One day after the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel revealed his clandestine legal attack on Gawker Media to the New York Times, Gawker reporter Ashley Feinberg published a lengthy investigation that sought to solve the enduring mystery of Donald Trump’s infamous mane, which she described as a “cotton candy…
On the final day of his visit to Vietnam, President Barack Obama beatboxed at a town hall and requested a rap from Vietnam’s “Queen of Hip-Hop” in a moment that tied into the issue of free speech.
When Toni Morrison’s Beloved was published, in 1987, Margaret Atwood, writing in the New York Times Book Review called it a “triumph.” She wrote of the novel, which has come to be considered one of the most important of the contemporary era, “[Morrison’s prose is] by turns rich, graceful, eccentric, rough, lyrical,…
A good rule of thumb for processing this unexpected, long-time-coming season of college students protesting the white bias built into the mainstream American university system: anyone who takes anti-racism protestors as more troubling than the racism they’re protesting probably has quite a bit of personal investment…
On Sunday, August 23, Tyler, the Creator, was riding through France on the nicest tour bus he’d ever rented—a giant TV screen, a circle couch, extra beds—and heading towards the end of what was meant to be a month-long tour of Europe, reveling in the amenities his hard work had afforded him. The 24-year-old Los…
The Ferguson, St. Louis County, and St. Louis police departments along with the Missouri Highway Patrol have been newly and specifically faulted for the role they played in the Ferguson protests in the 16 days after the death of Michael Brown. In a report obtained by the St. Louis Dispatch, to be delivered to police…
Sarah Palin — the lush-haired simpleton who wandered out of the Alaska territory all those years ago and hasn't stopped rambling away in her chripy, feral Nell language since — is doing a lot of talking lately, this time bravely speaking up for Phil Robertson, the Duck Dynasty star who was fired from his own show…
There’s a campaign afoot in Iceland to seriously restrict underage access to hardcore porn, and it’s drawing the typical outcries of free expression curtailment. Those arguments — that Iceland would turn into some kind of North Korea Lite, or literally explode from all the thwarted orgasms a porn ban would surely…
Gilberto Valle, the infamous NYPD "cannibal cop" who was arrested by the FBI in late October for having "detailed, strategic discussions" about killing, cooking, and eating women he knew in real life, is on trial this week as the defense and prosecutors argue over the difference between fantasy and reality. What's…
Bros/MRAs/bigots/internet commenters/the population at large: We don't think "free speech" means what you think it means.
Well, it's happening. Twitter, the hangout for people who find tumblr too much work, disclosed that it's blocking users in Germany from viewing the tweets of Besseres Hannover, a group of neo-Nazi skinhead psychos. This is the first time the microblogging behemoth has ever censored an account, and you can be sure…
A men's rights activist group says it's simply "opposing the marginalization and vilification of men and boys" by plastering misogynistic posters and leading coffee shop discussions in a liberal east Vancouver neighborhood that, for the most part, is resistant to the cause. But the group isn't so much pro-men as it is…
The criminal proceedings against a porn producer behind such films as Japanese Doggy 3 Way, Gang Bang Horse "Pony Sex Game," Mako's First Time Scat, and Hollywood Scat Amateurs No. 7 have ended in mistrial after jurors couldn't decide whether or not some of his titles violated obscenity laws. The producer in question,…
The Supreme Court's currently considering a case that would effectively lift the more stringent decency standards to which network TV programming is currently held. Networks say that it's not fair that cable gets to go out till 2 am and go on dates and stuff when they're stuck memorizing Bible verses at home and…
Dozens of inmates have started a letter writing campaign against a new policy that would ban pornographic materials from inside Connecticut prison walls, and some have even threatened legal action.
The UK's communications minister wants ISPs to automatically block porn unless your household opts into it. For The Children. There are so many ways this is a terrible idea.
The author of The Pedophile's Guide To Love And Pleasure has been arrested on obscenity charges. But it's not clear if there's a strong legal case against him.
Andrew Shirvell was banned from the University of Michigan campus for his homophobic verbal attacks on student body president Chris Armstrong. But now the school's ACLU chapter says the ban was unconstitutional.
Amazon's headache isn't over: MSNBC has identified nude photos and videos of children for sale on the site. The company hasn't yet discussed pulling The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure, and its author is being monitored by police.
