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In the Media

Articles That Mention the Free Speech Union

Jack Dee and Matt Le Tissier close their Paypal accounts after online payments giant cancels Free Speech Union and anti-school lockdown group UsForThem

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Comedian Jack Dee has closed his PayPal account after it cancelled the accounts of the Free Speech Union and a parents group which fought to keep schools open during lockdown. The stand-up comedian, 60, accused the Californian company of bullying customers after it also shut the account of UsForThem – which campaigned to keep schools open during Covid. He took to Twitter to announce: “I’m in the process of cancelling my PayPal account. Big Tech companies that feel they can bully people for questioning mainstream groupthink don’t deserve anyone’s business.” And he was joined by former professional footballer Matt Le Tissier who wrote: “That’s my PayPal account closed along with my wife’s. Good riddance to tin pot dictators.”

Isabella Nikolic, MailOnline, 23rd September 2022.

If corporations are allowed to decide which opinions are permissible, then free speech is dead

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Is the West in the process of introducing a Chinese-style social credit system? I’ve read with horror the stories of state-controlled banks in China cutting off people’s access to their accounts if they refuse to toe the Communist Party line, but I never thought it could happen here. Admittedly, it did happen in Canada earlier this year, with some banks freezing the accounts of truckers protesting against the vaccine mandates at the behest of Justin Trudeau. But that was an exceptional case, surely?

Toby Young, The Telegraph, 22nd September 2022.

PayPal shuts down accounts of Free Speech Union

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Speaking to Mark Dolan exclusively on GB News, Toby Young said, “I assumed that when I was cancelled in 2019, I couldn’t get cancelled again. I thought I was bullet proof… it terms out I was naive.” He went on “PayPal have form…but there’s no right of appeal, no right to parole. This is the new battlefront for free speech”.

GB News, 21st September 2022.

PayPal cancels FSU and The Daily Sceptic accounts

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This week, PayPal cancelled the accounts of the Free Speech Union as well as the “lockdown sceptic” blog, The Daily Sceptic, both run by journalist and political commentator Toby Young. The financial service did not give notice of the specific violation(s) of their “Acceptable Use Policy” that allegedly caused them to cancel the accounts in question. The fact that all of these accounts were targeted in one fell swoop seems to show that PayPal designated these groups and the people behind them as non grata, because of some unidentified political transgression. You really don’t need to be a fan of any of these groups to see how risky this flex of digital power is.

Mark Johnson, UnHerd, 21st September 2022.

Free speech group “is cancelled by PayPal’: Three accounts set up by Toby Young are cut off by US giant for breaking “acceptable use policy”

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Paypal has found itself in hot water after shutting down accounts belonging to the founder of the Free Speech Union. Toby Young, who set up the campaign group and the Daily Sceptic news blog, was told last week that three of his PayPal accounts would be closed for violating an “acceptable use policy”. But Mr Young accused it of “whisking the rug out from under” private businesses. “This is completely outrageous, but I am far from the only person to be deplatformed in this way,” he said. “The withdrawal of financial services from people who challenge the prevailing orthodoxy, whether it’s about teaching primary school children there are 27 different genders or Net Zero, is the new battlefront in the ongoing war against free speech.”

Izzy Lyons, Daily Mail, 21st September 2022.

Toby Young PayPal accounts ban is “gender-critical discrimination”, says SNP’s Joanna Cherry

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Toby Young said his Free Speech Union, his website the Daily Sceptic and his personal accounts have all been closed and has said he believes the company targeted him for his political views. Joanna Cherry KC, the SNP MP for Edinburgh South West who has criticised her own party for its position on transgender issues, has said if Young’s allegations he was targeted for his views were true, PayPal was discriminating on the basis of political beliefs.

Hamish Morrison, The National, 21st September 2022.

Queen Elizabeth: Republican protesters have a right to free speech, but there are clear legal limits – Murdo Fraser MSP

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I have been encouraged to see the Free Speech Union, with which I am proud to be associated, offering support to some of the protesters who were arrested last week. It is, however, clear that there is a definite line between what is permissible (albeit offensive to many) public protest, and what falls foul of the criminal law.

Murdo Fraser, The Scotsman, 21st September 2022.

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