This House Would Be A Free Speech Absolutist | Cambridge Union

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Thursday 15th February 2024 aat 8pm in the Debating Chamber.

This week’s debate will be led by all student speakers, meaning greater opportunity to make your voice heard. It should be a really engaging and lively debate!
Freedom of speech and expression, especially on campus, has not ceased to be a hot button topic this decade. The line between hate speech, incitement to violence and legitimate exercise of our democratic rights to express ourselves has been a subject of consternation and bitter protest.
Some believe that campus radicals have put freedom of speech under profound crisis, choosing to prioritise the lessening of offence, and that only a full-throated embrace of free speech can save our democracy. Others argue that a buccaneering approach, termed “free speech absolutism” by Elon Must as he loosened moderation restraints on Twitter, is merely a one way track to a morass of disinformation, discrimination and dereliction of democracy.
In an era where we have roved to pamphlets to millions of pieces of information on our phones, do we need to fight back against wannabe censors and embrace free speech unequivocally, or is it a carte blanche for discrimination and hate speech?