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Rowan Atkinson on free speech

The Christian Institute · 5.6M views · 2023-05-31 · 9:26

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Overview

Rowan Atkinson speaks against the word 'insulting' in the UK Public Order Act, as part of the Reform Section 5 campaign. He argues for robust free speech and against the slippery slope of criminalizing offense.

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HN commenters point to it as an eloquent defense of free speech with concrete examples of the slippery slope.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2024–2026

Topics

Free speech, censorship & civil libertiesLaw, policing & justice
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rowan atkinsonfree speechpublic order actcensorshipuk law

What people said

sph · 2024-11 · Strong recommendation

> Essentially you should be tolerant of others, unless they themselves are intolerant. No, it's called a paradox because there is no "easy" answer to it. Also, who determines the exact line between free speech and intolerance? It is impossible to do. The reason the world is polarised today is because everybody thinks they have the simple answer to a literal ethical paradox that has none. The simple answer being: "those that share my beliefs are OK, those that don't should be canceled/demonised/hidden somewhere I don't see them." Thus creating echo chambers so people get more and more radical. Free speech is the only half acceptable answer, which means free speech for anyone, whatever their point of view, however offensive you deem them to be. Rowan Atkinson explained it more eloquently that I ever could: [VIDEO]

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Etherlord87 · 2024-12 · Recommendation

Plainly to you, but not to me. What isn't obvious to everyone, isn't really obvious. You didn't care to explain what kind of stopping mechanisms are there, that make it not a slippery slope. Rowan Atkinson gives some nice examples here: [VIDEO] I'd say rather than there being *a risk* of descending too low on that slippery slope, we already have plenty of evidence this already happened. I'm from Poland and recently a party in ruling coalition proposed criminalizing hate speech on the Internet. Fortunately, precisely the slippery slope rhetoric, supported by evidence from countries like UK, seems to be enough of a backlash to stop politicians from following such ideas.

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burnermore · 2026-01 · Reference

Its not just left. Right had to face this too. We should be allowed to discuss openly without being worried of losing job and humiliated. Right now, I cannot discuss openly. Kevin hart losing Oscar for a comment 12 some years ago. People who tried to cancel Eminem and Rowan Atkinson's speech comes to mind. Getting offended is a YOU problem. Not a me problem. Until it's possible for us from both sides can talk openly, these will continue. Just like opposition political parties when one side is in more power, they will try and punish the other. [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by The Christian Institute, played through YouTube.

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