Jacob Mchangama

Jacob Mchangama is the Founder and Executive Director of The Future of Free Speech and a research professor at Vanderbilt University. In 2018, he was a visiting scholar at Columbia’s Global Freedom of Expression Center. He has commented extensively on free speech and human rights in outlets including the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy. Jacob has published in academic and peer-reviewed journals, including Human Rights Quarterly, Policy Review, and Amnesty International’s Strategic Studies. He is the producer and narrator of the podcast “Clear and Present” Danger: A History of Free Speech and the critically acclaimed book Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media, published by Basic Books in 2022. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his work on free speech and human rights.

Selected Articles

• Reason — Survey: Free Speech Support Is Eroding in America (April 3, 2025)
• The Globe and Mail — The Day Free Speech Began to Retreat (March 22, 2025)
• Persuasion — Free Speech Hypocrites (March 16, 2025)
• Persuasion — Europe Has a Free Speech Problem (February 18, 2025)
• Persuasion — Don’t Mourn the Fact-Checkers (January 9, 2025)
• The Wall Street Journal — Banning TikTok Would Violate America’s Free Speech Tradition (January 2, 2025)
• MSNBC — California’s Solution to Fight AI Disinformation Is Worse than The Problem (September 27, 2024)
• Persuasion — Reflections on Right-Wing Cancel Culture (September 9, 2024)
• Tech Policy Press — Most Comments Deleted From Social Media Platforms in Germany, France, and Sweden Were Legal Speech — Why That Should Raise Concerns for Free Expression Online (June 24, 2024)
• The Daily Beast — PEN America Is Right to Stay Out of Gaza War Activism (May 13, 2024)
• Naples Daily News — Florida Abandons Free Speech Principles to Combat DEI Excesses (April 7, 2024)
• Persuasion — How to Fight Misinformation Without Censorship (April 5, 2024)
• The Wall Street Journal — J.K. Rowling Is Right to Protest Hate-Speech Laws (April 5, 2024)
• TIME — The Future of Censorship Is AI-Generated (February 26, 2024)
• Foreign Policy — Evidence Is Growing That Free Speech Is Declining (December 4, 2024)
• The Daily Beast — Anti-Blasphemy Laws Are Great for Tyrants, but Terrible for Dissidents (November 13, 2023)
• Persuasion — Free Speech Defenders Must Be Consistent (November 1, 2023)
• Reason — Denmark May Ban Burning the Quran (August 30, 2023)
• TIME — Denmark and Sweden’s Commitment to Free Speech Is Wilting in the Face of Quran Burnings (August 9, 2023)
• Foreign Policy — Free Speech Social Media Doesn’t Exist (July 14, 2023)
• The Daily Beast — The First Amendment Is the Greatest Defense for the Powerless and Marginalized (April 28, 2023)