Britons Keenly Aware of Draconian British Hate Speech Laws June 26, 2007
Posted by Webmaster in Censorship, England, Britain and the UK.trackback
Only one-third of respondents in a new survey of British adults believe free speech exists in their country, and only one in five believe that they can safely voice their opinion on a sensitive issue.
That minority that answered those questions in the affirmative are probably left-wing or non-white Britons, who are rarely persecuted and prosecuted for “hate speech.” They have free speech, by and large.
The poll by YouGov, an Internet market research firm, was conducted on behalf of www.friction.tv, a video-based forum for political debate.
While 98 percent of respondents said they believed in the right to free speech, only half said they had ever spoken out on a sensitive issue.
“We supposedly live in a truly democratic society where freedom of speech is a fundamental right enjoyed by everyone,” friction.tv Chief Marketing Officer Andy West said in a press release. “However these survey results have shown rather powerfully that most adults in the U.K. feel that this is not the case.”
West added, “We live in such a politically correct society that people don’t know what they can and can’t say anymore and there is a constant fear that if you go against the grain, you’ll be vilified by your peers.”
This article does not exactly make this clear, but the odious thing about the British situation is that they actually legislate against “hate speech.”
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