The Times view on freedom of speech: Taking Offence – The Times

December 26 2019, 12:01am,The Times

Complaints of hurt feelings must never trump the exercise of free speech

No one has a right not to be offended. This trenchant observation is made in The Times today by Sir Alan Moses, the outgoing chairman of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso), the press regulator. He is right. There is a disturbing tendency in modern culture to treat peoples deeply held beliefs, especially but not only in religious matters, as sacrosanct. That is no part of a free society. Knowledge advances not by a process of mutual accommodation but by a willingness to subject ideas to criticism, which includes denunciation, derision and mockery.

Sir Alan may have been alluding to an Ipso ruling that was widely criticised yet was sensible. It dismissed a complaint in 2016 against Kelvin MacKenzie for a column in The Sun

Want to read more?

Subscribe now and get unlimited digital access on web and our smartphone and tablet apps, free for your first month.

View original post here:

The Times view on freedom of speech: Taking Offence - The Times

Related Posts

Comments are closed.