Coyer's Essay Featured in Harvard's Berkman Klein Center's Collection on Harmful Speech Online

August 17, 2017

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is in the third year of a research, policy analysis, and network building effort devoted to the study of harmful speech. The Center has recently published a collection of essays on harmful speech online that includes perspectives on and approaches to harmful speech online from a wide range of voices within the Berkman Klein Center community. The collection features Kate Coyer's essay "State Power and Extremism in Europe: The Uneasy Relationship Between Governments and Social Media Companies". In her piece, Coyer, who has been a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center, writes that "terrorism and extremism are too often used as justifications for governments to expand state surveillance and content regulation powers in the name of national security. These restrictions reveal themselves more overtly in repressive regimes like Turkey, Egypt, and Russia, but trends across the European Union demonstrate a range of governmental efforts taking advantage of the current climate to seize far-reaching powers with troubling implications for civil liberties and free expression online." Read more about the collection here or in the attachment below.