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We are left facing that confusing and rare phenomenon: the well-intentioned authoritarian. When those who long for a fairer society are also calling for censorship, we find ourselves stranded on unfamiliar terrain. How are we meant to respond when the people who wish to deprive us of our rights sincerely believe that they are doing so for our own good?
The fear
I am by no means suggesting that we are freewheeling towards a future of gulags and show trials, but there appears to be a general degree of apathy that bodes ill for the preservation of our fundamental liberties.
The slope
Opposition to free speech never goes away, which is why it must be defended anew in each successive generation. It is a privilege that has been denied to the overwhelming majority of societies in human history. Our civilisation is abnormal, almost miraculous, in its dedication to this most estimable of principles. Free speech dies when the populace grows complacent and takes its liberties for granted.
The other side of "liberation"
History does not look fondly on the hubris of those who, like Galileo’s inquisitors, appoint themselves as arbiters of permissible speech and thought. Their authority is only ever contingent on the wisdom of their time.
True
If nothing else, the story of Galileo is a potent reminder of the importance of freedom of speech, and how none of us can ever be sure which heresies of today will become the certainties of tomorrow.
Galileo and transphobics?
Concerns over censorship are now routinely dismissed as ‘a right-wing talking point’. As one commentator put it recently, there are those for whom free speech is ‘nothing more than a political ploy, a ruse, a term the far right wilfully abuse to spread hatred’.
Certainly feels like it to some degree
unpleasant people are bound to use their speech to advance reactionary ideas, but the human right that enables them to do so is precisely the same right that allows us to counter them.
Interesting point
if we permit the worst people in society to take ownership of our most fundamental values, we are gifting them a degree of power they do not deserve. Simply because hate-fuelled demagogues might disingenuously proclaim their fealty to free speech, this does not mean that the principle itself is tainted by association. Good people should not abandon their beliefs when bad people claim them for their own. If they do, such beliefs can only ever be said to have been tenuously held.
Demagogue does not taint the association?
Unless we are able to speak our minds, we cannot innovate, or even begin to make sense of the world.
Innovation - point of view
Free speech does not belong to anyone; it is a universal precept and a core human right. If it has come to be perceived as a specifically right-wing concern, this merely goes to show that those of other political persuasions have failed to uphold it. At any given historical moment, the defence of free speech is typically left to those who feel, justifiably or otherwise, that their opinions have become marginalised.
Interesting point. Held by the right because the rest failed to uphold it
When I was a child, it was the right-leaning tabloids that would commonly call for censorship of television, film and the arts, whereas this is now predominately a feature of those who identify as being on the left. Similarly, the most vocal opposition to censorship today comes from right-wing commentators, whereas only a few decades ago the reverse was true. Misgivings about freedom of speech, then, cannot be said to be tied to any specific political allegiance.
Hmm. FoS never a "right" thing
If we complain that our opponent’s defence of free speech is some kind of subterfuge in order to advance a nefarious agenda, have we not already made a judgement about the validity of the position he or she intends to take? If our fear of free speech is that it facilitates the dissemination of bad ideas, then we have pre-emptively decided which ideas are beyond the pale. By doing so, we limit our own capacity to be challenged, and inadvertently reveal our existing prejudices.
Interesting point
The Catholic Church of the Middle Ages put an end to such privileges, ensuring that speech rights were the singular prerogative of men in authority. It wasn’t until the invention of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century and the subsequent spread of a new humanistic culture that freedom of expression was able to enjoy a resurgence in Europe
Printing press
In recent years, there have been efforts to rein in the media, particularly in the United Kingdom, often in response to needlessly intrusive or even illegal conduct by journalists. While it is true that we must hold the press to account and insist on the highest ethical standards, strict press regulation inevitably benefits the most powerful in society. It is to the despot’s advantage that his critics are muzzled. Even leaders with good intentions are prone to corruption when shielded from public scrutiny.
Both sides
with the rise of social media as the de facto public square, big tech corporations now have dominion over the acceptable limits of popular discourse. We are rapidly moving into an age in which unelected plutocrats hold more collective power and influence than any national government, only without any of the democratic accountability.
Celebrity cases in china
This is why the argument that private companies should be free to discriminate at will is no longer persuasive or viable. They claim to be platforms committed to the principle of free speech, and yet at the same time behave like publishers who seek to enforce limitations on the opinions that may be expressed.
Good point
The law was crafted out of an understanding that, given the proliferation of comment sections on news websites, it was always unfeasible to expect media outlets to be able to ensure that illegal content would not be uploaded. Yet now, this same law is routinely exploited to enable tech giants to censor with impunity.
