Censorship on Facebook and YouTube
Facebook is a private company: therefore, it can enforce its rules without having to ask anyone for permission. Changes in policies do enrage a few users, but, overall, Facebook has…
Posts by tag
Freedom of Expression
10 posts
The Grain of Truth Behind Calls to Restrict Debate
Statements about the oppressive nature of academic debate or the need to balance free speech with a consideration of people’s feelings are often seen as outrageous enough to be instantly…
Zuckerberg: The Digital Gutenberg
On Thursday the second of May Facebook drew a line in the sand, banning from their platforms people who purvey ideas they deem dangerous. Being purged from Facebook and Instagram…
The Internet Is Making You Less Free
Our current age is defined by the internet. The internet—a technology that allows the decentralized, globalized dissemination of information—has become so thoroughly entrenched in human life that access is now…
The Answer to Hateful Speech is Better Speech: An Invitation to a Debate
This essay anticipates a debate at the University of Leeds which will be live streamed on Inaya’s YouTube channel, on 7 May, from 5.30–7.30pm (BST). Two narratives have dominated discourse…
In Defense of Hate Speech
On 23 February, Oluwole Ilesanmi, a Christian street preacher, was approached by two uniformed police officers outside an underground station in north London. Donned with an earpiece microphone and a…
Is Battle Rap the Last True Bastion of Free Speech?
In a packed basement in the heart of Sheffield, northern England, two burly men—one wearing a hoodie, the other sporting a fitted New York Mets baseball cap at a jaunty…
How Did Free Speech Get Here?
It was a good day for our public discourse when, on the popular public talk show Firing Line, conservative intellectual William F. Buckley had a conversation with avant-guard Beat poet…
Areopagitica for Millennials
A few weeks ago, I went to the Chiltern village of Chalfont St Giles to visit a building that looks like something an illustrator would produce in a children’s encyclopedia…
Liberalism as Pluralism: A Conservative Argument.
There are several possible conservative arguments for the liberal tradition, especially within Anglo-American strains of liberalism. Michael Novak’s book The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, a serious account of the type…
