Democracy
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Press Statement
Appeals Court Says Public and Press Have First Amendment Right to Access Bail Hearings
Public access to court proceedings is fundamental to our democracy, Knight Institute says
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Press Statement
Knight Institute and Foundation for Global Political Exchange Settle Case Challenging U.S. Treasury Department’s Unlawful Suppression of Political Speech
Say agreement is a victory for the right of Americans to engage with ideas from around the world
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Press Statement
Knight Institute Comments on Hearing in Federal TikTok Ban Case
Upholding TikTok ban would do profound damage to our democracy, Institute says
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Press Statement
Knight Institute Comments on Upcoming D.C. Circuit Argument in Federal TikTok Ban Case
Ban violates the First Amendment by restricting Americans from accessing foreign media, Institute says
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Institute Update
Call for Abstracts: Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Freedoms
Symposium to be held at Columbia University in November 2024 and April 2025
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Press Statement
Knight Institute Welcomes Supreme Court Decision in NRA v. Vullo
Says the decision reaffirms a crucial First Amendment limit
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Event
The Future of Press Freedom: Democracy, Law, and the News in Changing Times
A symposium examining what it means to safeguard and support the role of the press in the United States today.
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Deep Dive
Countering the Mosaic of Threats to Press Functions
There is a clear, democratic public interest in journalism—but the press continues to face a myriad of challenges.
By Lili Levi -
Press Statement
Office of Legal Counsel Ordered to Release Many of Its Legal Opinions
Landmark ruling is a victory for transparency and accountability
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Press Statement
Knight Institute Comments on U.S. Government “Assurances” in Assange Case
Says assurances aren’t responsive to concerns that press freedom advocates have been raising
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Event
Permission to Speak Freely? Managing Government Employee Speech in a Democracy
A symposium examining the speech rights of public employees—and the threats they face
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Podcast
"Views on First: War & Speech"
An exploration of the free speech fallout of the war in Israel and Gaza
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Deep Dive
Jawboning in 2025
When the new administration starts—led either by President Biden or President Trump—what will the state of jawboning be?
By Matt Perault -
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Press Statement
Federal Judge Dismisses Elon Musk’s X Corp's Lawsuit Against Nonprofit Researchers
In a win for free speech, a California district court dismissed X Corp’s efforts to target the Center for Countering Digital Hate for highlighting the social network’s flaws
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Deep Dive
“MURDER THE MEDIA”: Press Freedom, Violence, and the Public Sphere
Exploring the relationship between the press and violence in a democratic society
By Joseph Blocher -
Institute Update
Knight Institute Symposium on Government Employee Speech to Feature Leading Scholars in Law, History, and Political Science
Public event to be held on April 5, 2024, at Columbia University and online
By Katy Glenn Bass -
Deep Dive
A Professional Wrestler, Privacy, and the Meaning of News
How a more sacrosanct approach to terms like “press” and “news” can help privacy cases
By Amy Gajda -
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Event
Generative AI, Free Speech, & Public Discourse
A symposium exploring technological and philosophical questions about generative AI’s effect on public discourse
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Press Statement
Knight Institute Commends Passage of the PRESS Act
Says House decision affirms importance of protecting journalists from government surveillance under the First Amendment
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Essays and Scholarship
Voter Data, Democratic Inequality, and the Risk of Political Violence
How data is used to marginalize the poor during elections—and what can be done about it
By Bertrall Ross & Douglas Spencer -
Deep Dive
The Press and American Democracy
Identifying four distinct constitutional functions of "the press"
By Robert C. Post -
Essays and Scholarship
Anonymity, Identity, and Lies
Contrary to assumptions about user identification in online contexts, anonymity can often be part of a healthy digital public sphere.
By Artur Pericles Lima Monteiro -
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Deep Dive
Political Tensions and the Democratic Press
Advocates for press freedom must confront the objectivity-subjectivity and institutionalism-populism divides.
By Gregory Magarian -
Event
Covering Democracy: Protests, Police, and the Press
Reception, Advance Film Screening, and Panel Discussion
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Press Statement
Texas News Outlets and Criminal Justice Advocacy Group Challenge Caldwell County’s Closed-Door Hearing Policy
Say policy violates the First Amendment rights of the press and public to observe critically important hearings
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Deep Dive
Judging in Secret
The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel was once known as the “constitutional conscience” of the executive branch, but in recent years it has been known principally for green-lighting torture, mass surveillance, and extrajudicial killings.
