The Ethics and Dangers of No-Platforming
What happens when both "sides" simply won't listen?
Like using the keys below; only I can see who you are.
This essay includes a riff on a Journal of Controversial Ideas paper by Michael Veber from October 2024 that I’m going to get into a lot of trouble for.
No-platforming is the practice of preventing or prohibiting someone from contributing to public discussion because that person advances what someone thinks are objectionable views. No-platforming can happen in any public setting, and is becoming more prevalent by the day. The United States has historically touted itself as a bastion of open discussion and debate. In recent years, networks have canceled TV programs, social media platforms have closed accounts, universities have canceled speaking engagements, and people have killed spokespersons for clear and unclear reasons because someone said something someone in power, or with a knife or a gun, didn’t like.
The no-platformer claims that public engagement with “problematic” ideas, sentiments and arguments (that they alone get to define) is “immoral.”
Let’s do it anyway.
Full commitment to the truth requires overriding or ignoring some moral concerns. This means that any platform, and area, and anyone dedicated to truth and free discussion must have a good bit of immorality built in. That immorality is a key part of what makes the idea of a free and open debate of ideas a uniquely admirable and important social institution. Alleged “free speech advocates” often deny that public engagement with “offensive” ideas, words, sentiments, or claims is “immoral,” As the definition of "offensive" is slippery, this assertion generates more questions:
Is “offense” an actual harm?
Will discussion of an “immoral” idea cause people to act on it?
Is the idea “immoral” to everyone, or just some?
What if the idea is demonstrably true?
How can we know the answers unless we have a discussion?
Are words really violence?
Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
One common line of defense for the contrarians we want to hear from can be called the “love me, I’m a liberal” strategy, in honor of an old Phil Ochs song, where one attempts to deflect moral criticism by pointing out that, although the speaker’s views on one topic may be controversial, the speaker holds most of the mild and mainstream opinions you expect to find in any person of the “correct” persuasion. Therefore, deep down, this is one of the good guys. It helps if the speaker is a member of some perceived “marginalized” group, even if that group is in the majority.
Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ballgame. Free speech is life itself.
Salman Rushdie
Another common defense is the “no he didn’t” strategy. Whenever there is a movement to no-platform someone, there is also an interest in making the speaker sound as vile as possible. That often leads to attributing views to the speaker s/he does not hold. This is easier because the most vocal critics of contrarians rarely understand what the speaker says or thinks. Since no-platformers hold that the speaker’s ideas and arguments should not be engaged with, not seeing or hearing those ideas and arguments is what consistency requires. This generates a predictable response from the speaker’s supporters, which is to point out that these hateful and extreme points of view are not what the speaker thinks. “He never said that!”
Let’s set the record straight on who said and thought what before we say “shut up.”
This is especially important when people are not only attempting to prevent others from speaking but also trying to ruin their reputations, careers, and livelihoods. However, if people only say "love me, I’m a liberal" or "no he didn’t," they tacitly condone a line of thinking that runs counter to a commitment to free speech—the sort of commitment those who employ these popular defensive strategies typically claim to endorse. What if a well-publicized forum on the importance of biological sex did not comprise a diverse group of international women, as most of them have? What if instead it were a bunch of old white men who think the idea of the erasure of women is overblown? Or what if, despite their best efforts, the producers couldn’t find a lesbian willing to be on the forum? Would cancellation be OK?
Probably not.
Then why bring that stuff up? And what if a speaker explicitly advocated for the kinds of views all those most outraged detractors ascribe to them? What would you tell the people with the pitchforks then, or would you hand them out?
If one person or group claims to be “offended,” is it OK to silence a speaker for everyone?
We haven’t thought seriously and deeply about free speech until we confront those kinds of questions. Defensive strategies can be a way of ducking the hardest, most uncomfortable, and therefore the most interesting philosophical issues. “Free speech” supporters might agree that no-platforming is “justified” if the speaker's position or the speaker themselves are "offensive enough—whatever “offensive enough” means to those concerned at that moment. If that’s so, disagreements over no-platforming are not disagreements over deep philosophical principles but over where and when those principles apply. Audiences must put pressure on both sides. The root of this position involves an appeal to a familiar ideal and conception of what freedom of speech really is.
