Weaponizing speech

As the notion of “information warfare” has gained public currency, some forms of communication have been redefined as acts of violence, war, and terrorism. This essay tracks the metaphor of the “information bomb” in theoretical understandings as well as public discourses of terrorism, journalism, and information leaks. The essay then analyzes the 2010 Supreme Court case of Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project, which redefined speech as having the ability to constitute “material support” for terrorism. The essay argues that trends in the “weaponization of speech” pose important challenges to the status of the First Amendment.