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1 month ago | 
futurefreespeech.org | Jacob Mchangama
Originally published in The Conversation. For much of the 20th century, young Americans were seen as free speech’s fiercest defenders. But now, young Americans are growing more skeptical of free speech. According to a March 2025 report by The Future of Free Speech, a nonpartisan think tank where I am executive director, support among 18- to 34-year-olds for allowing controversial or offensive speech has dropped sharply in recent years.
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2 months ago | 
futurefreespeech.org | Jacob Mchangama
The battle of the airwaves was vital for promoting freedom during the Cold War. Trump abandons it at our peril. On February 21, 1990, Václav Havel, the Czechoslovakian dissident turned president, received a rapturous welcome from a packed U.S. Congress.
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2 months ago | 
futurefreespeech.org | Jacob Mchangama
In February, 50-year-old Hamit Coskun was charged with causing “harassment, alarm or distress” to the Islamic faith after burning a Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London. A KC told the National Secular Society that the charges were “plainly defective”, while the NSS accused prosecutors of reintroducing a blasphemy law “by the back door”.
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2 months ago | 
futurefreespeech.org | Jacob Mchangama
Social media platforms have redefined communication by shifting the role of content curation from traditional editorial gatekeepers to largely algorithmic systems that reward content based on engagement metrics. Scholars have argued that algorithms optimized for engagement inadvertently reward content that elicits strong emotions, exacerbating polarization and, in some instances, amplifying disinformation.
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Mar 19, 2025 | 
futurefreespeech.org | Jacob Mchangama
The U.S. has fallen from third to ninth place in the global ranking for support of free speech rights since 2021, according to a new study published by The Future of Free Speech at Vanderbilt University. The annual study, titled “Who in the World Supports Free Speech?” surveyed over 52,000 people about their support for free speech policies in 33 countries in October 2024.
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Mar 16, 2025 | 
futurefreespeech.org | Jacob Mchangama
In 2022, Danish lawyer Jacob Mchangama (Copenhagen, 1978) published Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media (not yet translated into Spanish), an essay that traces the erratic and bloody struggle for freedom of expression in the East and West, from ancient Greece to social media. In both the book and his podcast , Mchangama explains why this “first freedom” is the cornerstone of democracy.
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Feb 18, 2025 | 
futurefreespeech.org | Jacob Mchangama
U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s accusations of censorship have angered Europeans. Many Americans, however, believe he is right—even though the White House itself restricts free speech. [ . . . ]More free speech would benefit Europe, agrees Jacob Mchangama. “Europe sees free expression too much as a threat to democracy rather than as its most fundamental liberty,” says the Danish legal scholar, who leads the independent think tank The Future of Free Speech at Vanderbilt University.
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Feb 18, 2025 | 
futurefreespeech.org | Jacob Mchangama
Last week, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance shocked an A-list group of European political and military leaders at the Munich Security Conference in Germany with a blunt message: Europe has gone too far in restricting speech.
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Jan 30, 2025 | 
futurefreespeech.org | Jacob Mchangama
In a new piece in the Danish newspaper Politken, Jacob Mchangama argues that, if adopted, Amnesty International Denmark’s recommendations from a new report on hate speech would undermine free speech and increase government surveillance. Here is a summary of his arguments. Amnesty International Denmark claims to defend free speech but argues that free speech itself is the main threat to freedom of expression, advocating for more speech restrictions.
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Dec 13, 2024 | 
futurefreespeech.org | Jacob Mchangama
Mother Jones staff highlight their favorite books they read in 2024. Nonfiction The latest battle in the 2,500-year war over free speech came to a head during the vice presidential debate. “We actually do have a threat to democracy,” said JD Vance, as he accused Democrats of trampling the First Amendment. “It is the threat of censorship.” Tim Walz responded by defending efforts to restrict election-related misinformation and hate speech—and by blasting Republicans for banning books.