Category Archives: Free Speech

Turkey remains Not Free in Freedom Houses 2020 Freedom in the World index, in large part due to the level of retribution against exercising ones right to free expression. Many of those safeguards for rights protections in Turkey had been stripped away before COVID-19 took hold. In 2016, following a failed military coup attempt, over 150 media outlets were shuttered, and thousands of journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens were jailed under allegations of participation in terrorist activities.

At Freedom House, before the pandemic unfolded, we conducted research on public trust in the media in Turkey. We found that pressures and restrictions against media in Turkey have contributed to low public trust in the media overall, as well as a significant shift in media consumption habits. We learned that the Turkish public has turned more and more to the internet and to social media as sources of information and news.

However, this shift comes with significant public concerns about, and anxiety around, censorship, surveillance and untrustworthy information. Sixty-nine per cent of respondents expressed concern about the effects of censorship in Turkey, and 64 per cent revealed that they were worried about the government monitoring their online activities. Thirty-five per cent of those who expressed concerned about these issues were specifically troubled by the governments concealment of rights abuses.

A proposed draft law on social media appeared on the scene in April, and this month, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to tighten his grip on social media. Following that promise, at least 11 people were detained for posting allegedly insulting tweets about Erdogans newborn grandchild.

The passage of this legislation would ultimately give the authorities more control over content online, including Facebook, Instagram, and popular apps like WhatsApp and Messenger. These measures impact the free speech not just of outspoken journalists and activists but the broader public, as they turn increasingly to social and online media for information and expression. These decisions also bleed into the entertainment sphere; Netflix was blocked on the Turkish parliaments campus this month. As 130,000 websites in Turkey were banned in 2019 alone, the streaming giant might very well follow suit.

After a gay character in a Turkish-language drama on Netflix created a backlash in Turkeys conservative circles, Erdogan told Reuters: Do you understand now why we are against social media platforms such asYouTube, Twitter and Netflix? These platforms do not suit this nation. We want to shut [them] down, control [them] by bringing [a bill] to parliament as soon as possible.

Go here to read the rest:
Turkey is Using Pandemic to Tighten Chokehold on Free Expression - Balkan Insight

Dean Geddes I&M Staff Writer @DGeddesIM

ThursdayJul16,2020at9:57AM

(July 23, 2020) Yard signs have been sprouting up on public property all over Nantucket this year, advocating for causes ranging from social justice to limiting development on the island.

There have been a lot of questions posed to the town about the legality and regulation of these signs, said Erika Mooney, the towns operations administrator. But ultimately, they are allowed and protected by free-speech laws.

We are advised that the power of the town to regulate speech in a public way is limited. Public streets and sidewalks are generally recognized as public forums. They are generally considered to be publicly-owned areas where individuals have the right to traverse, speak freely, protest and assemble. So, we are not taking them down. Mooney wrote in an e-mail.

(Restricting signs because they are not) visually appealing is too subjective and cannot be considered even if people want that.They can be moved or relocated if causing sight-line or clear public safety issues but the town must be very confident of this and apply the same standards islandwide and consistently.

To read the complete story, pick up the print edition of this weeks Inquirer and Mirror or register for the I&Ms online edition byclicking here.

For up-to-the-minute information on Nantuckets breaking news, boat and plane cancellations, weather alerts, sports and entertainment news, deals and promotions at island businesses and more, Sign up for Inquirer and Mirror text alerts.Click Here

See the article here:
Signs not regulated, but permitted as free speech - The Inquirer and Mirror

This is true; as Zaid Jilani wrote recently, If it were harder for employers to fire people for frivolous reasons, Americans would have less reason to fear that expressing their views might cost them their livelihoods. But it seems strange to me to argue that in the absence of better labor law, the left is justified in taking advantage of precarity to punish people for political disagreements.

None of this is an argument for a totally laissez-faire approach to speech; some ideas should be stigmatized.

I recently spoke to Wasow about the reaction to Shor tweeting his paper. Much of what we call cancel culture is just culture, he said. Culture has boundaries. Every community has boundaries. Those boundaries are always shifting. In the age of the internet, they move faster, and therefore where those boundaries are is less clear and less stable, and it makes it easier for people to cross those lines.

But its a problem when the range of proscribed speech is so wide that the rules are hard to even explain to those not steeped in left-wing mores.

