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In the Media

Articles That Mention the Free Speech Union

Free speech bill fans urge ministers to force home right to sue

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Bryn Harris, chief legal counsel at the Free Speech Union, likely to be at the forefront of legal challenges to universities, said he hoped the government “would realise that the Lords are unwilling to compromise” and reinstate the tort, noting that ministers had offered an “extensive concession” by proposing that all complaints should be considered by the OfS before heading to the courts.
“As there is demonstrably nothing to gain by the government offering further compromises, we hope the government will stick to its guns and reinstate the statutory tort,” he said. “It was right to introduce it, and the evidence on the ground supported it as a necessary proportionate measure to secure free speech and academic freedom at English universities.”

John Morgan, Times Higher Education, 19th December 2022.

Writers defect from Society of Authors to rival union after it was engulfed in freedom of speech row over claims it has not properly defended gender-critical authors from being “cancelled”

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The Free Speech Union, founded by Toby Young, announced: ‘It has become increasingly clear to us that freedom of expression is under severe pressure within the literary world, with publishers and literary agents often failing to defend their authors when their speech rights come under attack.”
“The freedom of authors to express themselves and of people to read their work without interference or mediation by self-appointed censors is a fundamental human right.”
The Free Speech Union said they are providing an alternative to the Society of Authors that will allow authors “to protect themselves, to defend their peers or to build a public voice capable of putting the case for freedom of expression as robustly as possible”.

Miriam Kuepper, Mail Online, 18th December 2022.

Writers join rival union that aims to defend free speech after trans row

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The Free Speech Union, founded by Toby Young, announced: “It has become increasingly clear to us that freedom of expression is under severe pressure within the literary world, with publishers and literary agents often failing to defend their authors when their speech rights come under attack.”
“The freedom of authors to express themselves and of people to read their work without interference or mediation by self-appointed censors is a fundamental human right.”

Craig Simpson, The Telegraph, 18th December 2022.

The app that could make you look like an anti-Brexit left-winger

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Toby Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union, says that Visible might help those who haven’t yet realised just how left-leaning social media can be.
“In one respect,” he says, “this app will be quite useful because posting right-of-centre content on social media can get you cancelled, particularly by teenagers and young adults”.
On the whole, however, he thinks using Visible as an online self-censorship tool to fit in might not be the best answer.
Mischievously, Young says his union considered publishing a self-help guide titled “How to Speak Woke-ish” but shelved the idea because it would encourage people to hide their true selves.
“We concluded this would just strengthen the taboo against saying anything unorthodox or unfashionable,” adds Young, “when what we really want to do is broaden the Overton Window. That, in essence, is the problem with this app”.

Gareth Corfield, The Telegraph, 16th December 2022.

Cambridge Dictionary redefines “man” and “woman”

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Toby Young, Founder and Director of The Free Speech Union, said the change is an example of “identity politics creeping into the way a dictionary defines words”.
He added: “I suspect this new definition has been introduced as a result of lobbying by political activists, a slippery slope that no dictionary should go down.”

The Christian Institute, 16th December 2022.

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