Daily Archives: May 24, 2021

The government has published its higher education (freedom of speech) bill. Under it, universities will have a new duty to secure freedom of speech for staff members, students and visiting speakers. Anyone (a person) will be able to sue (bring civil proceedings) where they believe that a university or student union has failed to protect free speech. An official with the Orwellian title of director for freedom of speech and academic freedom will have to decide if courses, talks and university policies maintain academic freedom.

It is not wrong to think that free speech is often threatened. But much of the intimidation in recent years has come from Conservatives and the right. Take the equalities minister publicly criticising a journalist for doing their job. Or the culture secretary intervening in the curatorial decisions of museums.

As for the university sector, in 2019, Warwick lecturer Dr Goldie Osuri was accused of telling students: The idea that the Labour party is antisemitic is very much an Israeli lobby kind of idea. This year, Conservative MP Jonathan Gullis (a man who signed a letter that made use of the trope cultural Marxism) said that not just Osuri but the staff who investigated her and even her vice-chancellor all need to go.

In 2020, the Daily Mail newspaper published a story accusing a Cambridge professor, Priyamvada Gopal, of inciting racism. Later, it admitted it had libelled her, apologised and paid her 25,000 in compensation. The conservative commentator Douglas Murray argued, in relation to a tweet that Gopal had authored, that only her race protected her from dismissal.

There is no limit to the range of orders that can be sought under the governments new bill. Under it, Osuri or Gopal could sue their universities requiring them to say that free speech was absolute and the university would not dismiss them. (It would not give either lecturer any protection against Conservative MPs lobbying for their dismissal.)

But the bill empowers a much wider group of people than lecturers. It is almost unique in British law in the breadth of its provision. Compare, for example, our rules on judicial review: if someone wants to challenge a decision of government they must have standing they must be affected by the decision they challenge. But in the bill there is no standing requirement. Any person, any business, any campaign can sue.

Think of what this will do to ministers other policies: for example, their insistence that universities must implement the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. Critics argue that the definition prohibits criticisms of Israel. If the bill is passed, then any university that has adopted the IHRA definition would be making themselves vulnerable to being sued by a student, a lecturer, by anyone for an order requiring the university to rewrite its policies and permit absolute free speech.

Isnt it a good thing if anyone can sue? Not if the result is that every lecture, every seminar, every guest speech could end up in court action. In civil litigation, the loser must pay the winning sides costs. The law is always, therefore, more attractive to the sorts of public campaigns that can find a wealthy sponsor to pay the bills if they lose.

Given the context in which it has emerged, the bill is clearly intended to protect rightwing campaigns, giving them a right to threaten universities in two ways at once. They will use the bill as a shield, demanding that their own speech is protected. They will use it as a sword, complaining that any radical speech is an attack on them.

If the bill passes then every time a university celebrates International Womens Day there will be mens rights organisations insisting that the university platform them, too. Every historian found to be teaching a course on the slave trade will give rise to demands that another lecture is provided, prioritising the slave owners view.

The civil servants who drafted the consultation for the bill took the view that all speech should be allowed so long as it was speech that the speaker supported. Equality law, they argued, agreed with them in favour of the maximum possible speech: A speaking event where the content has been clearly advertised in advance is unlikely to constitute harassment if attenders attend with prior knowledge of the views likely to be expressed.

This assumes that speakers at controversial events will push a certain distance and no further. But the past few years have seen university events with provocateurs such as Milo Yiannopoulos, in the US, who during a 2016 speech mocked a trans student, and at a 2017 event encouraged attenders to call immigration enforcement on local undocumented people, even publicising the phone number. Is this the kind of free speech that we need protected?

The legislation creates a director for freedom of speech and academic freedom tasked with maintaining academic freedom in universities. Maintaining a university community in which as many people as possible get to speak requires tact, political sophistication, and the ability to see each individual event and the people protesting against it on their own terms.

Ministers may pretend that they have the skills to choose a free speech tsar who is capable of giving universities the right advice. But what we have seen from the Conservatives other appointments is a determination to bring the public sector under one-party control, with fellow travellers put forward for roles in the BBC, EHRC and Ofcom.

Would the new director for freedom have the independence of mind to reprimand Jonathan Gullis when he called for Osuris dismissal? To ask the question is to answer it. This will be a conservative appointee who will see their job as being to discipline people associated with the left, and to promote the narrow demands of rightwing culture warriors.

Excerpt from:
The free speech law will make university debate harder, not easier - The Guardian

After two police teams descended on Twitter's offices in Delhi and Gurgaon, the Congress on Monday alleged that the "cowardly raid" on the microblogging site's offices by the Delhi Police "exposes lameduck attempts" to hide a "fraudulent toolkit" by BJP leaders.

The Delhi Police's Special Cell on Monday served a notice to Twitter India in connection with a probe into a complaint about an alleged 'COVID toolkit' and asked it to share information based on which it had classified a related tweet by BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra as "manipulated media", officials said.

Reacting to the development, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said on Twitter, "Cowardly raid on @Twitter unleashed by Delhi Police exposes lameduck attempts to hide the fraudulent toolkit by BJP leaders."

Such attempts to "murder" freedom of speech lay bare the BJPs guilt, he said and tagged his video statement on the issue.

In the video statement, Surjewala alleged that the "subjugation of free speech, attempts to stifle every voice that is a dissenting against this government and the state-sponsored fraudulent means to propagate and instill fear continue unabated in Modi government".

"May I ask why the guilty people are sitting in BJP headquarters and in seat of power but you are raiding Twitter's Office in Delhi and Gurgaon ...the reason is simple that the BJP is running scared of its lies and getting caught and being branded as manipulated and fraudulent by social media platforms," he said.