Writing in the 1990s, at a time when feminists like Catharine MacKinnon sought to curtail free speech in the name of equality, the great left-libertarian Ellen Willis described how progressive movements sow the seeds of their own destruction when they become censorious. Its impossible, Willis wrote, to censor the speech of the dominant without stifling debate among all social groups and reinforcing orthodoxy within left movements. Under such conditions a movement can neither integrate new ideas nor build support based on genuine transformations of consciousness rather than guilt or fear of ostracism.

Its not always easy to draw a clear line between what Willis described as reinforcing orthodoxy and agitating to make language and society more democratic and inclusive. As Nicholas Grossman pointed out in Arc Digital, most signatories to the Letter probably agree that its a good thing that the casual use of racist and homophobic slurs is no longer socially acceptable. But those changes came about through private sanction, social pressure and cultural change, driven by activists and younger generations, he wrote.

Willis reminds us that when these changes were happening, the right denounced them as violations of free expression. Of the conservative campaign against political correctness in the 1990s, she wrote, Predictably, their valid critique of left authoritarianism has segued all too smoothly into a campaign of moral intimidation, one aimed at demonizing egalitarian ideas, per se, as repressive.

More:
Do Progressives Have a Free Speech Problem? - The New York Times

The cartoon shows a bearded man in paradise, reclining on a couch in a tent, with a virgin on either arm. God pokes his head in. Do you need anything? he asks. Yes, Lord, the man replies. Get me some wine and tell Gabriel to bring me cashews. Take the empty plates with you. And put a door on the tent, so next time you can knock before you come in, your Immortalness.

Four years ago, Nahed Hattar, the Jordanian writer and intellectual, shared the cartoon on Facebook, captioning it The God of Daesh. He was charged with inciting sectarian strife and racism and insulting Islam. In September 2016, outside the Amman courthouse where he was about to stand trial, Hattar was shot dead by a Salafist gunman.

Telling jokes in the Arab world is no laughing matter. Yet as a new book, Joking About Jihad, shows, poking fun at Islamists and jihadists has become an essential part of Arab culture. Comedians and cartoonists, the authors Gilbert Ramsay and Moutaz Alkheder observe, play an important role in shattering once seemingly inviolable taboos, transgressing the boundaries of consensus while somehow also enabling conversations where they once seemed impossible.

The context of the free speech debate is very different in the west. Many of the questions facing writers and artists and comedians are, however, similar. What is taboo? How far can we upset people? Should we transgress consensual boundaries?

In the Arab world, those pushing the boundaries of speech work within brutally dictatorial states and know the dangers of provoking popular outrage. Hattar is only one of dozens of writers and artists who have lost their lives in recent years for transgressing taboos. It takes immense courage to stand up for free speech in Jordan or Egypt or Saudi Arabia.

'Cancel culture' is not particularly useful in helping us think about the different forms of silencing that people face

In the west, writers and artists also face murderous threats, from the fatwa imposed on Salman Rushdie to the mass killings of Charlie Hebdo staff in January 2015. But there is also, unlike in most of the Muslim world, a general presumption of freedom of expression and laws and institutions that broadly protect free speech. This has made many sanguine about threats to speech.

After the Charlie Hebdo massacre, there were protest marches and words of outrage from politicians. But many liberals and the left felt uncomfortable about defending, even in death, figures associated with Charlie Hebdo. Three months after the attack, a host of prominent writers boycotted the annual gala of PEN America in protest at its decision to award the magazine a courage award.

Compare that with the response in the Arab world. Writers and artists, even those critical of the magazine, were, as the Beirut-based critic Kaelen Wilson-Goldie observed, unequivocal in their support because they saw the killings as part of a broader threat. At a vigil for Charlie Hebdo in Beirut, people added on to the Je suis Charlie hashtag: Je suis Samir Kassir, Je suis Gebran Tueni, Je suis Riad Taha, Je suis Kamel Mroue. All were writers, cartoonists or intellectuals assassinated for their work.

Arab activists recognise that censorship aids the powerful, while free speech is a vital weapon for those struggling for change. Its a point often forgotten in the west.

Consider the furore over the recent letter in Harpers magazine in defence of free speech signed by 153 public figures. A key criticism of the letter is that it is the voice of privilege.

Its true that few of the signatories have been silenced (though its also worth pointing out that Kamel Daoud, for one, still faces a death fatwa). Its the little people without power or platforms whose lives are particularly disrupted if they say the wrong thing, whether that be Muslim students in Britain, Mexican-American truck drivers, childrens authors, shopworkers, anti-Israel protesters or political activists.

