Free Speech in the Puzzle of Content Regulation: Insights from the West and the Global South

Soorya Balendra is an O’Brien Graduate Fellow at the Center for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism (CHRLP) at McGill University, where he researches the impact of social media regulatory measures on online speech and expression. Before joining McGill, Soorya held academic positions at the University of Jaffna and the General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University in Sri Lanka. He was also a non-resident fellow at The Information Society Law Center (ISLC) at the University of Milan (2021-22) and served as a Research Associate for the Digital Democracy Project at Democracy Reporting International (DRI) in 2022. His master’s program at McGill is supported by the prestigious O’Brien Graduate Fellowship. Soorya has authored numerous national and international research publications on social media regulations, AI governance, and free speech online. He holds a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, and is currently completing his LL.M (Thesis) at McGill.