TED conference censorship row

With over 500 million YouTube views, TED Talks have attracted guest speakers such as Bill Gates, Richard Dawkins and Julian Assange and in the process, made conferences cool again.

But in recent weeks TED Talks with their mantra - ideas worth sharing - have been accused of censorship after two British speakers had their talks removed from TEDs official website.

The row involves two British speakers, the journalist and author Graham Hancock and Cambridge and Harvard University lecturer Rupert Sheldrake. Both speakers have been deemed as provocative amid accusations of pseudoscience at lectures they gave at a TEDx talk a franchised spin-off of the main TED Talk brand. Hancock describes a war on consciousness that prevents the world from gaining a higher state of awareness through shamanic principles and psychoactives like the South American potion, ayahuasca.

Rupert Sheldrake, a biochemist gave a speech which was loosely based on his book, The Science Delusion in which he refutes enduring dogmas which he claims are holding back legitimate scientific enquiry.

Both speakers who spoke at the TEDx conference in east London last month had their speeches pulled from its YouTube channel. After complaints from Sheldrake and Hancock and many TED viewers, their videos were reinstalled, but not on the main website in the naughty corner as Mr Hancock described it.

Hancock and Sheldrake have also called for the anonymous science board which advises TED on the legitimacy of speakers, to be revealed something which TED is refusing to do, citing they are unpaid volunteers.

At the talks, speakers are given 18 minutes to present their ideas, which range from a mixture of science and culture through to storytelling.

But in recent months, a series of controversies dogged the not-for-profit organisation and whose acronym stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, leading many to question the integrity of the organisation which charges audiences several thousands of pounds to watch a speech, yet pays its speakers nothing. In 2009, TED decided to license its brand allowing anyone, around the world to stage TEDx events.

Last week in California, officials withdrew the license awarded to organisers of TEDx West Hollywood. Organisers said the conference theme who were talking about the reality of ESP, was pseudoscience.

Graham Hancock, said: I think it comes down to the management of popular culture, rather than leaving people to make up their own minds.

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TED conference censorship row