Chilling Effects of Trump’s War on Free Speech Extend Far Beyond Campus Walls – And That’s the Point

Citizen Lab senior research fellow Jon Penney and co-author Bruce Schneier wrote an op-ed in The Conversation arguing that despite younger Americans’ overwhelmingly soured view of Donald Trump’s second presidency, they are not protesting for a simple reason: They are afraid. 

Penney and Schneier call this impact a chilling effect – “the behavioural tendency for people in face of a threat to self-censor and restrain their activities for self-protection.” The U.S. federal government has a systemic pattern of employing surveillance, personal threats, uncertainty, and abuse of power far beyond campuses. Resisting the tendency to self-censor and conform, has to be the norm, not the exception, argue Penney and Schneier. 

This article has been republished by Salon and the McClatchy Media Group, which distributes 31 newspapers across the U.S.