Redefining Free Speech for the Digital Age

The internet has set us free. The internet will destroy our democracy. Both the utopian and apocalyptic hype share a common belief that there is something unprecedented about the power of digital communications online.

Future Tense and the Tech, Law & Security Program at American University Washington College of Law are launching a collaborative year-long Free Speech Project, an open-minded and far-reaching inquiry into the current state, and future prospects, of free speech. Does the revolution of communications technology we’ve witnessed over the past quarter-century demand a fundamental re-evaluation of traditional (and close to absolutist) American free speech tenets—or should we reassert these tenets as timeless and all the more essential to our current environment? What are the roles and responsibilities of tech companies that mediate our speech online? Who decides what we can and can’t say?

The exploration of these questions with an exciting group of thinkers to look at how similar debates around speech have played out in the past on February 24 at American University.

AGENDA

First Things First featuring Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO, New America and Author of The Chessboard and the Web: Strategies of Connection in a Networked World and Sylvia M. Burwell, President, American University. Moderated by Jennifer Daskal, Professor and Faculty Director, Tech, Law, & Security Program at American University Washington College of Law

Obnoxious Speech Before the Age of Twitter featuring David Greenberg, Professor of Journalism & Media Studies and History, Rutgers University and author of Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency; Heidi Tworek, Assistant Professor of International History, University of British Columbia and author of News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900–1945; Nicole Hemmer, Associate research scholar, Obama Presidency Oral History project at Columbia University and author of Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics; and, W. Joseph Campbell, Professor, American University School of Communication and author of Getting It Wrong: Debunking the Greatest Myths in American Journalism. Moderated by Katherine Mangu-Ward, Editor in chief, Reason and Future Tense Fellow

Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All featuring Suzanne Nossel, CEO, PEN America and author of the forthcoming Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All and Cecilia Muñoz, Vice President for Public Interest Technology and Local Initiatives, New America. Moderated by Andrés Martinez, Editorial director, Future Tense.