where one battle proved largely decisive in favour of free speech.) In Canada, freedom of expression has made some gains Continue reading
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Personality Issues
First of all, my apologies for the extended silence. At first, it was a lack of interesting topics; but then the worst enemy of blogging, the loss of habit of frequent writing. I will do my best to get back into it now. I start off by a comment on an interesting recent article by Continue reading
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Judicial Independence as Free Speech
I wrote last fall about some implications of the metaphor of the “marketplace of ideas,” much used (especially in the United States) in the realm of free speech law. What prompted my reflection was a presentation by Robert Post, the Dean of Yale Law School, who argued that institutions engaged in the production of specialized Continue reading
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Chilling Effect
I wrote a while ago about the case of Matthieu Bonin, a Québec blogger who was accused of incitement to hatred, after making some admittedly tasteless and idiotic statements which, nevertheless, didn’t amount to anything like hate propaganda. Fortunately, as La Presse reports, the charges against him have now been dropped. Yet they should never have Continue reading
Double Aspect 