In this article we develop a social theoretical conception of the boundaries of public speech. There is a vivid debate concerning supposed shifts of these boundaries. Some argue that boundaries are contracting, causing formerly accepted conservative positions to be excluded as extremist. Others...

Government by regulation structures how constitutional democracies normally operate. Legislatures and executive agencies enact formal rules that govern conduct, embodying the ideal of government by laws rather than by individuals. Yet regulators also govern through threats of regulation. When...

Populists typically frame politics as a conflict between a corrupt elite and a virtuous people and are skeptical of institutional constraints, including those protecting freedom of expression, as they seek to control the public narrative. We ask to what extent de jure constitutional guarantees...

This essay examines Iran's most extensive internet disruption since 2022, imposed during the June 2025 conflict with Israel, when missile strikes quickly evolved into coordinated cyberattacks on banking, radar, and communications systems. Drawing from direct experience during the blackout, it...

This paper examines the impact of press freedom, an important institutional factor, on stock price crash risk. Using a large international sample of firms across 52 economies between 2002 and 2021, we find that firms in economies with higher degrees of press freedom are associated with lower...

Indonesia's content moderation framework, governed by MOCI Regulation No. 5/2020, is often criticized for its lack of transparency, inconsistent enforcement, and broad legal definitions that risk overreach and censorship if applied indiscriminately. While efforts have been made to enhance the...

The spread of propaganda and misinformation from autocratic regimes is a growing concern in democracies. We study the European Union's ban on Russian state-backed news outlets after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, analyzing 677,780 tweets from 146,633 users with a difference-in-differences design...

This report presents the results and the methodology of the Media Pluralism Monitor 2024, based on its implementation in 32 countries (27 EU Member States and five candidate countries) for the year 2023. The Media Pluralism Monitor (MPM) is a tool that is geared to assessing the risks to media...

How does government control over mass media affect banking system? Our theoretical model predicts that if the media are biased, depositors are less likely to run on their bank, but also less likely to deposit their money in the banking system in the first place. Empirically, we show that...

In response to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union banned or geo-blocked Russian propaganda media fearing the effects of the Kremlin's information warfare on internal public opinion during the largest security crisis in modern history. We investigate the...

We study the interaction between an agent of uncertain type, whose project gives rise to both good and bad news, and an evaluator who must decide if and when to fire the agent. The agent can hide bad news from the evaluator at some cost, and will do so if this secures her a significant increase...

The spread of propaganda, misinformation, and biased narratives from autocratic regimes, especially on social media, is a growing concern in many democracies. Can censorship be an effective tool to curb the spread of such slanted narratives? In this paper, we study the European Union's ban on...

Dieser Artikel geht aus einer ordonomischen Perspektive vier Fragen nach. Sie lauten: 1. Was genau ist unter öffentlichem Vernunftgebrauch zu verstehen? 2. Warum sollte der öffentliche Vernunftgebrauch möglichst uneingeschränkt sein? 3. Gibt es für Intellektuelle neben Rechten vielleicht...

Internet freedom rankings are a comparative tool that serves as an evaluative shorthand in decision-making contexts internationally. Understanding their aims and how they define internet freedom, as well as the power relationships within the ranking ecosystem, can reveal a lot about their...

We use matching methods to explore the causal relationship between the control of corruption and press freedom from 1996-2016. We find strong evidence that corruption reform significantly increases press freedom over both the four-year and eight-year horizon. However, we find little evidence...

We use matching methods to explore the causal relationship between the control of corruption and press freedom from 1996-2016. We find strong evidence that corruption reform significantly increases press freedom over both the four-year and eight-year horizon. However, we find little evidence...

There is widespread concern that academic freedom is threatened by growing demands for intellectual conformity and attempted censorship from intolerant zealots involving ‘woke wars’ and a ‘cancel culture’ pitting the socially liberal progressive left against the socially conservative...

In spring 2022, the European Commission launched two proposals concerning the protection of Geographical Indications (GIs): COM(2022)134 of 31 March 2022 amending current Regulation (EU) no. 2012/1151 on agricultural products and foodstuff and COM(2022)174 of 13 April 2022 on craft and...

This article collects, categorises and analyses responses (n=239) to online disinformation from 103 countries, ten international and regional organisations across six continents (through 2021). We categorised each initiative into eleven non-mutually exclusive categories according to intent,...

Freedom of the press is facing growing restrictions from technology policies that censor the media under the guise of protecting privacy. US and European copyright and privacy laws transcend borders and affect how news media can operate globally. Fundamental journalistic practices such as the...

Dieser Artikel geht aus einer ordonomischen Perspektive vier Fragen nach. Sie lauten: 1. Was genau ist unter öffentlichem Vernunftgebrauch zu verstehen? 2. Warum sollte der öffentliche Vernunftgebrauch möglichst uneingeschränkt sein? 3. Gibt es für Intellektuelle neben Rechten vielleicht...

This paper studies public opinion in the context of strong social norms that can induce conformity and self-censorship. We present a model that highlights how social pressure can affect the public expression of opinion either through a change in publicly stated views (conformity) or by inducing...

THE PROPOSED COPYRIGHT in the Digital Single Market Directive (COM(2016)593) of July 2016 would introduce a new intellectual property right for publishers of press publications, or ‘PIP’. Publishers would have the exclusive right to authorize or prohibit any reproduction (in whole or in...

The association between freedom of expression - freedom of speech and the freedom of the media - and social conflict is theoretically ambiguous and politically highly contested. On one side of the debate, people argue that freedom of speech and freedom of the media create social conflict by...

The deep structural inequalities in the information ecosystem are increasingly visible as states vie for their right to govern information flows and technology, with profound ramifications on journalism far beyond their borders. This paper analyzes how a constellation of globally influential...

We provide the first systematic research into the origins of subjective freedom of speech in Germany. Relying on the GLES 2021 Cross-Section Pre-Election Survey, which includes a newly designed survey item on subjective freedom of speech, we evaluate a whole range of plausible candidate...

The theoretical underpinnings of financial regulation have led to an obsessive quest for transparency. This has not only generated a gradual increase in disclosure requirements, but has also generated some other unintended consequences, such as structural conflicts of interests, which affect the...

Contrary to the conventional top-down view of government censorship, ordinary citizens in authoritarian regimes frequently participate in censorship by reporting online content. This study theorizes a bottom-up perspective of censorship in authoritarian regimes and analyzes its prevalence and...

Use of the familiar metaphor of the exchange of ideas as a “marketplace” has historically presumed that free and uninhibited competition among ideas will reliably arrive at truth. But even the most fervent economic free-market advocates recognize the possibility of market failure. Market...