Big tech. Double standard
While it is true that social media companies have been subjected to governmental pressure to monitor ‘hate speech’ and ‘fake news’ on their platforms, there has also been a markedly paternalistic shift in the way in which their speech codes are formulated.
The effect of the pandemic
Leaving aside the bizarre phenomenon of self-identified leftists calling for greater powers for faceless corporations, should this principle really be embraced? Should, for example, Facebook have the right to discriminate against gay people, or certain ethnic groups?
When did facebook do that? :/
Given the overwhelming left-leaning bias among employees in big tech, any efforts to police the tenor of conversation or ‘fact-check’ disputed news sources are bound to result in accusations of partisan censorship. These are not elected representatives invested with the authority to act on behalf of the demos, but multi-billion-dollar corporations who profit from selling our data to advertisers. If we are seeking moral stewardship, Silicon Valley seems an unlikely place to find it.
If you dont like them dont use their platform? Plus what is wrong with fact checking?
we can surely all agree that the global community is not best served by the cultivation of increasingly hermetic online ‘echo chambers’. The last thing we need is for powerful corporations with an oligopoly on public forums to do our thinking for us.
not a bad point
‘you can’t say anything anymore’
‘Why are you criticising this person? I thought you supported free speech?’
One of the more insidious misconceptions is that those who argue in favour of free speech simply do not care about minorities, or even wish to return to a time when casual racism, homophobia and sexism were ubiquitous. According to this supposition, the very notion of freedom of speech is a ‘dog whistle’, a term typically deployed when the target of a critic’s ire has not said anything incriminating, but a pernicious underlying intention is nonetheless assumed
Assumed
Racism is a cancer that can never be tolerated in a civilised society. There are doubtless some defenders of free speech who harbour racist views but, thankfully, they form a negligible minority.
Finally.
My experience of working with anti-censorship campaigners is that they are invariably opposed to all forms of prejudice, and that their passion for freedom of expression is largely driven by the desire to protect the rights of the most vulnerable in society
The real anti censorship campaigners
As the work of human rights campaigner Jacob Mchangama has shown, the suppression of minority rights is most acute in countries where free speech protections are meagre.
It is undeniably the case that the cause of free speech has occasionally been taken up by some of the most reactionary characters in society. This is to be expected, given that what they have to say is not only unpopular, but is also guaranteed to cause widespread consternation. Defending free speech means defending the rights of those whose speech we despise. Uncontroversial ideas require no such protection.
Thank you
When we stand up for the speech rights of repellent figures, we inevitably leave ourselves open to the accusation of complicity. To assume that defending another’s right to speech is a form of approval of its substance is a grave error that discourages many of us from upholding the principle. The majority of those who oppose the criminalisation of racist speech do so precisely because they abhor racism. They would prefer such individuals to be challenged and, if possible, shown how their prejudice is fundamentally irrational. While it is true that most of us, myself included, lack the patience
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Interesting
Racism would not magically disappear if society were to suppress all forms of racist speech. Instead, it would preclude the possibility of any form of public counter-argument. Expert reconciliators such as Davis would be redundant, leaving the racists to flourish in the shadows.
Interesting point about racism
Of course, one could rebut this view by suggesting that the suppression of racist speech in and of itself prevents further radicalisation.
True too
On balance, I am persuaded that the dangers of empowering the state to determine the limitations of expression far outweigh the risk of small groups of extremists attempting to proselytise. The cost of freedom is that it is open to abuse by an unconscientious minority but, once liberty is relinquished, it is difficult to recover.
point
Thomas Paine’s closing remark in his Dissertation on First-Principles of Government (1795): ‘He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.’
point
A detailed account of the case was written by Aryeh Neier, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who served as National Director of the ACLU from 1970–78. In his book, Defending My Enemy (1979), he explains that he ‘supported free speech for Nazis when they wanted to march in Skokie in order to defeat Nazis’. For Neier, the conservation of his adversary’s First Amendment rights was ‘the only way to protect a free society against the enemies of freedom’. The recent conception of ‘hate speech’ is, in effect, a kind of fudge that attempts to circumvent this moral quandary. We might label speech we
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Aryeh Neier
The counter-argument is that once a society has reached a consensus that certain practices are inherently evil – Nazism and slavery being the most obvious examples – then there is no risk in proscribing speech that champions the indefensible. But the content of the speech itself, however emotive, is beside the point. The question we must ask ourselves is not whether we should support the speech rights of neo-Nazis, but whether we wish to entrust the state to put such strictures in place. The authoritarian regimes of the past show us that once such powers are granted, they can be injudiciously
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I love how this book includes both side of the story
The fallacy of guilt by association is a pervasive feature of today’s discourse, both online and in the mainstream media. Little wonder, then, that most people would rather stay out of such discussions altogether than risk being yoked to disreputable characters.
