This event is free and unticketed.

Freedom of expression was once considered the bedrock liberty of modern civilisation and freedom of the press in all its forms the practical form of that liberty. Enshrined in the Constitution it makes up a core part of our legal and moral outlook. As Thomas Jefferson put it, ‘When the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe’.

And yet the mood has been turning against unbridled freedom of expression from Congress to the college campus. On college campuses in the US and Europe speech codes have been enshrined that have migrated to the work place, predicated on the idea that offensive language impacts esteem and livelihoods. Furthermore, the US declined 27 points in the annual Press Freedom Index, largely due to treatment of journalists covering Occupy Wall St. Other recent events have included David Miranda, journalist Glenn Greenwald’s partner, being held at Heathrow Airport in London for 9 hours and 20 Associated Press journalists having their phone records seized by the Justice Department in the US, while in July, the Court of Appeal ruled that journalist James Risen must testify at Jeffrey Stirling’s trial for leaking classified information.

This is not just a US phenomenon. In Britain, Lord Justice Leveson ran an inquiry into the practices of media organizations born out of the outcry against the tabloid media, particularly Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World publication in light of journalists listening and tampering with private phone messages. The inquiry recommended setting up a regulatory body with statutory backing. In Australia, the Finkelstein Report into the future of press regulation has gone beyond the ideas discussed by Leveson to propose the state as watchdog of the press.

Are there some things that are simply too incendiary or offensive to be permissible under a general notion of freedom of speech? Is it outdated to have an idea of freedom of speech as an absolute? Should modern issues with safety and security or indeed people’s feelings steer us towards having some limits?