Authorised Speech
April 9, 2026Who controls online speech — governments, platforms, regulators, or billionaires? A sharp look at censorship, content moderation, and authorised speech.
Category: Censorship
threats to freedom of expression
Who Owns the Truth? The Neo-Colonialism of Big Tech
May 24, 2025“Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”— A.J. Liebling Today, that freedom belongs not to journalists, but to billionaires. In the past, owning a press meant printing influence. Today, owning a platform means owning perception. Elon Musk…
Israel-Hamas Conflict: Battling Fake News & AI In the Digital Era
January 7, 2024This appeared in FPJ in early December On October 11th, CNN journalist Sara Sidner sent waves of horror and shock across the world, when she reported that 40 Israeli babies were beheaded by Hamas. A few days earlier, on October 7th Hamas…
From McCarthyism to NewsClick – The Bogey of the Red Threat
January 7, 2024This appeared in the FPJ in October 2023 If you have been following the news in India around the raids on the news portal Newsclick and the arrest of its editor Prabir Purkayastha, you most likely would have been asking yourself News…
Column – The Tizzy over Free Speech on Twitter
April 22, 2023Elon Musk bought Twitter a month ago, and ever since that incident, it seems like a free for all slugfest. Musk conducted public polls to restore the accounts of many, including former US President Donald Trump, American Rapper Kayne West, Canadian Psychologist…
Column: The Anti-Social Tendencies of social media
January 1, 2022This appeared in the FPJ on the 9th of August 2021 The role of social media in spreading vaccine hesitancy cannot be understated. Scholars and experts blame social platforms for increasing anxiety, sleep disorders, and vaccine hesitancy. And, despite multiple outbreaks, these…
Column: Big Tech Censorship – Who Watches the Watchmen?
December 31, 2021This piece on Big Tech and censorship appeared in the FPJ on the 7th of June 2021 On the 1st of June this year, Nigerian President Mohammadu Buhari made his government’s equivalent of “goli maaro saalon ko” tweet. Sending out a stern…
Column: Shrinking Democracy – The Weaponizing of Rights, and Reduction of Freedoms
December 31, 2021This appeared in the FPJ on the 15th of March, 2021 Last Fortnight, the Freedom Report, by the US think tank Freedom House, downgraded India’s rankings to “Partly Free”. The Swedish V-Dem Institute, released its report a week later and downgraded India…
Column: The Battle to Bring Big Tech to Heel
December 31, 2021This appeared in the FPJ on the 1st of March, 2021 The big tech giants have gotten so big that they have begun to pose a challenge to many democratically elected governments, threatening to upend entire societies, and systems in their insatiable…
Column: Foreign Social Media Companies must Follow the Law of the Land
December 31, 2021This appeared in the FPJ, on the 15th of February As Twitter faces off with the Indian Government, it forms an interesting precedence for the way social media platforms interact in countries, and societies – and brings into question the role of…