Category Archives: Free Speech

Charlie Hebdo, Copyright, and Sanctioning Speech

All the recent headline coverage of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack and it’s free speech implications has got me thinking about how speech is regulated both through culture and through law. For example in the United States the government allows neo-Nazi groups to form and advocate their beliefs. Most Americans abhor the messages put out […]

January 13, 2015 – 2:42 am | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Copyright, Free Speech | Comments (0)

Arizona Bans Ethnic Studies, Again

In 2012 Arizona passed a bill (HB 2281) targeting the Mexican American Studies program in Tucson Unified School District’s schools. The state dismantled the program and received national attention in the process. Now, years laters, the Arizona head of public education, Superintendent Huppenthal, has declared more classes in Tucson to be illegal. In his last day […]

January 5, 2015 – 4:39 pm | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Free Speech, Off Topic | Comments (0)

Citizens Take to the Streets in México to Fight for Internet Freedom

  Last week citizens across Mexico took to the streets to protest a recently proposed telecom law that would violate free speech, give the federal governemtn increased survelleicen powers, and limit internet access, among other issues. Please read my orignal post about the law and the problems it creates. My original post also has some […]

May 2, 2014 – 5:15 pm | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Digital Divide, Free Speech, Net Neutrality, Open Internet | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

NetMundial2014 Opening Ceremony Photos

This morning I just had to get up early to catch the opening ceremony of the Net Mundial in São Paulo Brazil, and it didn’t disappoint. There were a number of great speakers from Vint Cerf, to Tim Berners-Lee, to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. However, I have to say that my favorite was definitely Nnenna […]

April 23, 2014 – 7:39 am | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Free Speech, Net Neutrality, Open Internet | Tagged | Comments (0)

The Fight for Derechos Digitales & Internet Freedom in México

On March 24 2014 Mexico’s president Enrique Peña Nieto introduced the “Ley de Telecomunicaciones y Radiodifusión” (Law of Telecommincations and Broadcasting). This bill would dramatically change the balance of power of Mexico’s internet, and telecommunications, toward more state control, and less restraints on telecommunication corporations to censor, surveil, and discriminate on their networks. Specifically this bill would impact four major […]

April 22, 2014 – 12:37 pm | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Free Speech, Net Neutrality, Open Internet, Privacy | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

Barrett Brown Gets a Plea Deal. But Still, WTF?

Barrett Brown is a writer/activist who has written for Vanity Fair, The Guardian, and who acted, for a time, as a self proclaimed spokesperson for Anonymous. In 2012 he was arrested on charges related to the hacking of private security intelligence firm Stratfor. Another individual, Jeremy Hammond, is currently serving a 10 year sentence for […]

April 17, 2014 – 3:09 pm | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Free Speech, Uncategorized | Comments (1)

TDIF: Expression (Part 3: Financial)

This post is really a continuation of Threats to the Declaration of the Internet: Expression (Part 2: Institutional). Below is an excerpted introduction from that post and then we’ll jump right in. The past several posts here have looked at the recently released Declaration of Internet Freedom (rundown here) and threats that it faces. In the […]

April 23, 2013 – 7:47 pm | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Free Speech, Intellectual Property | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (2)

Anil Dash, Race, and Privately Owned Public Spaces

Anil Dash recently gave a presentation at Harvard’s Berkman Center and I wanted briefly map out just a couple of my reactions to what he said. You can get some context and read all about the presentation here, there is a nice outline of the talk here, and you can read Anil’s bio here. I’ve […]

April 20, 2013 – 12:50 pm | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Digital Divide, Free Speech, Open Internet, Social | Tagged , | Comments (1)

TDIF: Expression (Part 2: Institutional)

The past several posts here have looked at the recently released Delcaration of Internet Freedom (rundown here) and threats that it faces. In the last post we looked at how the Expression principle is constantly being objected to in the United States on morality grounds. Today we’ll look at an even greater threat to expression […]

July 10, 2012 – 1:11 pm | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Free Speech, Intellectual Property, Open Internet | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

TDIF: Expression (Part 1: Morality)

In our ongoing series about the Declaration of Internet Freedom (you can read my previous posts here and here) today we’ll look at the Expression principle. Expression: Don’t censor the Internet. This principle seems simple enough, but then again nothing is as simple as it seems. The argument for censorship usually comes in one of […]

July 5, 2012 – 5:49 pm | By Greg Epstein @lwThinking | Posted in Free Speech, Open Internet | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (1)