Here is our submission to the three-day OHCHR seminar on academic freedom we attended earlier this year. It highlights the key role of social media companies, rather than governments, in controlling online discourse, which impacts on academic freedom.

“To a very large extent, our freedom of expression is controlled by corporate enterprises such as Google, Twitter, Facebook, Medium, and WordPress. These companies decide which information and ideas are permissible and which must be banished.”

Although the RationalWiki page on #LGBAlliance is no longer, as the submission states, the first item to appear when googling LGB Alliance, this page is still prominent and it is not possible to edit the page to correct the disinformation on it.

“Twitter, Medium and WordPress regularly remove texts and accounts from their site on the basis of their rules. It can easily be demonstrated that these rules have been devised to suppress views highlighting women’s concerns about the loss of their sex-based rights.”

“By suppressing views that highlight the reality of biological sex, ... along with views that are widely regarded as obnoxious, these companies create the suggestion that emphasizing the reality of biological sex belongs in the same category as these objectionable ideas.”