Trigger Warning: Is the Fear of Being Of

Free speech is being threatened, not by jackbooted censorship but by a creeping culture of conformism. This is a call to gird up our loins and laptops to fight the new free speech wars. The cold-blooded murder of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in January 2015 brought a deadly focus to the issue of free speech. Leaders of the free-thinking world united in condemning the killings, proclaiming ‘Je suis Charlie'. But it wasn't long before many commentators were arguing that the massacre showed the need to apply limits to free speech and to restrict the right to be offensive. It has become fashionable not only to declare yourself offended by what somebody else says, but to use the ‘offence card' to demand that they be prevented from saying it. Social media websites such as Twitter have become the scene of ‘twitch hunts' where online mobs hunt down trolls and other heretics who express the ‘wrong' opinion. Against the background of the historic fight for free speech, Trigger Warning identifies the new threats facing it today and spells out how unfettered freedom of expression, despite the pain and the problems it entails, remains the most important liberty of all.

ISBN: 9780008126407
Author: Hume, Mick
Publication date: 01/08/2016
Format: Paperback
Pages: 140
Dimension: 178mm X 111mm