YouTube has censored a speech that David Davis MP gave during our event in Manchester last week. Shortly after I uploaded the brilliant speech the video was taken down, claiming that it “contradicts expert consensus”…
David Davis is a civil liberties champion and his iconic speech was not only a powerful reminder of how freedom has been fundamental in defining the nation we are today, but it was meticulously researched and scientifically accurate.
He told us: “This is an outrageous attack on free speech. Throughout the pandemic, we have seen blatant attempts by Big Tech to silence opposition voices challenging the conventional wisdom. This episode serves as a further example of the worrying trend of strangling free speech.
My speech at conference was carefully researched, wholly accurate and backed up with the latest scientific evidence."
After two days of being left in the dark, YouTube has now reinstated the video without any explanation or notification. You can view the video here.
This act of censorship and false categorisation of ‘misinformation’ is extremely damaging to the plight of free speech online… We have the means to fight back, but not everyone has.
Examples of censorship like this are set to get a lot worse through the introduction of the Government’s Online Safety Bill, which is set to be brought forward to the Commons early next year.
Our Legal and Policy Officer Mark Johnson: “The Government is doing nothing to tackle online censorship but stands to make the problem worse with broad rules clamping down on lawful speech in its new Online Safety Bill. This ought to be a wakeup call to politicians that freedom of speech is under severe threat in the digital world.”
After documenting examples of online censorship in our latest report ‘The State of Free Speech Online’ we are actively fighting the Government's censorious plans.
If you want to keep up to date with our videos exposing and challenging threats to our privacy, our freedoms and our civil liberties at a time of enormous technological change in the UK then why not subscribe to our YouTube channel today?