These are all distinct cases and the now-fashionable term cancel culture is not particularly useful in helping us think about the different forms of silencing that people face. Nor are the conditions of censorship in the west comparable to those under which Arab writers and activists operate. The point, rather, is that the harsh conditions make Arab activists aware of the significance of free speech in a way that many in the west no longer seem to be. Would many of the jokes or cartoons for which Arabs risk their lives be published in the west without facing considerable pushback from liberals? I doubt it.

Being able to dismiss concerns about censorship? Now, thats the voice of privilege.

Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist

See more here:
It's the powerless who suffer when free speech is threatened - The Guardian

And one of the biggest threats to our democracy is the ability of the wealthy and powerful to silence free speech.

They do so by using the peoples own court system to file frivolous lawsuits against journalists, authors, bloggers, documentary film makers, civic organizations, protesters, political candidates and others.

Such suits are called SLAPP suits, which stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.

Usually used by government bodies to silence citizens, more and more these suits are being used by political campaigns and other individuals to silence critical viewpoints.

Most recently, the Trump campaign and the Trump family have filed frivolous litigation to try to stop news organizations from publishing critical articles, opposing political campaigns and broadcast stations to stop running ads critical of the president, and a member of the Trump family from publishing a book critical of the president.

The goal of these suits is to discourage people from speaking out for fear of being dragged into court, where they then would be forced to spend money on legal fees, go through the time and hassle of a court fight, and risk losing a large monetary verdict.

That kind of intimation is effective and contagious, serving as a chill factor on potential criticism in the future.

Thats not just a threat to individuals; its a threat to our entire democracy. And government must do all it can to protect the peoples right to free speech.

State lawmakers have an opportunity to help preserve our free speech by expanding the states anti-SLAPP statute.

The new bill (A5991/S0052A) would cover any communication in a place open to the public or a public forum in connection with an issue of public concern and any other lawful conduct in furtherance of the exercise of the constitutional right of free speech in connection with an issue of public concern.

To discourage SLAPP suits, the legislation would compel the courts to award court costs and attorney fees in actions proven to be without a substantial basis in fact or law and that could not be supported by a substantial argument.

The bill has the strong backing of the New York News Publishers Association.

And a New York State Bar Association committee urged the full organization to support the bill, noting that it does nothing to affect legitimate claims.

The Legislature only expects to be back in session a short time.

Its vital to the free speech rights of New Yorkers that lawmakers in both houses pass this legislation before they leave for the summer and that the governor signs it when it gets to his desk.

Read the original:
EDITORIAL: Bill needed to protect free speech - The Daily Gazette

For Marshfield (OnFocus) There is a recent development in the US that concerns me about the future of our country. No, its not the handling of COVID-19, nor is it the upcoming Presidential election. This development is the attack against one of the fundamental freedoms provided to us in the first amendment of the US Constitution: the freedom of speech.

The first amendment reads, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

While Congress has not explicitly introduced any bills that would limit this freedom of speech, there is a movement in public opinion as to what is and is not acceptable that could lead us to a watershed moment in the future.

Back in 2016, Canadian lawmakers were debating a proposed law, known as Bill C-16, that would provide protections towards transgender and gender-diverse citizens, or individuals who identify with a non-traditional or non-stereotypical concept of gender. However, the main controversy over the bill was the authority given to Government to determine whether using the incorrect pronoun to identify an individual was constituted a hate crime and was deemed illegal by this bill.

The bill was infamously opposed by Dr. Jordan Peterson, a professor at the University of Toronto. In Dr. Petersons view, the issue wasnt whether the use of preferred pronouns was right or wrong; rather, it was centered around the Governments regulation of free speech. Dr. Peterson reasoned the passing of this bill as written could open Pandoras box for the Government to determine acceptable speech in all facets of our lives, which could be a dangerous proposition.

For the regulation of freedom of speech, the power to determine what is and is not acceptable falls on other humans. The ones calling for restriction in speech through cancel culture and public shaming believe this regulation will be done by those who are like-minded and share the same viewpoints. What happens when your opinion is the one disallowed or deleted because moderators disagree with your opinion? This is the slippery slope society runs by implementing restrictions on freedom of speech. The world isnt filled with like-minded individuals who share 100% of your opinions. Its what makes humans human. We have our own thoughts and opinions based on our knowledge and experience. I doubt youll ever find another person who shares 100% of your thoughts. Shaming someone because they disagree with you dehumanizes every one victimized by public shaming.

