Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch spoke up for freedom of speech at a major conference in London, sounding an alert over big tech companies taking control of what users see.
“When you have organisations that become so big, they effectively become more powerful than government in regulating what people say,” Badenoch told a session at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in Greenwich.
Internet companies like Google and Facebook have been criticised for taking the roles of regulator over what users are shown. Badenoch said the Online Safety Act would attempt to tackle the issue, but admitted the new law was too bloated. “I am a fan of smaller Bills,” she said.
Badenoch’s words chimed with the Evening Standard Freedom of Speech campaign, which has included focus on restrictive big tech by US author Michael Shellenberger.
The Business Secretary also spoke of her concerns that the Government had let charity Stonewall advise it on equality law. “Government needs to be more confident in itself, rather than ask other people to mark our homework,” she said. The minister added that growth is being held back by a “safety-ism” culture in companies. “We talk about risk as if it’s a bad thing rather than something that generates creativity,” she said.
She also criticised firms for focusing on issues such as decolonisation instead of other issues she feels are more important. “If people are arguing about what happened in slavery, or colonisation they’re not solving today’s problems,” she said. The King this week expressed regret about Britain’s colonial legacy on a royal visit to Kenya.
Badenoch, who is thought to be a strong contender to be the next Tory leader, emphasised the importance of freedom of expression, arguing the country must “make sure that we keep our values very strongly entrenched in enlightenment values, liberalism, freedom of association… freedom of speech,” she said. “These things matter”.
Some of Badenoch’s words echoed those of her fellow Tory leading MP Michael Gove at the conference the day before, who had argued that business was focusing on superficial diversity drives instead of worsening inequality. “You can only have a successful free market economy if you also have a culture free of cancellation, free of censorship and free of the marginalisation of those who wish to challenge what is the current consensus,” Mr Gove said.
The Levelling Up Secretary praised the conference for “bringing together people whose voices have not been heard as clearly and as profoundly as they need to be”.
The big draw for many at the event that hosted 1,500 guests from 73 countries was academic Jordan Peterson, who gave a welcoming and final summing-up.
Peterson spoke on the importance of personal responsibility in dealing with the difficulties of world problems, arguing that the West had been “torn apart” for decades with “concerns about identity”. He said that ARC was a chance for similar minded people to “meditate communally on what each of us can do as the captains of our own ships to sail the fleet towards the promised shore”.
Other speakers included Paul Marshall, venture capitalist and owner of GB News, Tory MPs Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates, and US Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy and former Australian prime minister John Howard.
While many prominent speakers were Right-of-centre, the topics of discussion were wide-ranging, with sessions titled: Strengthening the Social Fabric, Energy, Resources and our Environment, and Free Markets and Good Governance. There was focus on telling a “better story” about the positive impact of western culture, instead of the negative aspects.
ARC is backed by global investment firm the Legatum group, and fronted by co-founder and CEO Baroness Stroud. She said: “The world cannot afford the decline of the West. The lack of a common narrative has left us disillusioned and disempowered at a time when humanity is more prosperous, healthy, and resourced than at any point in history.”