By Jameel Jaffer -
Press Statement
Sam Lebovic to Join Knight Institute as Visiting Scholar
Lebovic will explore complex First Amendment questions that arise in the context of public employee speech
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Essays and Scholarship
Lies and the Law: An Introduction
Exploring how the law regulates or should regulate false and misleading speech
By Genevieve Lakier -
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Event
Spyware and the Press
A discussion about the threat that malicious surveillance technology poses to press freedom around the world
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Essays and Scholarship
Protecting Public Knowledge Producers
Exploring the nature and value of government knowledge producers in our constitutional order and the legal, cultural, and political threats that they face
By Heidi Kitrosser -
Essays and Scholarship
What’s the Harm?
An interrogation of the societal impact of conspiracy theories and potential remedies
By Adam M. Enders & Joseph Uscinski -
Essays and Scholarship
Investigative Deception Across Social Contexts
Why intentional lies used to conduct undercover investigations are celebrated in some contexts and criminalized in others
By Alan K. Chen -
Essays and Scholarship
Government Counterspeech
What leeway the government should enjoy to engage in counterspeech to combat misinformation or promote truthful discourse
By Jamal Greene -
Essays and Scholarship
Weaponized from the Beginning
A century-old specter of propaganda and lies distorting the public sphere is raised as intermediary institutions that manage unregulated speech are undermined
By John Fabian Witt -
Essays and Scholarship
Fake News, Lies, and Other Familiar Problems
A guide to thinking about the best way to navigate the contemporary crises of the American public sphere
By Sam Lebovic -
Deep Dive
Past as Prologue: Lies in Historical Context
Institute publishes second set of essays from “Lies, Free Speech, and the Law” symposium
By Katy Glenn Bass -
Deep Dive
A Digital Sphere that Serves Democracy
At 2022 Beaverbrook Lecture, Jameel Jaffer assesses watershed cases on regulation of social media
By Jameel Jaffer -
Essays and Scholarship
Democracy Harms and the First Amendment
How to regulate lies that cause constitutionally “cognizable” harms to the structural interests of constitutional democracy
By Deborah Pearlstein -
Deep Dive
Knight Institute Publishes First Essays from “Lies, Free Speech, and the Law” Symposium
Authors look at legal status of different categories of false speech in public discourse
By Katy Glenn Bass -
Essays and Scholarship
Distrust, Negative First Amendment Theory, and the Regulation of Lies
Why the reflexive deployment of negative theory, which increasingly dominates the contemporary Supreme Court’s approach to Free Speech Clause problems, has its costs
By Helen Norton -
Essays and Scholarship
When Are Lies Constitutionally Protected?
A framework for drawing lines on lies
By Eugene Volokh -
Essays and Scholarship
Epistemic Disagreement, Institutional Analysis, and the First Amendment Status of Lies
When calls for regulating lies collide with free expression values
By Mark Tushnet -
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Deep Dive
The Espionage Act Has Been Abused — But Not in Trump’s Case
Reforms to the law are long overdue, but they have nothing to do with the Mar-a-Lago search
By Jameel Jaffer -
Essays and Scholarship
Privacy, Autonomy, and the Dissolution of Markets
Pathways from platform capitalism
By Kiel Brennan-Marquez & Daniel Susser -
Deep Dive
Symposium Suggests Large-Scale Societal Changes Are Needed to Lessen Impact of Harmful Lies
By A. Adam GlennInstitute’s “Lies, Free Speech, and the Law” event featured research from a diverse range of scholars on how to address the problem of falsehoods
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Event
Lies, Free Speech, and the Law
A symposium exploring how the law regulates or should regulate false and misleading speech
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Essays and Scholarship
How the Biden Administration and Congress Can Fix Prepublication Review: A Roadmap for Reform
Prepublication review is a sweeping and broken system in need of repair
By Jameel Jaffer , Alex Abdo , Meenakshi Krishnan & Ramya Krishnan -
Essays and Scholarship
The Great Reckoning
Lessons from 1940s media policy battles
By Victor Pickard -
Event
Lies and Counterspeech
To what extent can speech—disclosures, warning labels, fact checks, apologies, and/or counterspeech generally—defang the lie?
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Institute Update
Knight Institute Symposium on “Lies, Free Speech, and the Law” to Feature Scholars in Law, Social Science, History, and Technology
Public event to be held April 8, 2022, at Columbia University, and online
By Katy Glenn Bass -
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Deep Dive
Thoughts on Government Lies
Mapping the varieties of lies governments tell, with some help from Hannah Arendt
By David Luban -
Deep Dive
What the Constitution Can—and Can’t—Do About the Government’s Lies
Litigation is one remedy; laws that constrain the speech of governmental bodies are another; counterspeech and politics are still more
By Helen Norton -
Deep Dive
The Most Troubling Government Lie? The "Presumptive" One
The problem is less the obviously false statement than the obscure “fact” that allows the government to bias or distort critical information
By Wendy Wagner -
Deep Dive
Biden promised transparency. Has he delivered?
