Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2025
Summary
This chapter introduces the concept of chilling effects and contextualizes it, both with historical and contemporary examples, including the chill of: recent state actions that are increasingly authoritarian; online surveillance in the Snowden leaks; big data collection in the Cambridge Analytica scandal; automated surveillance in Clearview AI; as well as the modern origins of the chilling effects concept. The author also discusses persistent skepticism about chilling effects by lawyers, judges, scholars, and researchers, and why, and provides an outline of the conformity theory advanced in the book. The author ends with a road map for the structure of the book.
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- Chilling EffectsRepression, Conformity, and Power in the Digital Age, pp. 1 - 16Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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