Monday, March 3, 2025
MAKE A DONATION
Get in Touch
Member Login
BECOME A MEMBER
Join Today

In the Media

Articles That Mention the Free Speech Union

New cross-party group set up to protect country from Labour’s attacks on free speech

Click here to read the article

However the celebrity signing is newly-ennobled peer Toby Young, a long-time free speech advocate who set up the Free Speech Union in 2019 to not only campaign against cancel culture but also defend individuals whose jobs and positions have been threatened by anti-free speech campaigners. He was installed in the House of Lords yesterday after being nominated for a peerage by Kemi Badenoch.

Christian Calgie, The Express, 29th January 2025.

Facebook’s free speech reforms fall short of the mark

Click here to read the article

LAST FRIDAY, Facebook removed a Free Speech Union (FSU) post about YouTube’s deletion of a video about vaccine harms. So much for Mark Zuckerberg’s fancy talk about ‘free speech’. The post, which highlighted the stigma and, ironically, censorship faced by those injured by the covid vaccines, was of course entirely lawful. Indeed, it was made by a human rights lawyer who is giving evidence to the covid inquiry. Its removal raises questions about the extent to which the platform’s pivot to a ‘Community Notes’ system (as part of a broader, sector-wide turn towards user-based verification systems) is quite the historic moment for online free speech that some observers claim.

Dr Frederick Attenborough, TCW, 19th January 2025.

Free speech is still in peril on campus

Click here to read the article

The sorry saga of the UK’s Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act reached a desultory conclusion this week. While it had been passed in parliament under the previous Conservative government in response to growing concerns about cancel culture on campuses, it had not been implemented by the time of the General Election. Within days of the Labour government taking office in July, it was dumped by the new education secretary, Bridget Phillipson. Following a backlash from academics and threatened legal action from the Free Speech Union, the Freedom of Speech Act has now been revived, albeit in a watered-down form. Whether this new, de-fanged version will be enough to put an end to the No Platforming, cancelling and self-censorship that plagues our universities remains to be seen.

Joanna Williams, Spiked Online, 17th January 2025.

Labour’s university law will be free speech in name only

Click here to read the article

Labour’s initial attempt to kick this late-term Tory legislation into the long grass by pressing the pause button is a worrying sign. It shows that the party is not seriously committed to protecting academic freedom when it inevitably collides with hurt feelings. As Government sources have alleged, the act was a “hate speech charter”. Ministers have only acted because of overwhelming opposition and lobbying from high-profile academics such as Richard Dawkins and an imminent judicial review brought by the Free Speech Union.

Eric Kaufmann, Unherd, 16th January 2025.

Labour revives free speech law — minus controversial clause

Click here to read the article

The act’s introduction preempts a judicial review against its suspension, brought by the Free Speech Union, due to be held at the end of this month. There was an outcry from academics and high-profile campaigners against the act being paused. A letter to the Times, signed by hundreds of supporters, said that academics and students had been hounded, censured, silenced or even sacked over the past 20 years for expressing legal opinions.

Nicola Woolcock, Georgia Lambert, The Times, 15th January 2025.

Welcome to the Free Speech Union


If you’re looking for information and guidance, or in need of immediate help, please click the button below:
GET IN TOUCH