One year into Biden's presidency, Staff Attorney Anna Diakun reflects on the administration’s transparency record and calls for a course correction where it has come up short.
By Anna Diakun -
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Quick Take
"Information Disorder" Report Calls for Social Media Transparency
Aspen Institute commission calls on Congress to protect researchers who study social media
By A. Adam Glenn -
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Deep Dive
The Media will be All Right
A plaintiff’s lawyer’s lament on how anti-SLAPP will be an obstacle for defendants with or without Sullivan
By Carrie Goldberg -
Deep Dive
Sullivan is Not the Problem
It’s the amplification of misinformation that’s the issue; the solution is about the architecture of our public square
By Nabiha Syed -
Essays and Scholarship
Data and Democracy: An Introduction
Questions of data regulation are at the heart of democratic practice today, from issues of secrecy to the use of data to constitute democratic institutions themselves
By Amy Kapczynski -
Press Statement
Supreme Court Declines to Hear First Amendment Challenge to Secrecy of U.S. Surveillance Court
The Knight Institute, ACLU, Yale Clinic, and former Solicitor General say the Court’s denial curtails the public’s First Amendment right of access to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court opinions
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Review
Liars in High Places: Who's to blame for misinformation?
Jameel Jaffer reviews Cass Sunstein's Liars: Falsehood's and Free Speech in an Age of Deception
By Jameel Jaffer -
Event
Lies and Elections
How exceptional should we consider the electoral context when it comes to the regulation of lies?
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Deep Dive
Drawing the Line Between False Election Speech and False Campaign Speech
Why Congress or states may constitutionally ban the former but not the latter
By Richard L. Hasen -
Deep Dive
Congress Must Act To Establish Sensible Rules on Electoral Speech
Confusion reigns around current laws and regulations in the runup to the 2022 midterm elections
By Matt Perault -
Deep Dive
Race, the Epistemic Crisis of Democracy, and the First Amendment
Countering the “Big Lie” requires a broader conversation that includes acknowledgement of coded racial voter suppression
By Atiba Ellis -
Deep Dive
We Must Fight Lies, Ignorance, and the Bigotry They Produce If We Are To Remain a Democracy
Defeating the use of disinformation means pressing our government for laws that protect democracy and promote the truth, while we practice the same in our public and private lives
By Janell Byrd-Chichester -
Deep Dive
Are Human Rights Violations Becoming More Difficult to Hide?
In the post-/911 digital era, experts reflect on what they learned from the government's response to the World Trade Center attacks, and how the world of human rights activism has changed
By A. Adam Glenn -
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Deep Dive
New Research Project Focuses on Lies and the Law
How does (or should) the law shape the regulation of lies, disinformation, and misinformation in the digital age
By Genevieve Lakier & Katy Glenn Bass -
Deep Dive
The Anguish of the Necessary Lie
Quinta Jurecic on the strained relationship between truth and politics
By Quinta Jurecic -
Deep Dive
Is Politics Possible in the Absence of Truth?
Masha Gessen on how polarization around facts pits us against each other
By Masha Gessen -
Deep Dive
Is Lying Actually a Good Thing in Politics?
Sophia Rosenfeld explores the value of some looseness in the policing of the boundaries around truth and lies
By Sophia Rosenfeld -
Quick Take
Is the First Amendment Up to the Task in the Digital Age?
Knight Institute Director Jameel Jaffer on the future of free speech amid threats from private actors
By Ashwin Pillai -
Press Statement
Researchers, NYU, Knight Institute Condemn Facebook’s Effort to Squelch Independent Research about Misinformation
Say Facebook is moving to silence independent research into Facebook’s practices regarding political advertising, the spread of COVID 19 misinformation, and efforts to conceal the promotion of violence on January 6
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Quick Take
The Pentagon Papers 50 Years Later
Safeguarding press freedom today requires extending protections to whistleblowers and limiting the use of the Espionage Act
By Lorraine Kenny -
Deep Dive
What Is America’s Spy Court Hiding From the Public?
Unnecessary secrecy about government surveillance is bad for the intelligence agencies, the spy court, and our democracy
By Jameel Jaffer , Theodore Olson & David Cole -
Event
Book Talk: How Rights Went Wrong
A conversation with Jamal Greene about why our obsession with rights is tearing America apart
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Essays and Scholarship
Is the Administrative State Ready for Big Data?
