that unrestricted free speech is how “ we... understand the world... and work out
how… to change it ” (p.2).
Compared with hate speech, ‘false-claims’ / ‘denialism’, are, as Specter
(2016) puts it, when individuals “ turn away from reality in favour of a more
comfortable lie ” (p.10). Contrary to hate speech, as of March 2024, Britain has
no explicit denialism restrictions, despite, for example, Holocaust denial
restrictions existing across Europe. Thus, denialism appears protected under the
‘Human Rights Act 1998’, namely the freedom “ to hold opinions and... impart
information ” (Legislation.gov.uk, 2000). Nevertheless, legal caveats remain,
such as ‘judicial notice’, allowing judges to accept ‘well-known facts’ as
‘evidence’, previously used in Britain for the occurrence of the Holocaust
(Mortimer, 2019). The ‘Human Rights Act’ reinforces this, specifying that free
expression is subject to conditions in “ public safety ” interests
(Legislation.gov.uk, 2000), similar to hate speech. These factors make false-
claim regulation more ambiguous than hate speech. For example, surgeon
Muhammad Adil was legally struck-off in 2023, likely in “ public safety ”
interests, for spouting COVID-19 denialism (Burnell, 2023). Nevertheless,
COVID-19 conspiracy social-media groups that disseminate misinformation
online, in a consciousness-raising-style approach, are protected in doing so
(Nuki, 2020). Like hate speech, denialism remains controversial, with
opponents of explicit restrictions citing Millian-style arguments: “ Knowledge...
advances through... dialectic that allows even the wackiest theses to be tested
against... historical evidence ” (Leonard, 2021).
With speech so contentious, one may wonder how historical thinkers would
respond. John Stuart Mill’s ‘On Liberty’ was a defining work on freedom. Mill’s
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