Most people would stay out of the discussion
Standing up for the rights of the worst people in society comes at a great personal cost. The task is less onerous if we are able to communicate the message that we do not protect controversial speech for its content, but rather the principle it represents.
Principle
The social contract is an ever-evolving, broadly accepted consensus that will always have its dissidents. We agree to the accustomed conditions of politeness, but do not surrender our right to ignore them without risk of arrest or prosecution. Any legal barriers to speech deprive us of that agency, and outsource our personal responsibilities to the state.
Politeness. Social contract
Just as the law is the apparatus by which we reconcile our individual freedoms with the authority of the state, decorum is how we achieve rapprochement between citizens who have competing priorities and instincts. Yet the two remain distinct; decorum can never be legally binding, which is why Alibhai-Brown’s conflation of cultural and legal constrictions is somewhat specious.
Law and decorum
There is a further distinction, rarely understood, between ‘hate speech’ laws which dictate that a citizen may not transgress the voluntary social contract, and legislation that prohibits speech as a means to commit a crime.
Interesting
Laws against fraud, libel, perjury, blackmail and espionage are not violations of one’s freedom of speech. These are examples of where speech has operated as the mechanism of criminal activity, but is not the crime itself. Speech is to perjury what fire is to arson. Certainly we can use words to commit crime – the same could be said of almost anything: water, bricks, golf clubs, even stuffed halibuts – but in a murder case we punish the killer, not the weapon.
We punish the killer not the weapon
there are sensible restrictions on dangerous devices or substances, but speech is integral to the human spirit and hardly comparable with guns, knives and poison. It would take quite a pessimistic leap of the imagination to suppose otherwise.
True
It was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who wrote the statement: ‘The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting “Fire!” in a theatre and causing a panic.’
Oliver holmes
something has been lost in the misquotation. Holmes was specifically referring to needless panic-mongering, which is why he wrote of ‘falsely shouting “Fire!”’. At some point in its transition to a modern-day proverb, the word ‘falsely’ was dropped. This is a peculiar alteration, given that we all accept that if an actual fire were to be spotted in a crowded theatre, it would not only be our right to shout ‘Fire!’ but a moral obligation.
Falsely
In buying a ticket to a public performance, we have tacitly entered into a contract to behave in a manner that does not detract from the enjoyment of others. By extension, we have already consented to be removed if we breach that agreement. Needlessly generating a panic in which people are likely to be hurt clearly falls into this category. The crowded theatre analogy is misleading because the scenario it describes is unrelated to the issue of free speech.
Unrelated to free speech
If we choose to transgress the limitations favoured by the majority, we are likely to be criticised, harangued and ridiculed.
Criticism
Criticism is not the same as censorship. Infractions against free speech generally occur when one party resorts to harassment or threats in order to silence the other – a common feature of today’s ‘cancel culture’ – or if the state attempts to criminalise those who deviate from the popularly accepted thresholds of polite expression. We all have a right to incivility, just as we have the right to opinions that are considered to be beyond the purview of permissible thought. Likewise, those who wish to criticise such forms of dissent are free to express their disapproval however they see fit
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Criticism
the key difference is that when it comes to cancel culture, targets are denounced rather than criticised, and the consequences are hugely disproportionate to the perceived slight. Often, complaints are addressed directly to employers in the hope of depriving the target of his or her livelihood. This is why the victims of cancel culture tend to be ordinary people who do not have the kind of financial resources to protect them from such campaigns.
Cancel
The practitioners of cancel culture habitually engage in what is known as ‘gaslighting’, a term which denotes the act of flatly contradicting observable reality. They smear their targets as ‘bullies’ as a means to bully them, or cast themselves in the role of victim while they victimise others. Often, this is achieved by claiming that they have been made to feel ‘unsafe’ or that ‘violence’ has been inflicted, which is usually enough to ensure that the target will lose his or her job. After all, an employer will not fire someone for a simple matter of disagreement, but will be obliged to take
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Cancel culture. Gaslighting. Good point. Victimise. Weaponised
Social media has a tendency to distort the truth, to amplify the loudest and most obnoxious marginal voices. Needless to say, those who are engaging in harassment, or burning copies of Rowling’s books and posting the footage online, are by no means representative of the trans community.
Social media. Well said
