The Free Speech Divide (Paperback)

Paperback. The right to speak freely was once a question for courts. Now it is a question for algorithms.In the decades since the post-war speech settlement, European democracies developed a distinctive approach to expression: judicial mediation, not absolutism. Speech rights were real, but they could be limited when a government could demonstrate the limitation was necessary in a democratic society. That logic, applied case by case in a Strasbourg courtroom, worked reasonably well at the speed of litigation.Then platforms scaled to billions of users. The balancing test didn't disappear - it was industrialized.The Free Speech Divide is a data-driven institutional analysis of how European regulatory frameworks, platform compliance economics, and the structural logic of risk asymmetry are reshaping what people can say online - not just in Europe, but globally. It traces the Brussels Effect (how EU rules travel to jurisdictions that never voted for them), the institutional incentives that produce over-moderation without ideological intent, and the measurable consequences for democratic participation and institutional trust.Written in the tradition of evidence-based political analysis, this book takes no side. It explains the structure. Readers across the political spectrum will find their strongest arguments taken seriously - and complicated.For readers of The Great Divide, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, and analytical nonfiction that earns its conclusions. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.…