
Free Speech and Turbulent Freedom
The Dangerous Allure of Censorship in the Digital Era
Author: Michael J. Glennon
Narrator: Perry Daniels
Unabridged: 8 hr 23 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Kalorama
Published: 02/27/2024
Categories: Nonfiction, Political Science, Censorship, Computers & Technology, Internet
Synopsis
In Free Speech and Turbulent Freedom, Michael J. Glennon offers a timely and incisive response. The censors are short-sighted, he argues. Quibbling over outdated distinctions misses the real threat—which is the fusion of public and private power into a modern-day cartel able to overleap longstanding constitutional safeguards. American democracy, he argues, rests on a decentralized marketplace of ideas independent of the government. In crisp, trenchant terms, Glennon shows how concrete practical concerns justify protecting admittedly harmful online speech—even speech that advocates violence or embraces hatred or apparent falsehood.
To safely self-correct, democracy requires open channels of political communication. Glennon calls on the courts to unblock those channels—to measure such speech against enduring First Amendment precepts rather than pliable international norms—and to protect the speech interests not merely of the government and Big Tech, but of all participants in the marketplace of ideas.

