The American Political Science Association Annual Convention 2023, Suppression of Academic Debate on Disinformation, and the continued war against accountability at the OPCW

Author’s Note: I intend this to be the first of many articles detailing the smear and character assassination campaign aimed at me and many of my colleagues. The medium-term project is to develop a book and documentary film about this 5-year long story.

In a remarkable and brazen assault on academic freedom, a UK-based academic embarked upon a campaign to remove two academics who had been invited to present at a roundtable on disinformation at the 2023 Annual Convention of the American Political Science Association (APSA). The campaign was unsuccessful but several of the panelists abandoned the panel due to the controversy, five remained.

Earlier this year myself and Professor Oliver Boyd Barrett were invited by Professors Hans Klein (Georgia Institute of Technology) and Clifford Bob (Duquesne University) to participate in the roundtable discuss about censorship which sought to bring together scholars from a wide variety of perspectives in order to discuss whether censorship regimes built around the idea of ‘disinformation’ presented a cure that was worse than the disease. Professor Boyd-Barrett and myself were invited precisely because we are well known as academics who have been attacked and denigrated for presenting arguments and analysis that challenged mainstream thinking. 

Image: APSA Panel

Rather than accepting the basic scholarly principles concerning how open and rational debate should obviously require differing viewpoints to be discussed, Professor Scott Lucas initiated attacks over twitter accusing us of being ‘denialists’ and ‘disinformation’ activists, whilst copying in the APSA twitter account. A BBC journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou also chimed in.