Media

The Reith Lectures - The Four Freedoms: 1. Freedom of Speech

Best-selling Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gives the first of four 2022 Reith Lectures discussing freedom of speech. This lecture and question-and-answer session is recorded in London in front of an audience and presented by Anita Anand. The year's series was inspired by President Franklin D Roosevelt's four freedoms speech of 1941 and asks what this terrain means now? It features four different lecturers. In addition to Chimamanda, they are: Freedom of Worship by Rowan Williams Freedom from Want by Darren McGarvey Freedom from Fear by Fiona Hill

How woke language distorts the world

Peter Boghossian writes on how the woke use ordinary words and fills them with new ideological context. So words with a set meaning come to mean something else entirely - an ordinary meaning and then an activist meaning.

Press release: Fish Hoek High ‘social justice’ saga: we told you so – IRR

The FSU, a division of the Institute of Race Relations, issued a press release about the Fish Hoek High School debacle over the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion intervention initiated by the Western Cape Education Department to conscientise 800 pupils about their racial biases. It didn't end well and parents were outraged.

Hate Speech Bill in late 2022: Still a threat to free expression?

The "Hate Speech" Bill should not provide for as many "protected grounds" against hate speech as it does: it should be limited by the narrower terms contained in Section 16 of the Constitution. The Bill's definition of "harm" is too wide as well. In fact, it can be scrapped in its entirety as the existing Equality Act is more than sufficient.

Hate speech will hobble free speech*

Supporting free speech vigorously means accepting that people are entitled to express hate speech. The response to hate speech should not be to criminalise it, subject only to the Constitution and existing legislation; the Hate Bill speech is unwanted and unnecessary.

Haidt resigns in protest over ideological capture

NYU professor and leading social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has resigned from his professional body due to the new requirement that members must include Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and anti-racism commitments if they want to present research at any conference. Haidt is a leader in the anti-woke movement.

PayPal defunds the Free Speech Union in the UK

PayPal says Free Speech Union (UK) has breached its 'Acceptable Use Policy' but no reason is given - go figure!

UCT student awarded over R300,000 from UCT for defamation

Defamation is a limit on freedom of speech. If a statement made publicly about a person and is unproven, not in the public interest and damaging, the accused may sue for defamation.