Talk:Toby Young

Controversy within a controversy -- "academic posts"

Nomoskedasticity reverted my removal of the controversy about Young's claimed academic posts, as having it both ways (here). This supposes that if we mention his teaching at uni as due, then we must also accept negative information about his teaching at uni as due, even if that information simply reports that a third party poorly described his teaching at uni. We are very clear that it was the DoE who was responsible for this, rather than Young. The removal of this info will only improve this controversy section which has been marked as failing WP:NPOV since May 2021, by another editor. Solipsism 101 (talk) 22:05, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

General position: encyclopaedia article or a resource for offence archaeology?

Why is this article so heavily focussed on cataloguing in as much detail as possible anything which will make the subject look bad? It isn’t an encyclopaedic article. It reads like a character assassination resource scrapbook.

How much excruciating detail does a general encyclopaedia need to go into about specifically negative things someone is “said to” have done or “described” as doing?

If you think this is OK I invite you to take a step back and look at what you are doing. The subject is a human being.

The contains scores of weasel words like “described as …far right”. The biggest weasel word of all is “Controversy.” It invariably indicates reactionary intolerance It’s the acid test of a one-sided smear piece.

I find it to be very immature.

On the positive side;…as usual, the intolerance tells me the guy is likely to have a lot of interesting opinion to share. I find this article just makes me want to give Mr Young a chance. If someone is willing to go to such lengths to do Offence Archaeology on him, he must be worth listening to.

The right to hear dangerous ideas is something my ancestors, and probably yours, were prepared to give their lives for, twice in the first half of the 20th century. Are you worthy of the inheritance they left us? BabylonXerxes (talk) 14:21, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Sources do not exist that have anything good to say about Toby Young because he goes out of his way to get up everybody's nose. Perhaps that's why he resorted to editing his Wikpedia bio himself. Nangaf (talk) 03:43, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Misinformation versus alleged misinformation

The article used to say "The account were closed because of breaches of PayPal's acceptable use policy, thought to be because of alleged misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines." Isi96 removed the word "alleged"today without explanation. I think the word should be restored, the cited source uses it. Any other opinions? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:24, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

The source says "But The Times has learnt that one of the reasons the accounts were closed was alleged Covid-19 vaccine misinformation, which breached its policies." So I agreee that the "alleged" should be restored unless new sourcing is provided. Isi96 might perhaps be relying on the headline, but per WP:HEADLINES we should ignore that. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 21:22, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

@Jonathan A Jones I restored "alleged". Isi96 (talk) 00:28, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! Jonathan A Jones (talk) 09:17, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Does the word "alleged" actually make a difference to the meaning of the sentence? We say "... thought to be because of", which already casts uncertainty. The better improvement to the wording might be to attribute to the source—who is doing the "thinking that" here? For instance: "... breaches of PayPal's acceptable use policy, which The Times reported may have been due to misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines". Here it would be the phrase "may have been" that would make "alleged" redundant. — Bilorv (talk) 22:05, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I believe the word does make a difference to the meaning, "because of misinformation" is a wiki-voice clause with no directly-supporting source. The "thought to be because of" wording is uncertainty about why PayPal acted, it is not uncertainty about whether the misinformation was merely alleged. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:21, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Jeffery Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell links supression

Can someone (ideally the person who is editing it out) explain why references that Toby Young was in contact with Ghislaine Maxwell and made an appearance on Epstein's book, are being suppressed? ~2026-22433-96 (talk) 11:10, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

I'll look into it ∞ HardScience (talk) 07:14, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

So here's the bit where Toby Young is mentioned in an e-mail reply from Ghislaine Maxwell. It's hard to make out what this is pertaining to without any context I supppose. I couldn't find any direct interaction with Epstein. Merely mentioning this seems to violate WP:EPSTEIN WP:BLP and maybe WP:SYNTH. You would need coverage by third-party reliable sources discussing the involvement or more direct evidence not mere mentions. See what @LightlySeared: thinks who reverted your edit. ∞ HardScience (talk) 07:29, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

Simple, and explained on the talk page of the TA I reverted. But for clarity: It wasn't cited in the edit in question and as such violated BLP and EPSTEIN. Your analysis of the situation is correct. LightlySeared (talk) 07:33, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

Young has discussed this himself, and this has been picked up by HOPE not hate. Though I'm not sure this qualifies as good enough coverage from third-party sources. Plenty of statements have been cited to HOPE not hate on Wikipedia, and as TY doesn't deny the veracity of the emails it's not controversial- just a question of whether this is due, and HnH is an advocacy group at the end of the day. GnocchiFan (talk) 18:10, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Consider also WP:PROPORTION. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:23, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for this. This does change my opinion on the matter since we now have 2 sources, one of which is reliable and also a personal account and verification. I could see this being mentioned in passing (keeping with WP: Proportion) given that he is a member of the House of Lords. ∞ HardScience (talk) 20:15, 7 May 2026 (UTC)