The BJP has accused the Congress of creating a 'toolkit' that seeks to tarnish the image of the country and Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the handling of the COVID pandemic. However, the Congress has denied the allegation and claimed that the BJP is propagating a fake 'toolkit' to defame it.

Last week, Twitter labelled as "manipulated media" a tweet by Patra on the alleged 'toolkit'. Twitter says it "may label Tweets that include media (videos, audio, and images) that have been deceptively altered or fabricated".

Here is the original post:
'Attempt to 'murder' freedom of speech': Cong on Twitter India office searches - Hindustan Times

Marchio Irfan Gorbiano (The Jakarta Post)

PREMIUM

A regulation that grants the government sweeping authority to censor content deemed inappropriate on digital platforms starting on Monday has raised concerns that it might further restrict freedom of speech and informationin the digital space.

The ministerial regulation, signed by Communication and Information Minister Johnny G. Plate in November, allows the ministry to remove prohibited content on digital platforms owned by the public, individual and private companies, known as digital service providers (PSEs).

The provision is applicable to a wide range of registered domestic and foreign private digital platforms, including social media, search engines, fintech and data processing, whose services are accessible in Indonesia.

This power came into effect on Monday, when the six-month deadline for all private PSEs to register with the ministry expire...

Starting from IDR 55,000/month

See the original post here:
'Tool for censorship': Newly effective regulation could curb free speech in Indonesia - Jakarta Post

The mere mention of the word Vagina would have had my late mother hurdle over the coffee table like Sally Gunnell to reach for the television off switch.

The Spence household of my boyhood was a somewhat prim institution, unlike Abertay University.

There such language is freely expressed but the openness currently finds them embroiled in a dispute whereby a mature law student faces investigation for saying women have vaginas.

Given my sheltered upbringing, I admit to being initially torn between a Dick Emery Ooh you are awful response, and a sense of dj vu at this ludicrously terrifying tale.

Schoolboy humour and badinage is seldom far from the mind of many blokes, and I am sadly one of them, despite valiant attempts to pose as modern man.

However, when the sensible hat goes on and serious reflection begins, the madness of what is happening in this case quickly drives any vestige of humour from the mind.

Lisa Keogh a 29 year old law student and mother of two, who has previously worked in the real world as a mechanic has been accused of transphobia during online student lectures.

Her remarks, unremarkable to many I suspect, but not the younger classmates who complained, included her view that women were born with female genitals and that the difference in physical strength of men versus women is a fact.

Abertay insist that freedom of speech within the law is permitted and encouraged, yet Keogh faces a formal investigation into her conduct with allegations that her comments are offensive and discriminatory.

Their misconduct policy includes discriminating against gender reassignment, with expulsion the highest sanction for breach.

Joanna Cherry MP and QC has called the action farcical, and asked Abertay how it is protecting students rights to freedom of speech under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Of course, Cherry herself has been assailed by the trans lobby in unedifying and vicious attacks.

There is a uniquely chilling aspect of this case given that it involves law students.

Taken to its logical limits, could the eventual effect of being unable to express a view on gender potentially stop lawyers from even presenting a defence, for fear of falling foul of the law?

Could even writing about the subject and reporting on it be regarded as offensive?

Stasi-like antics in suppressing free speech shouldnt be left to an MP or a young mother to call out.

Universities are places where minds must be open to embracing different opinions, able to argue with analytical and forensic skill, and to dissect opposing points of view with rigour and fact..

If we dont step up to the plate on the issue of freedom of speech, our work lives, careers, and reputations are all at risk of being damaged or destroyed by the dogmatic, the vexatious, and the downright illiberal.

I recently quit my voluntary and unpaid role as Rector of University of Dundee a year early. Covid had played havoc with my earnings as a freelance journalist and I needed to devote my increasingly limited spare time to earning my living.

However, during my period in the post, I sensed the potential for the sort of turmoil in which Abertay is now ensnared.

Students at universities vote for a rector with a public profile who has access to the media and can communicate their issues, but some can get upset when that individual voices opinions that they dislike or disagree with.

I jalouse that some staff in academic institutions are currently operating in silent panic mode, while the unchecked Stalinist mentality of a small, but disproportionately loud sect of the professionally aggrieved and opinionated, hunt for perceived transgressions and offence.

Those who are triggered by opinions they dislike or arguments disputing their constricted world view, and upset at the challenges presented by open debate, are a harbinger of dangerous times ahead.

Its time to put the adults back in charge.

When grown-ups vacate the room and let unripened minds run riot, the dangers to reputations and careers are starkly exposed.

Allegations of hurt and hate are hurled in a scattergun approach by those lacking the sense or concern to see the dangers

Freedom of speech can of course be upsetting and not just to those with a delicate constitution.

However, there is a difference between statements that simply jar and anger and those that are injurious to reputation.

Between the Wild West of social media and now the university debating chamber, allegations of hurt and hate are hurled in a scattergun approach by those lacking the sense or concern to see the dangers posed to the individuals they indict with such callous and casual contempt.

The furious desire of intolerant minds to suppress and silence those they disagree with is a nakedly aggressive form of censorship.

Those in management or teaching positions who acquiesce with or think that they can tame this monster will find its appetite is insatiable, and they too will be devoured in time.

Those folk incapable of accepting robust debate and exchange of alternative views, regard each inch of latitude yielded to them as a permit to destroy those whose views their restrictive minds cant tolerate.

The silent majority now face a very blunt choice.

We can march onwards to assured destruction of any remaining free thought and expression, or we can reject the beat of those banging their increasingly dictatorial drums.

Go here to see the original:
JIM SPENCE: Abertay University vagina row is no joke the free speech Stasi are threatening to silence us all - The Courier