The Mr Bean creator fears for the long-term future of free expression. Photo / Getty Images
The Mr Bean creator fears for the long-term future of free expression. Photo / Getty Images
Online cancel culture is like a "medieval mob looking for someone to burn", Rowan Atkinson has claimed.
The comic star of Blackadder and Mr Bean has long advocated for free speech and campaigned against legislation he believed would stifle expression.
Mr Atkinson now fears the "scary" online practice of silencing unpopular opinions by calling out those who hold them and making them pariahs with their employers and the public.
He has compared the trend of polarising and policing opinion on social media to medieval societies rooting out heretics to burn at the stake.
The Bafta-winning performer believes this culture of "cancelling" individuals is a threat both to the direct victims of the online "mob" and to the future of free speech.
"It's important that we're exposed to a wide spectrum of opinion," Mr Atkinson told the Radio Times.
"But what we have now is the digital equivalent of the medieval mob roaming the streets looking for someone to burn."
Beginning in 2005 with a campaign against hate speech laws in the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, Mr Atkinson has publicly opposed legislation thought to dampen free expression.
In 2009 he argued against homophobic hate speech clauses in UK laws, in 2012 against "insulting" behaviour being a criminal offence, and in 2020 he spoke out against the Scottish National Party's Hate Crime Bill over fears it could lead to censorship.
Mr Atkinson has now criticised a culture of online witch-hunts which can threaten livelihoods and is "scary for anyone who's a victim of that mob".
The comic star and free-speech advocate has revealed the trend of calling out those holding supposedly incorrect opinions online fills him with "fear about the future".
He believes that the nature of the online platforms which play host to the online mob has helped to polarise people and drive the desire to police diverging views.
The actor said: "The problem we have online is that an algorithm decides what we want to see, which ends up creating a simplistic, binary view of society.
"It becomes a case of either you're with us or against us. And if you're against us, you deserve to be 'cancelled'."
The star said that the popularity of the largely mute Mr Bean may be down to character being verbally unable to offend those with "greater sensitivities", and said this could explain his success in "Muslim countries" and places with "stricter creative regimes".
Mr Atkinson believes Mr Bean is verbally incapable of offending people. Photo / Supplied
Despite the huge popularity of Mr Bean on online platforms, Mr Atkinson has decided not to have an online presence saying the attention and vilification on social media is "a sideshow in my world".
The actor has followed his former Blackadder co-star Sir Tony Robinson, who played the eponymous anti-hero's sidekick Baldrick, in criticising cancel culture.
Sir Tony told The Daily Telegraph in 2020 that the calling out and censoring unpopular opinions "is walking the path of the devil".
The actor and presenter said he was "passionate about free speech," adding that: "It defends our liberty, and I'm very unhappy with the idea that, just because someone is offended by what I say, I shouldn't be allowed to say it."
The concerns raised by the Blackadder stars follow a year in which figures like JK Rowling were vilified for expressing views on transgender issues, and the Black Lives Matter movement prompted increased scrutiny of historical legacies linked to racism and slavery, leading to the removal of criticised statues.
