Wojciech Sadurski: defamation and the dangers to democracy in Poland

A day in the life of a climate scientist

Kisha clubs in Japan: an impregnable fortress of information

Licensed leafleting means lost liberties in Britain

Bioterrorism and bird flu

Is the ‘hands-off’ internet different to internet freedom?

An introductory guide to the ten principles

Read the book

Wendy Barclay: Should scientific knowledge which could be used as a bioweapon be withheld from publication?

A right to lie about government?

Why should Amazon be our taste and decency police?

dog gate io

10 Principles

Explore each area. Agree or disagree with the principle. And vote!

Swipe left to browse all ten principles.

Lifeblood

We – all human beings – must be free and able to express ourselves, and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas, regardless of frontiers.

Violence

We neither make threats of violence nor accept violent intimidation.

Knowledge

We allow no taboos against and seize every chance for the spread of knowledge.

Journalism

We require uncensored, diverse, trustworthy media so we can make well-informed decisions and participate fully in political life.

Diversity

We express ourselves openly and with robust civility about all kinds of human difference.

Religion

We respect the believer but not necessarily the content of the belief.

Privacy

We must be able to protect our privacy and to counter slurs on our reputations, but not prevent scrutiny that is in the public interest.

Secrecy

We must be empowered to challenge all limits to freedom of information justified on such grounds as national security.

Icebergs

We defend the internet and other systems of communication against illegitimate encroachments by both public and private powers.

Courage

We decide for ourselves and face the consequences.

Highlights

Swipe left to browse all of the highlights.

Peeing on Pétain
Eric Heinze examines the boundary between civil disobedience and desecration.  

What is ‘dehumanising’ speech?
Eric Heinze provocatively argues that no-platformers need to look into the mirror and examine their own blind spots. 

Glasnost! Nine ways Facebook can make itself a better forum for free speech and democracy
Free Speech Debate co-authors an Oxford-Stanford report on Facebook.

‘Lenin-fall’: free speech and the politics of memory in Ukraine
O.T. Jones argues that the Ukrainian state should not restrict open historical debate but use its 'expressive' powers to foster a nuanced understanding of the past.

Are you sitting comfortably? How safe spaces became dangerous
We must distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate safe spaces, argues Eric Heinze.

Don’t blame news polarisation on the internet…it’s not the technology, stupid!
The internet does not guarantee polarised news, argues Richard Fletcher.

Bridging the deep digital divide in India
Only 17% of rural India has internet access. But citizen journalism is giving voice to minorities says Arpita Biswas.

Russia: ‘The Church has an enemy in every home.’ It’s television.
Helen Haft explains how the Orthodox Church has eroded freedom of the media and lobbied for the 2013 law against offending religious feelings.

Are we losing the media we need for democracy?
Timothy Garton Ash discusses the importance of and whether we are losing the media for democracy at the General Editors Network Summit 2017 in Vienna.

The internet alone will not set Africa free
Iginio Gagliardone explores the surprising technopolitics of two competing visions of the internet, US and Chinese, in Ethiopia.

Freedom of speech in Japan and the Designated Secrets Law
Arthur Stockwin explains the four main areas where free speech is under threat in Japan.

Israel, no-platforming – and why there’s no such thing as ‘narrow exceptions’ to campus free speech
Eric Heinze argues that it is contradictory to the principles of free speech to criticise the Israeli ambassador to Britain online and then no-platform him at a university talk.

Free Speech Debate is a research project of the Dahrendorf Programme for the Study of Freedom at St Antony's College in the University of Oxford. www.freespeechdebate.ox.ac.uk

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