A Must Watch: Freddie Sayers Takes On 'Disinformation' Industry

In a recent video, the editor-in-chief and CEO of UnHerd explains how the 'disinformation' industry uses the notion to distort public debate and punish everyone whose views are not ‘approved’.

UnHerd experienced it themselves. An organisation called the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) placed the UK-based website in a so-called “dynamic exclusion list” of publications that supposedly promote “disinformation” and should therefore be boycotted by all advertisers. As the site learned, once you’re on that list, it brings immediate consequences to your opportunities of attracting advertisers. However, GDI gave UnHerd this rating not because they found any actual ‘disinformation’ at their site, but simply because they did not like some of their content, calling it out for ‘anti-LGBTQI+ narratives’. They came to that opinion because some of UnHerd’s contributing authors have written there about trans-ideological issues and expressed beliefs that biological sex differences exist and matter. In the following video, Sayers explains the absurdity as well as the danger of the situation and takes us through the development of the ‘disinformation’ industry and how ‘fact-checking’ is being used to silence dissenting voices or information deemed inappropriate by today’s powers that be. The case is perhaps all the more telling for UnHerd’s rather principal pursuit of presenting various sides of an argument at their platform and resisting herd mentality wherever it is found. They have offered GDI’s executive to come and debate with them, but have not received a reply.

The problem discussed herein is, of course, huge and recognised by many. “Across the globe, government actors, social media companies, universities, and NGOs are increasingly working to monitor citizens and rob them of their voices. These large-scale coordinated efforts are sometimes referred to as the ‘Censorship-Industrial Complex,’” the authors of the Westminster Declaration stated last October. That declaration, shedding spotlight on how freedom of expression is treated in today’s world, has been signed by many well-known writers, journalists, scientists, actors, filmmakers, etc.

We at Freedom Research believe freedom of expression to be the 2^nd most important human right, promptly after one’s right to life. It should be self-evident that in absence of free speech, no debate and hence no compromise or consent can occur over the most important topics in our society, and therefore no real freedom and tolerance can exist without it. We will continue to highlight numerous problems related to freedom of expression in today’s world to the best of our ability.

Here are some of the articles we have published on the topic:

• Analysis: GLOBAL BOILING ERA - untouched disinformation or when fact-checking goes silent, part 1

• Analysis: IMPACT OF IMMIGRATION - when fact-checking goes silent, part 2

• Can a Man be a Lesbian? Tonje Gjevjon's Criminal Investigation in Norway Reveals a New Absurdity in the "Hate Speech Law"

• Hate Speech Law in Germany: Freedom of Expression Is Being Clamped Down On With Early Morning Police Raids On Homes

• The French Case for Freedom of Expression: Only for Selected Few

• Hate Speech in Finland: Päivi and the Bible

• Päivi Räsänen About Her Hate Speech Case: “It Was Absurd. How Can This Happen In Finland?"

• Analysis: How Censorship Has Exploded in Recent Years, Part 1

• Analysis: How Censorship Has Exploded In Recent Years, Part 2

• Why Twitter Files Matter

• The Assault on Freedom of Speech Intensifies

• How the EU's Digital Services Act Will Limit Free Speech

• A Global Pattern: Different Countries Suppressing Free Speech with Similar Legislations

• The Poor State of Freedom of Expression: How US Federal Judge Spelled It Out

• Language, Freedom and the Burning Dictionary

• Freedom of Speech vs Censorship