Trial for free speech: Wikipedia, Telegram, X controversies reshape debate

Since they are ongoing in large democracies, they will be taken more seriously by everyone than blanket bans in autocracies

Trial for free speech: Wikipedia, Telegram, X controversies reshape debate
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Illustration: Binay Sinha

Devangshu Datta
4 min read Last Updated : Sep 06 2024 | 11:05 PM IST
X (formerly Twitter) has been banned in Brazil. A judge at Delhi High Court has threatened to  block Wikipedia in a defamation case. The Internet Archive (archive.org) has been asked to remove a huge chunk of content in a copyright case in the US. France has arrested Pavel Durov, the founder of the Telegram messaging app, on allegations that the app was used to disseminate child pornography. All these incidents have huge free speech implications, and all these cases are in jurisdictions considered democratic, with varying degrees of protections for free speech as a fundamental right. 

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