Jodie Ginsberg, from Index on Censorship, has a good opinion piece in The Times. She writes that freedom of speech is under increasing threat in the West from activists who expect self censorship and #no debate to enforce their authoritarian views. This echoes Justice Knowles' comments about freedom of speech applying to statements more contentious than kittens are fluffy
The assertion that “I believe in free speech, but . . .” has become depressingly familiar. It is a line that has fuelled a new type of censorship, one in which a big part of expression is labelled as “not free speech”, in other words expression that is not worthy of protection, whether that be through an ever-widening definition of what constitutes hateful speech, or state-backed regulation of online platforms. This modern censorship works by labelling some views as unacceptable and in so doing ends up depriving us of social discourse. If we label everything we dislike as fake news or as hate speech we stifle vital debate. The toxic discussion over sex and gender is proof of that