Co-director Lisa Nelson Meets with the State Department's Delegation from Slovakia on Freedom of Speech vs. Hate Speech

Co-Director of the Collaboratory Against Hate, Lisa Nelson, met with a U.S. State Department-sponsored delegation from Slovakia. The group included ten city leaders involved in a Leadership Program project called "Building Community Resilience - the Power of Cities."  The main objective of this meeting was to consider how to best weigh freedom of speech against the desire to limit hate speech and extremist content on social media.  The discussion centered on the difficulties of defining hate speech and extremist content without political bias.  The group discussed the experience of the United States which gave broad protections to speech and association because the government during the McCarthy Era and Civil Rights Movement used the law to target groups which were thought to be advancing dangerous ideologies like that of communism.  The discussion also considered the fundamental question of whether censorship is ever consistent with democratic values.  

See more about this visit here.