Eagle-eyed Conference goers this year may spot enlarged Brighton beaches, thanks to a scheme extending them to combat coastal erosion.

Dumping tonnes of rocks is hard work, but the simplicity has a certain beauty. Sadly, the tide is not so easily turned on free speech.

We have all seen it. Octogenarians arrested for holding bits of paper, terrifying examples of trials for tweets, and the unedifying spectacle of ‘free speech absolutists’ banning journalists they do not like from events.

Big Brother Watch has just published a major review: Britain’s Free Speech Problem – How growing restrictions are stifling speech online and offline. It highlights issues including a heady mixture of draconian legislation, partisan hypocrisy and an absence of people willing to stand up for the rights of people with whom they do not agree.

Some of these problems are timeless, but technology means some are genuinely new and require new answers.

Until recently, one could straightforwardly argue that people should have access to more information: anything less was censorship. Then people worked out that with the right algorithm, they could convince people to spend hours in bed watching nonsense, 15 seconds at a time.

Effectively infinite information, presented in an order nobody is directly accountable for, with enough flashing light to tempt even the most performative of readers away from their books.

How free is the public discourse if an algorithm chooses what is seen?

For their next trick, the tech bros invented a novel Google search that seems to talk to us and can sort of do many white collar jobs.

We learned something sad – lots of what we thought made us special is easy to mimic. From the good, like creative writing and music, to the bad, like an intern who swears something is true until you make them check their source: AI can do it all.

As the gap between having an idea and executing it is filled by AI, old notions of who is responsible, and accountable, need reevaluating. For years I have tried to rewrite Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours into an album about Brexit. I am sure Claude could do it for me, but that is definitely not ‘me’ doing it.

That’s trivial, but more serious people are also using AI. How long before the police ask it “Who do we think will commit a terror attack”? Movies have long imagined holding people to account for acting on a wrong answer. What about a world where they don’t act on a right answer,who is accountable then?

Then there’s the trouble of permanence. Free speech was once either as ephemeral as the air we breathe, or etched on impermanent records. We could put the past behind us.
Not now. Speech made in one context, for one audience, and at one point in your life is now there forever.

Accountability is vital, but anonymity has a place too. Those who need help deserve it without the cost of their privacy. From AA, to the confession booth, to agony aunts, humans need such spaces.

We have created a public square that is mostly online. Now the government, via its social media ban, isa dding digital ID checkpoints. The French Constitutional Council has struck down a ban partly on these grounds – the checkpoints are an unavoidable feature, incompatible with basic rights.

Online ID checks are not like in person ones – there is no Challenge 25 and the records taken can be permanent. Just ask the thousands of women whose IDs and biometric data was leaked to 4chan by the dating app Tea.

If our free speech is mostly online, and the old systems of security do not apply, how do we balance safety with privacy?

This is an article without answers, but I will be offering more questions, to more interesting people than me, at Conference.

Do join me, Victoria Collins MP, Young Liberals Chair Will Tennison and Open Rights Group’s Sarah Lasoye, Conference Monday 18:15-19:15 in the Hilton.

‘The Independent View‘ is a slot on Lib Dem Voice which allows those from beyond the party to contribute to debates we believe are of interest to LDV’s readers. Please email [email protected] if you are interested in contributing.

* Jack Coulson is Head of Advocacy at Big Brother Watch and will be familiar to many readers as he previously worked fthe Liberal Democrat Whips Office in Parliament.