Jillian C York examines how our rights have become increasingly undermined by those controlling how we access and share information online.

The internet once promised to be a place of extraordinary freedom beyond the control of money or politics, but today corporations and platforms exercise more control than any state. What is the impact of surveillance capitalism on our right to free speech?

From the online calls to arms in the thick of the Arab Spring to the contemporary front-line of misinformation, York charts the war over our digital rights. She looks at how the big corporations have become unaccountable censors, and the devastating impact it has had on those who have been censored.

Who decides the difference between political debate and hate speech? What impact does this have on our identity, our ability to create communities and to protest? Who regulates the censors? And what can be done to challenge these threats to our democracy?

Jillian C York’s Silicon Values is published by Verso. Buy a copy from Waterstones, our bookselling partners.

This event is in association with Arts Council England and English PEN.

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Festival of Ideas: Jillian C York, What is the Future of Free Speech on the Internet?