This month, we are planning to focus on the subject of free speech - 8pm on Thursday 20 November. There is plenty of background material on the subject - including, of course, the Wikipedia article on the subject. In September, the BBC published a short article by Nick Robinson, ‘How the simmering row over freedom of speech in the UK reached boiling point’, which refers to some recent headline stories.
In June, the Office for Students published free speech guidance “as polling shows one in five academics do not feel free to teach controversial views” and "24% of those who do not feel free in their teaching cite fear of physical attack."
Finally, as far as I know, this is a specific USA issue at present, but I think the concerns are much wider: who does the right to free speech apply to? If corporations have the same rights as human beings, then they can freely engage in political campaigns and the big corporations can out-spend everyone else. You can visit the ‘Move to Amend’ campaign website, which contains a lot of related material.
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