Column: The slippery paradox of free speech – LaSalle News Tribune

I hope you watched the News and Noise series of presentations last month at Illinois Valley Community College and La Salle Public Library.

I joined two other journalists in a panel discussion for the last session. During audience questions, a comment about freedom of speech has kept me thinking about it.

Free speech came up as we discussed the recent proliferation of false news stories whole-cloth fakeries, not-so-subtle tools of propaganda and online revenue generators, so-called fake news. I mentioned, Its tough, though, because freedom of speech has to win. And for freedom of speech to win, we cant be snuffing voices and muzzling people.

An audience member said, I dont know if I agree with that. I know we need free speech but I think the censors of the old days, maybe had a point. He said, and I paraphrase here, was that letting bad ideas spread might not be good, such as news reports leading to copycat crimes.

This got to the core of the issue. Do we defend free speech, even free speech that is false or offensive? I said, not too successfully, that false ideas have no societal value, and that public shaming once tamped them down.

We moved on, wishing to let other audience members ask questions. But three weeks later I am still pondering it.

The current info-climate seems to welcome fakery into the public square. False claims are a case where public shaming should reduce our exposure. The fakers, withering under fact-laced speech, might become reluctant to step into the light.

If I could go back and continue the discussion, I would say that in a nation of protected free speech, the best defense against false claims, bad ideas and words you find offensive, is more free speech.

This is a paradox that leads to hypocrisy defending free speech, except speech we dont like. It emerges with the tag, fake news. Its a good tag for fakery and a bad one for journalism. Some use it for news they dont like. But if the story was not written to deceive and contains facts, you will have to label it something else. As I said in the panel discussion, facts dont care about your feelings.

U.S. courts know when speech causes harm and incites violence. The courts and judges also are wary of picking and choosing words we like and dislike.

In 1978-79, French professor and Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson claimed the gas chambers did not exist. Under French law, he was convicted. U.S. intellectual Noam Chomsky did not support Faurissons claim, but defended his right to say it.

Chomsky explained there is no contradiction between supporting the right to free speech, and opposing the claims of a Holocaust denier. Suppressing free speech, Chomsky said, is to adopt a central doctrine of the Nazis.

The news can be noisy, as in News and Noise, but our free speech is even noisier. We need to learn how to sift out bad and false ideas, without suppressing the right to say them.

That right is the noisy sound of freedom.

Jeff Dankert can be reached at (815) 220-6977 or lasallereporter@newstrib.com. Follow him on Twitter @NT_LaSalle.

(NOTE: Any opinions appearing here or elsewhere in the NewsTribune ornewstrib.comdo not necessarily represent the views of the NewsTribune.)

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