On 7 December 2021 the Law Commission published the final report of its review of hate crime legislation. I was invited onto the James Whale show to discuss the nature of free speech vs hate speech, and online anonymity. You can watch clips from the discussion via the player above, or on YouTube.
Category: Elsewhere (Page 2 of 28)
Articles that were published somewhere else first.
Defamation Claims in 2020: A Libel Thaw?
Just published on the International Forum for Responsible Media (Inforrm) Blog – an article by yrstrly on what we can learn from the High Court defamation claims issued in 2020.
I scraped data from the HM Courts & Tribunal Service e-filing system and was able to extract some insights on how the Defamation Act 2013 and recent Court judgments have affected the kinds of claims made.
Discussing Free Speech at Universities on TalkRADIO with Patrick Christys
Yesterday lunchtime I was invited back onto TalkRADIO to discuss free speech. [previously] This time my host was Patrick Cristys and the topic of discussion was the government’s bizarre plan to enforce free speech at universities.
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Notes on #Batley
Last week, a controversy erupted in Batley, Yorkshire, after a teacher showed his class a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed, during a discussion about the Charlie Hebdo massacre of 2015.
The school has many Muslim students and some of their parents were angry at the teacher for having done this. As we are all probably aware by now, some branches of Islam (not all) consider any depiction of the Prophet to be undesirable and blasphemous.
Where there is an alleged blasphemy, free speech rights are engaged, and people like me become motivated to opine. In this particular case, I was not so much motivated as mobilised: TalkRADIO called me at short notice to chat to Kevin O’Sullivan about it. Here’s our conversation, the first draft of my thoughts on the matter.
There is more to say, however. As I have come to realise whenever such controversies kick-off, there are usually several issues rolled up in the debate. I think it’s more intellectually honest to post ‘notes’ on what those issues are, rather than posting a piece of unequivocal click-bait that condemns one side or the other.
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On Tuesday evening I participated in the launch of Defining Islamophobia: A Contemporary Understanding of How Expressions of Muslimness are Targeted, a report published by the Muslim Council of Britain.
I wrote a short article for inclusion in the report, explaining why I think the new definition of Islamophobia that the report recommends would be a good thing for free speech. Ambiguity is the ally of censorship, and so a narrower definition of Islamophobia — one that is rooted in racism, rather than an opposition to Islamic ideas and theology — should reduce the chill on free speech.
The full report may be downloaded from the MCB website, and the launch event is available to view on Facebook. My contribution, where I expand on some of the issues I raise in my article, is at around 29 minutes.