Filmed at the Battle of Ideas festival 2023, this inspiring panel was arranged in partnership with the Free Speech Union. Video enhancing AI had to be used to rescue the footage for this debate. The content however has not been changed.
According to this year’s Global Expression Report, since the turn of the century, 6.3 billion people - living in 81 countries and amounting to 80 per cent of the global population - have experienced declines in freedom of expression. This ‘free speech recession’ has been attributed to various developments. Numerous countries - led by the likes of Brazil, France and Germany, but stretching far and wide to Canada and Australia - have developed measures to criminalise speech, often including political speech that is now interpreted as discriminatory or hateful. Closer to home, Ireland and Scotland have enacted online hate legislation and the UK government has pushed its own Online Safety Bill through parliament.
With countries such as Ireland making even private possession of offensive material a crime and the UK’s Online Safety Bill potentially opening the floodgates to banishing private chat by outlawing end-to-end encryption messaging services such as WhatsApp, how worried should we be about the consequences for privacy? Does the new ease of online accessibility justify the new strict regulations and penalties? How should we balance concerns about safety and security with protecting freedom? How best can we make the case for free expression to overcome the international drive towards censorship?
The speakers are:
Silkie Carlo - director, Big Brother Watch; co-author, Information Security for Journalists
Thomas Fazi - journalist and writer; author, The Battle for Europe: how an elite hijacked a continent - and how we can take it back and The Covid Consensus: the global assault on democracy and the poor - a critique from the Left
Konstantin Kisin - satirist; podcaster, TRIGGERnometry; author, An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West
Dr Norman Lewis - visiting research fellow, MCC Brussels; co-author, Big Potatoes: the London manifesto for innovation
The chair is: Toby Young - general secretary, Free Speech Union; author, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People; associate editor, Spectator
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