This book offers a unique exploration of the current state of freedom of speech as a basic right available to everyone. The research focuses on the different development stages of the concept of freedom of speech and the use of modern indicators to depict the its treatment in different legal cultures, including the obligations under international treaties and the effects that the globalising and digitalising environment have had on it. The authors conduct a broad survey of freedom of speech around the world, from Europe over Russia and both Americas to Africa, Asia, and Australia. The aim of this survey is to identify safeguards of freedom of speech on both a national and an international level, violations and threat scenarios, and in particular challenges to freedom of speech in the digital era.
1. Introductory Overview of the Subject
2. First Notes
3. State of Freedom of Speech in the World
-Freedom of speech indices
-Developments in some countries
-Dark clouds over the flow of information
-Free speech in the core of judicial development
-How to monitor development?
4. From the Origins of Freedom of Speech to Modern Information Society
-First steps of free speech in the antique
-The idea of free speech during the age of European enlightenment
-The first Freedom of the Press Act
-Free speech as a fundamental and human right
-In search of the reality of free speech