mneme: (Default)
Joshua Kronengold ([personal profile] mneme) wrote 2017-05-30 07:20 am (UTC)

Re: On the no-platforming of Nazis

Fair enough on the local thing, but...except with government support (ie direct censorship), you can't "no platform" someone in the general case; just prevent them from using your platform, i.e. avoid associating with their message.

I had the Milo/UW case in mind, although you added some interesting details. The question, fundamentally, is what the right response to a jackass like Milo speaking at your school is -- and somewhat differently, what the right method to combat his likely (or possibly stated; I don't remamber that much of the details) intent to harass and/or foster harassment of a student. Harassment is a weird case -- since our legal policy of mostly treating it as a tort doesn't work super-well.

The (justified) erosion of trust in law and law enforcement in certain communities is a big deal, of course, and kicks in proper behavior in the absence of working law and working collective/democratic methods. But WRT principles like "freedom of speech," and the like, the individual responsibility is not entirely dissimilar to the government one -- fundamentally, the US government doesn't refrain from unnecessary breaks on speech because it's in the constitution; we have a constitutional ammendment preventing censorship because it's the right thing to do, and that applies on an individual level at all. You don't need to listen to someone, or engage in commerce with them, but you shouldn't force them to stop thinking or talking a certain way, even if it's wrong.

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