Freedom of expression must include freedom after expression.
The Socratic injunction captures the core purpose of free discussion:
Follow the argument where it leads.
Socrates
This injunction stands opposed to dogmatism. The dogmatist holds fast to a point of view regardless of what the evidence shows. So, at the very least, a commitment to follow the argument where it leads is a commitment to change one’s mind. But that is not enough.
Did anyone ever “prove” Charlie Kirk wrong? Could they? Why not?
Instead of digging in and trying to maintain a belief in the face of counterevidence, the prudent dogmatist will avoid contact with any potentially undermining evidence or, many times, ignore it and move on. A person who avoids counterevidence might change their mind upon confronting it—the horror! Avoiding contact with counterevidence to maintain a current opinion is still dogmatic.
Anyone dumb enough to believe 'speech is violence' did not get spanked by their parents
Jimmy Failla
We’ve seen a great deal of de-platforming (retrograde no-platforming) in the past few years, de-platforming of voices on both the “left” and the “right,” because there is no longer a “center” that we can hear from. Late-night hosts who say stupid stuff get yanked off the air not because their bosses don’t like what they say, but their distributors. Now, there are those who want to enact “hate speech” laws that would criminalize words someone regards as “hateful.”
Put bluntly, a Republican standing on Charlie Kirk's grave to promote hate speech laws is about as offensive and constitutionally illiterate as it gets.
Ian Haworth
The legal definition of “hate speech” will have to fill volumes. Declare yourself a Christian, and a quarter of the human population will want you dead because you’re an Islamophobe, no question. Utter the “N” word in any context in any public forum and you incur the wrath of millions—if you’re not “black.” “Mis-gender” or “dead-name” someone and you might get death threats…and some might call your sudden death “justified.” Using the wrong pronunciation of some words could mean losing a job, or an account, or a career. Observing the death of some people—not all people—in a disapproved or “disrespectful” way can lose you your voice in any public debate. Observe another death with insufficient joy or sorrow, and the same could happen. Shout “Death to (pick one)” and it’s called “free speech” on a college campus, but mumble “no boys in girl’s sports” anywhere and you’re transphobic, de-platformed and ostracized from many venues. Let this last quote be your guide in the future.
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The Persistent Past: Discovering the Steele Diaries
Writing history, as I’ve pointed out before, depends on the dispassionate, analytic study of artefacts and documents. If someone stifles a historian’s findings based on that evidence, for whatever reason, it distorts the record of the past. Curtis and Maria try to discover the truth of the life of Ned Steele, who you met in Steele’s Battalion…right?
And Finally...
On 13 December:
1862: Union troops under Ambrose Burnside attack Confederate Army of Northern Virginia positions at Marye’s Heights under Robert E. Lee outside of Fredericksburg, Virginia. The ensuing slaughter of the Army of the Potomac cost the Federals over 12,000 casualties, about 10% of their army, to just over 5,600 Confederates, somewhere around 4%.
2000: In a televised concession speech, Albert Gore concedes the presidential election, with balloting concluding on 7 November, to George HW Bush in Washington, DC. Gore, still the Vice-President of the United States, sued to recount Florida ballots until the US Supreme Court said to stop. The result has been under contest ever since.
And today is the NATIONAL GUARD BIRTHDAY, observing the first militia muster in the British American colonies in Massachusetts Bay on this day in 1636. While the first units in the National Guard movement (before it became part of the Army when it was still a trans-state movement before 1903) didn’t call themselves National Guards until 1827, today is when the Guard celebrates.
Frankly, it's difficult for me to accept that this is issue is an issue. What possible justification can be found for regulating (censoring) political speech of any sort. It compares to the Church restricting the speech of Galileo. It compares to the censorship of abolitionists in the run-up to the civil war.
In either case, the 'common wisdom' was that the sun revolved around the earth, and that enslaving blacks was a proper thing to do.
None of us is unbiased or capable of being unbiased. But we can at least attempt to comprehend our own bias. That is the only path to wisdom.