Exploring the accountability challenges in environmental and public health regulation
By Wendy Wagner & Martin Murillo -
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Essays and Scholarship
Democracy's Data Infrastructure
The technopolitics of the U.S. census
By Dan Bouk & danah boyd -
Event
The Dissident
Screening of the new documentary, The Dissident, and panel discussion about the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi
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Institute Update
Knight Institute, ACLU, and More than 40 Organizations Call on Biden Administration to Embrace a More Open Government
Letter proposes steps the administration could take immediately
By Anna Diakun -
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Event
Book Launch: Mistrust
A conversation with Ethan Zuckerman about why losing faith in institutions provides the tools to transform them
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Quick Take
A Promising Start
The new administration takes steps to reaffirm transparency and press freedom
By Larry Siems -
Deep Dive
A First Amendment agenda for Biden's first 100 days
How the new administration can reaffirm the freedoms of speech, association, and petition in its first 100 days
By Larry Siems & Jameel Jaffer -
Press Statement
Knight Institute Comments on Permanent Suspension of President Trump’s Twitter Account
Says the action effectively moots Knight Institute v. Trump but Appeals Court’s decision will continue to shape how public officials use social media
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Press Statement
Knight Institute Comments on Suspension of President Trump’s Social Media Accounts
Says platforms’ actions are justifiable
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Analysis
A First Amendment Agenda for the New Administration
How the Biden administration can reaffirm the freedoms of speech, association, and petition in its first 100 days
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Press Statement
Researchers, Knight Institute Condemn Facebook Effort to Squelch Research on Disinformation
Say independent research into the platform is crucial
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Event
Data and Democracy
A symposium considering how big data is changing our system of self-government
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Podcast
Data and Democracy Podcast
Audio interviews with Data and Democracy participants previewing their symposium papers
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Interactive
Press-Related Espionage Act Prosecutions
Documenting trends in press-related Espionage Act prosecutions
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Press Statement
Knight Institute Sues President for Continuing to Block Twitter Critics
Says practice defies earlier court ruling, violates the First Amendment
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Press Statement
Knight Institute and ACLU Sue Trump Administration for Prepublication Review Records
Suit seeks documents that would shed light on abuse of review system to influence public discourse in advance of upcoming election
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Podcast
The Perilous Public Square: An Essay Collection
Four essay authors reflect on current free expression events in new interviews
By Katy Glenn Bass -
Analysis
Protest Resources for Journalists and Protesters
Protecting your data, technology, and First Amendment rights at a protest
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Advocacy
Statement from the Staff of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University
Calls for reforms to protect protest and press rights and end police violence
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Press Statement
Knight Institute Demands Attorney General Direct Armed Officers Deployed to Protests to Display Identities and Agency Affiliations
Says “No-Badge” practices instill fear, violate First Amendment
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Analysis
A Cyberbully in the Oval Office
Executive order aimed at regulating social media is a profoundly dangerous attempt to punish Twitter for its speech
By Katie Fallow -
Analysis
Recently Released OLC Opinions From 1974 Shed Light on Current Legal Debates
Disclosure, not secrecy, should be the norm for OLC opinions
By Stephanie Krent -
Essays and Scholarship
Social Media Regulation in the Public Interest: Some Lessons from History
Examining past abuses of the ‘public interest’ standard to argue against expanding antitrust authority
By John Samples & Paul Matzko -
Analysis
A District Court Endorses a Broken Prepublication Review System
The ruling is troubling and a step in the wrong direction
By Alex Abdo , Jameel Jaffer , Meenakshi Krishnan & Ramya Krishnan -
Institute Update
Leading Legal Scholars and Technologists to Contribute to “Data and Democracy” Symposium
Symposium will take place online, October 15-16, 2020
By Katy Glenn Bass -
Analysis
Public Officials Can’t Block Critics from Official Social Media Accounts
Appeals court protects public’s right to read and respond to official social media accounts, at a time when we rely on them most
By Carrie DeCell & Meenakshi Krishnan -
Essays and Scholarship
How to Regulate (and Not Regulate) Social Media
Creating incentives for social media companies to be responsible and trustworthy institutions
By Jack M. Balkin -
Analysis
The Espionage Act Reform Bill Addresses Key Press Concerns
Provides crucial safeguards for reporters
By Carrie DeCell & Meenakshi Krishnan -
Analysis
How Should Politicians Use Social Media?
Tips for protecting an individual’s right to participate in digital town halls
By Katie Fallow -
Essays and Scholarship
From Private Bads to Public Goods: Adapting Public Utility Regulation for Informational Infrastructure
Dismantling surveillance-based business models
By K. Sabeel Rahman & Zephyr Teachout -
Institute Update
Knight Institute to Convene Data and Democracy Symposium
Symposium to consider ways to ensure a robust democracy in the age of big data
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Analysis
Selective Disclosure of OLC Legal Opinions Isn’t Enough
Consequential documents remain in the dark
By Alex Abdo