WATCH: Free speech filmmaker 'determined to not be silenced' after premiere ban

Extraordinary story here. A central London cinema has banned the premiere of a documentary about censorship

Couldn't make it up, could you? Claiming this film does not align with its values

Well, the editor of Spiked, Tom Slater, joins us now. Tom, good morning. Welcome to the programme

Good morning. This almost sounds like a joke, doesn't it? Tell us what happened. What's the film about

And why do you think the premiere has been cancelled? No, absolutely. You really couldn't make it up. The documentary is called Think Before You Post

We released it a couple of weeks ago. It's all about the rise of the British speech police

people being arrested, prosecuted, held on remand for social media posts, telling the story of people who've gone through that ordeal. We had booked the rich mix for the

premiere and for Q&A afterwards. Tickets were selling well. We were looking forward to a great

night. And then on Tuesday evening, out of the blue, we get an email from the venue saying that

they are cancelling our booking because, as you've just said there, Andrew, it does not align with the venue's values

Clearly, free speech isn't one of those values, but there we are. They claim that the content of the film and the panel were not known to them beforehand, which is, you know

I'd let people make their own minds up, but the film was already out when we actually booked that venue

And the speakers who were booked for the Q&A afterwards are actually in the film itself

So, yes, our documentary about censorship has been censored. So the irony is not lost on us but it certainly lost on Rich Mix who have decided to make this decision And give us a flavour of what you got in the film Tom So it really based around three key case studies

There's a couple in Borehamwood who were arrested by five police officers at their home

for getting into an online row with their daughter's primary school. There's the case of Alison Pearson, Telegraph columnist

who was visited by police on Remembrance Sunday last year over a year-old tweet

And there's the case of Jamie Michael, a former Royal Marine from Wales, who was arrested, held on remand for 17 days and then acquitted by a jury in 17 minutes over a video that he made on Facebook about the Southport stabbings

I'm really trying to put a human face to a lot of the headlines that we've all been reading over recent years on this issue

And Tom, we've covered a lot of these cases on GB News, and I know that viewers will be familiar with some of those cases

And it has instilled extraordinary fear, actually, into people about what they can and can't say online

What would you recommend that people should think about before they post or should we not think before we post

I mean, that's the horrible situation, isn't it? People feel the need to think before they post, not least because that's the message which has been explicitly coming out from government

I think one of the key parts of the stories that we see in the documentary is, first of all, get good representation if it's possible

reach out to the free speech union they were involved in all three of the cases that we discuss

stick to your guns don plead guilty just because a duty solicitor has informed you to try and get as much good information as possible And for everyone else in society most of us are very unlikely to get that knock at the door

but the chilling effect can certainly be felt by the rest of us. I think we do need to be braver

both in terms of speaking our minds and standing up to this state overreach when it does come to our door

Have you found another venue, Tom? We are working flat out to find one

We're hoping to be able to announce one in the next 24 hours. So please do watch this space

because we're determined not to be silenced and to hold it on the same night that everyone else had planned on

Have you ever come across a cinema before which has a set of values which just doesn't include free speech

Certainly it was a turn-up for the books for me. I thought that maybe if you were committed, as they claim to

to a diversity of opinion, that maybe that would include a documentary

all about free speech and diversity of opinion, but apparently not. Now, the internet is still a relatively new phenomenon

I mean, you only have to go back 20 years, really, and most people were not using social media or even aware of it at that time

So this is a very new change to our culture. Where do you think, how are the police going this far wrong

What laws are they using to prosecute people that were never really meant to police speech

that were perhaps meant for other purposes? I think that's a really important point

I think part of the reason that we're seeing so many of these arrests these days is it the coming together of a lot of quite liberal legislation we already had communications legislation in particular and the rise of the social media age you put those two things together and it a particularly toxic mix but one thing that you hit on there miriam which is really a key theme of the film

is that the police are going well above and beyond what the law actually requires we have seen these

30 arrests a day now for speech offenses for communications offenses but actually cases that

end up resulting in a conviction or a sentencing has gone down so clearly the police are a big part

of the problem here. It's not just laws being applied by public servants who have

no control over the situation. They are zealously pursuing these crimes even to a situation

even to the extent that the law doesn't actually require them to do so. Amazing. Fascinating. I think it's

extraordinary. Tom, as you say in the trade, you couldn't make this up, could you? Yeah. I mean, when you got

the email or the phone call, were you pretty gobsmacked saying, sorry, we don't want you

I mean, I was shocked but not surprised, I suppose. We all know that the cultural sector is awash with people who wouldn't

know what free speech is if it bit them on the backside. Incidentally, the guy who sent us the email

had his pronouns in his email signature, which I dare say speaks well. I think in your piece you wrote that they wouldn't know free speech

if it bit them on the Birkenstocks, which I thought was there. It was very apt

Very good, Tom. We love what you do at Spike. Keep doing it. That's Tom Slater, Edward Spike

We did invite Rich Mixon to talk about it in the interest of free speech

but they don't want to talk to GB News about why they've banned a film all about censorship

And you can watch it online if you go to the Spike website or probably it'll be linked to ours now as well

Yeah, quite