Speech is violence? Not if we want a liberal, intellectual society

Offensive speech can cause mental and emotional pain. But classifying it as violence erodes the foundations of intellectual liberalism.

When protests normalize intolerance: The hidden costs of far-right demonstrations

Large crowds expressing xenophobic views publicly can signal that such beliefs are socially acceptable or mainstream, influencing others to think this behavior is normal

The Faux Free Speech Warriors Attacking Free Speech

There’s a particularly insidious and cynical form of censorship gaining prominence in America: the weaponization of “free speech” rhetoric, combined with abuses of the judicial sy…

Bluesky civil war shows free speech is harder than it looks

Last week, a joke familiar from X circulated on rival platform Bluesky: “(bluesky user bursts into Waffle House) OH SO YOU HATE PANCAKES??” It was obviously a jab at the moral intensity that now seems to define the site, and indeed much of the rest of the social media landscape. On most platforms such a [...]Read More...

Issue 100 – Freedom of all kinds is worth fighting for

As masked agents execute people and terrorize communities, crypto executives who spent years posting about freedom fall conspicuously silent — except when writing checks for the politicians enabling it

freedoms-for-who, revisited briefly

In talking with someone about “preferred form for modification” over the weekend at FOSDEM, the FSF (now sort-of-OSI?) four freedoms came up.

How Anti-LGBTQ+ Rhetoric Fuels Violence

Hate speech from the far right is increasing the risk of violence against LGBTQ+ people such as the Club Q shooting

You Don’t Own the Word “Freedom”: A Full-Burn Response to the GNU/Linux Comment That Tried to Gatekeep Me Off My Own Machine — fireborn

I woke up this morning to a comment on the first post in the 'I Want to Love Linux' series. Congratulations, random internet user: you earned a full-length blog post in response. Not because you're special, but because your comment is the perfect storm of everything that’s wrong with the self-righteous, gatekeeping corner of this ecosystem—the part that cloaks cruelty in the language of freedom, then acts shocked when people stop showing up.

There is no ethical case for staying on X

X has crossed a line it cannot uncross. This is no longer a debate about moderation or free speech trade-offs, but about predictable harm enabled by design. When a platform becomes ethically indefensible, outrage is not enough – walking away matters.

The Freedom to Write

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide.

The Fake Free Speech President Has Unleashed ICE On Its Critics

It still amazes me that there are people out there who think that Donald Trump is a supporter of free speech. It has never been true. Anyone who looks will note that the Trump administration regula…

Capitalism, Democracy, and Du Bois’s <em>Two</em> Proletariats

[epq-quote align="align-right"]"What can be more radical or liberating than freedom and justice for all?"[/epq-quote] As an ideal, liberal democracy has great appeal. What can be more radical or liberating than...

Chokehold: Donald Trump’s War on Free Speech & the Need for Systemic Resistance

This Free Press report examines the Trump administration’s hostile relationship with dissent and free expression in 2025. It analyzes how Trump and his political enablers have sought to undermine and chill the most basic freedoms protected by the First Amendment.