How the historic site for free speech in Hyde Park became a magnet for content creators
Standing on a small green foldable bench, a man gets a rise out of onlookers by calling for the sterilisation of all men and heterosexuals. “Please do the right thing. You’ll no longer be a danger to women and society,” he says. No more than ten people are present listening to him. Some laugh at the scene. Others are annoyed and interject, raising their voices to defend straight peoples’ sexual freedom.
Despite the small size of the speaker’s live audience, around 330 people follow his speech online on a gaming platform called Kick, as it’s live-streamed by 32-year-old Shako Mako. While filming, Mako says that this is the moment her 15,000 followers are most eager to see.
Shako is one of many live-streamers who visit the Speakers’ Corner on the north-east edge of Hyde Park in London each Sunday. This historic space, known as the oldest living free speech platform in the world, is currently a hotspot for digital content creators.
Located near Marble Arch, Speakers’ Corner stands in the same place that convicts would deliver their dying speech before being taken to Tyburn Gallows, where public hangings took place between 1196 and 1783. In 1866, it became a forum for wider political discourse after people marching to support the Reform League used it as a platform to campaign for universal manhood suffrage.
“Speakers’ Corner has always been a space for people who don’t get their voices heard in the mainstream media, to go there to try and get their voices heard,” says John Roberts, professor in sociology and communications at Brunel University London. According to him, this is one reason it’s still active today. “People used to gather there to see people executed, but also turning up to see those institutions that are very critical of the government,” he explains.
The Parks Regulation Act of 1872 formalised the existence of Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park. However, Roberts notes that while the space is regarded as a “powerful symbol of the arrival of liberal democracy in the UK, free speech has never legally existed in that space”.
Nevertheless, every Sunday since the Act, a crowd of speakers gathers between late morning and afternoon to spread their messages and ideas to passers-by and tourists, whether they are interested in hearing them or not.
As a barometer of the last two centuries of political and social change, Speakers’ Corner has had speakers such as Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and George Orwell. It was also the birthplace of the suffragettes’ ‘Votes for Women’ campaign.
Nowadays, in Mako’s words, it is much more of a “content corner”. “People come here to film and photograph the speakers who come to say random things. As a content creator, I feel this is my place,” she says. Others, however, still retain the original tradition of listening to the speakers in person without worrying about content.
Mako has attended Speakers’ Corner every Sunday for at least three years. A year ago, she started doing live-streams there and sometimes spends up to seven hours wandering among the speakers and hecklers. She has become familiar with the regulars.
The man who defends the sterilisation of heterosexuals is her favourite. “He says absurd things, but seriously, and people believe him,” she laughs. At this point, she’s already been live-streaming on her mobile phone for over four hours. “I stay here until the battery runs out,” she says.
Next to her, a man stands next to a mobile tripod containing a live-streaming mobile phone, a GoPro camera, and a directional microphone. He refuses to state his identity and age without explaining why, and prefers to be identified by his YouTube channel, Hafez Reflects, which has 1,500 subscribers and gets around 300 views per video.
Hafez has been going to Speakers’ Corner since 2018 to watch the speeches of far-right activist Tommy Robinson, but it was the diversity of conversation that roped him in for good.
“This place becomes very addictive because it’s only one day a week,” he says. He especially enjoys how he can start a conversation with someone and return to it later. “If you don’t finish it, you return next week,” he explains.
He started doing his YouTube lives at least twice a month around a year ago, targeting viewers overseas, especially in the United States. Now, it’s a regular thing:
“I do a live because a lot of my audience loves it. This is like their Sunday thing now. They complain when I don’t come.”
As he’s being watched by 21 people, he’s even wary of stepping away from the action for an interview. “Nothing is happening, so it’s boring for them,” he says.
However, not everyone with a video camera at Speakers’ Corner is there for entertainment. Some are there to film organisations and speakers, as is the case with 34-year-old cinematographer Gary Blake who has been filming the speeches of an Islamic organisation there for eight years.
For him, even though he can’t contribute, Speakers’ Corner is simultaneously exciting and frustrating. “You learn a lot from others. But some things said are offensive, and we can’t do anything about it because this is a place of freedom of speech,” he says.
Despite this feeling, the 1872 Act establishes rules for being at Speakers’ Corner, and police officers are often seen at the crowd’s edges. When the debate heats up, they get closer.
However, those at Speakers’ Corner aren’t looking for a fight. Here, unlike in the digital world, exposure to public scrutiny directly impacts how speakers and hecklers fuel speeches and responses. They all seem to be doing their best to ensure Speakers’ Corner will survive more centuries to come.
“A social movement that’s just online will be quite limited. These spaces are important to reclaim public areas for the commons and democracy,” concludes Professor Roberts.
Feature image: Every Sunday, from midday, hundreds of people gather to make public speeches in Hyde Park. Mobile phones and cameras are everywhere recording the speakers. Photo Credit: Alice de Souza.