Culture secretary Oliver Dowden exits 10 Downing Street on 17 March, 2021 in London, England. Mr Downden is facing scrutiny after appearing to wrongly claim a Cornwall theatre visited by Jill Biden on Saturday received Covid funding.
(Picture: Getty Images)Swapping digital, culture, media and sport for digital culture wars, government minister Oliver Dowden has said that freedom of expression is at risk of being undermined by a “small but vocal minority” – following the decision by several brands to suspend advertising on the controversial news channel GB News.
Ikea, Octopus Energy and the cider firm Kopparberg are among those who have pulled ads from the broadcaster, which has been described as ‘anti-woke’ and likened to the right-wing Fox News in the US.
GB News chairman Andrew Neil doesn’t like that comparison, though, and he also doesn’t like advertisers pulling ads from his news channel, proclaiming that “woke nonsense has reached the boardroom”.
Speaking during his programme on Friday, Neil took aim at the social media campaign Stop Funding Hate and said: “So far, not a single example of hate has been given in evidence to justify the boycott of this channel, but this programme offers a standing invitation to the bosses of any company or agency that thinks to the contrary … our studio door is always open.”
Now, it appears as though the culture secretary also supports GB News amid the boycott by the big brands, writing in The Sunday Telegraph that “a vocal Twitter minority” had gone after “the right to dissent” and a “free and diverse media”.
“Across the West, our values of tolerance and freedom of expression, for which previous generations have fought and died, increasingly risk being undermined by a small but vocal minority.
“For them, these are not absolute but relative concepts, ready to be bent to silence dissent from their world view,” Mr Dowden said.
However, such an intervention from the Tory MP has already been ridiculed online:
Shorter Oliver Dowden: "you have no free speech right to speak to other people and ask them to exercise their free speech right to speak to advertisers and say you won't buy their product if they support hate."
— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) June 20, 2021
Really looking forward to @OliverDowden forcing advertisers to spend with @PinkNews against its will too. Would make the job of our partnerships team so easy. As my local MP, it’s the least he could do.
— Benjamin Cohen (@benjamincohen) June 20, 2021
Interesting line in this about not blocking people from a conversation because you’d don’t agree with them. Suggest you start with your own MPs who routinely block their constituents from social media platforms.
— Sheila Warren (@peoplemattershr) June 20, 2021
Thank God there's someone in Government willing to defend Andrew Neil's right to speak on a national television station paid for by foreign billionaires https://t.co/I6jBHCv6Ab
— Barry Collins (@bazzacollins) June 20, 2021
The more I read it the more ridiculous it looks. If we take Dowden seriously (!) we have to assume he’s either considering forcing companies to pay for advertising against their will, forcing consumers to patronise companies against their will, or banning the right to suggest it!
— John Spiers (@squeezyjohn) June 20, 2021
Because nothing screams ‘anti-democratic’ more than shoppers having their say and asking advertisers to spend their money elsewhere…
