February 22, 2019

Towards the Automation of Political Censorship

We are at a turning point in the long history of censorship. This turning point is that of private and automated censorship. It marks a radical break with the guarantees associated with freedom of expression that the democratic struggles of the 19th century left us as a legacy. The democratic-liberal heritage trampled underfoot The 1881 law on freedom of the press—now interpreted in the light of the European Convention on Human Rights—is …

September 10, 2018

Copyright Directive: the fake confrontation between the two heads of information capitalism

Opinion piece originally published in French in Le Monde Idées on September 9, 2018. For a quarter of a century, we have been watching the same bad movie, in which the cultural industries use the law to wage war on their audience. At issue this time is Article 13 of the Copyright Directive currently under review in Brussels, on which the European Parliament will vote on September 12. In its current form, this provision requires digital platforms …