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05 March 2020 / Nicholas Dobson
Issue: 7877 / Categories: Features , Public , Human rights
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Free Speech in ‘this twittering world’

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Despite clear rights to freedom of expression, those using Twitter would do well to consider the possible consequences, says Nicholas Dobson
  • College of Policing ‘Hate Crime Operational Guidance’ was lawful.
  • Disproportionate interference with the claimant’s right to freedom of expression.

According to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, Xerxes I of Persia (commenting on what he mistakenly took to be a valiantly supportive war manoeuvre by Queen Artemisia of Caria) said: ‘My men have turned into women and my women into men’.

However, if Xerxes were around in the UK today, with the widespread ‘dogmatic belief’ that ‘that trans women are literally women. . .trans men are literally men, and . . .any dissent on this point must automatically be transphobic’ (per Professor Kathleen Stock, Professor of Philosophy at Sussex University), Xerxes may have been irked to find his comment recorded as a ‘non-crime hate incident’.

For that’s what happened to former police officer, Harry Miller. Following the Government’s 2018 consultation on reforms to

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Harneys—Maggie Kwok & George Weston

Harneys—Maggie Kwok & George Weston

Harneys senior leadership appointments

Freeths—Keith Browne & Jim Jordan

Freeths—Keith Browne & Jim Jordan

Freeths strengthens London Construction and Engineering practice with two strategic senior hires

Anthony Collins—Laura Moss

Anthony Collins—Laura Moss

Anthony Collins announces strategic hire to deepen skills base in the social business sector

NEWS
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The High Court has upheld a rare successful serious-irregularity challenge after an arbitrator relied on an implied term neither party had advanced
Thirty years after The Future of Law shook a profession still using fax machines, its central forecast looks increasingly less like prophecy and more like description
More than 100 teams from the legal and financial services sectors competed in five sports at the 51st Law Society RFC Festival of Sport earlier this month
Part-time status need only be an effective cause of less favourable treatment, rather than the sole cause, the Supreme Court has held in Augustine v Data Cars
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