EPIC Advisor, Nadine Strossen, has boldly defended individual rights and civil liberties throughout her career. From 1991 to 2008, Strossen served as the President of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and has since become a professor of law at New York Law School.
On June 26, 2019, Professor Strossen testified before the Homeland Security Committee on ways to counter online terror content and misinformation. During opening remarks she warned that, “The concept of hate speech, terror speech, and misinformation are irreducibly vague and broad.” As a result, regulation of free speech “is left to the subjective discretion of the enforcing authorities.”
In her book, Hate: Why We Should Resist Hate with Free Speech, Not Censorship, Strossen explains why political speech – even repugnant speech, should not be suppressed. She articulates why free speech should be up-held and only regulated in emergency situations – otherwise, people should have the opportunity to make their own determinations.
Accordingly, transparency on social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, may become an unexpected societal safeguard. “If these entities are pushed off these platforms, they are then pushed to darker corners of the web, where they may be harder monitor by law enforcement,” says Strossen.
Nonetheless, Professor Strossen is a strong proponent of media literacy and education from an early age as the only real way to address systemic issues of identifying misinformation.
Listen to this eye-opening discussion below. For more information on Professor Nadine Strossen and other civil liberty discussions, visit www.epic.org.