Please understand Im not advocating for the use of hate speech, racial slurs, or blatant lies. There are comments that nearly everyone would agree is egregious and inappropriate, and those people should get called out for saying it. The argument isnt whether certain words should be spoken at all. It lies with who should be responsible for making the final determination of what is and is not allowed.

Recently, public social media outlets, like Twitter and YouTube, have been accused of removing tweets and videos from certain viewpoints. On political or controversial topics, only allowing one side of the argument to be published creates an echo chamber that keeps conversation stagnant and further divides the different sides to the argument.

Twitter recently announced President Trumps account will be fact-checked. You may think, Well this is a good thing. The President shouldnt be tweeting false information, especially from a position of power. While I agree he shouldnt be blatantly spreading lies and false information, 1) there is a difference between sharing facts and opinions and 2) theres a societal expectation to formulate and share an opinion on a topic before we have the full set of facts.

Have you ever voiced an opinion on a topic, only to learn more facts later to change your position? What if you were publicly shamed for holding your original viewpoint? If people are afraid to share their opinions for fear of public scrutiny, youll create a society where the citizens dare not think for themselves. When you stop thinking for yourself, you stop determining right from wrong. You become nihilistic. Ultimately, you open the door for regimes like communism and Marxism, or the rise in satanic leaders, like Stalin or Hitler.

The New York Times recently came under heavy scrutiny because they published an op-ed piece from Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, voicing his opinion on the use of the military to manage the riots and public protests arising from the death of George Floyd. Instead of listening to the Senators views to better understand his position, some pushed back to whether the piece should have posted at all. The public outcry towards the editor of the NYT for even publishing the piece points towards the cancel culture some in our society are pushing.

What can we do to combat this issue? First, accept that others will hold and share differing opinions. Whether its religion, abortion, climate control, the Presidential election, or if the earth is round or flat, you will find others who disagree with you. Second, remember opinions are not facts. Facts are available to support your opinion, but ultimately, your opinion is your own viewpoint. You may think Aaron Rodgers is the best quarterback of all time, but youll be hard-pressed to convince someone thats factually true. Its merely your opinion on his career. Third, and most importantly, listen to each other with open minds. Social media has harvested a culture of disregarding differing opinions and undermining someones character when they disagree with you.

You cant squash someones differing viewpoint by disallowing them to speak. Not only will they harden their stance, but they will lose respect for you. The great divide in this country is a direct result of the inability to hear others viewpoints and to understand why they hold their position. If youre on the left, you can listen to the echo chamber created by MSNBC and CNN, or on the right, Fox News, and youll only hear points that support your current position and further the divide with those on the other side of the political spectrum.

It falls on each of us to hold freedom of speech to a higher standard, even if it means allowing others to voice opinions differing from our own. I encourage you to listen to different opinions and talking to others about controversial topics, not with the goal to teach, but with the goal to listen and learn. Only when we place an emphasis on listening to learn do we truly understand the value of freedom of speech.

We welcome your stories! Contact us at [emailprotected]!

More:
Opinion: The Future of Free Speech - OnFocus

Amid claims of social media platforms stifling free speech, a new challenger called Parler is drawing attention for its anti-censorship stance.

Last week, Harpers Magazine published an open letter signed by 150 academics, writers and activists concerning perceived threats to the future of free speech.

The letter, signed by Noam Chomsky, Francis Fukuyama, Gloria Steinem and J.K. Rowling, among others, reads:

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.

Debates surroundings free speech and censorship have taken centre stage in recent months. In May, Twitter started adding fact-check labels to tweets from Donald Trump.

More recently, Reddit permanently removed its largest community of Trump supporters.

In this climate, Parler presents itself as a non-biased, free speech driven alternative to Twitter. Heres what you should know about the US-based startup.

Read more: Is cancel culture silencing open debate? There are risks to shutting down opinions we disagree with

Parler reports more than 1.5 million users and is growing in popularity, especially as Twitter and other social media giants crackdown on misinformation and violent content.

Parler is very similar to Twitter in appearance and function, albeit clunkier. Like Twitter, Parler users can follow others and engage with public figures, news sources and other users.

Public posts are called parleys rather than tweets and can contain up to 1,000 characters.

Users can search for hashtags, make comments, echo posts (similar to a retweet) and vote (similar to a like) on posts. Theres also a direct private messaging feature, just like Twitter.

Given this likeness, what actually is unique about Parler?

Parlers main selling point is its claim it embraces freedom of speech and has minimal moderation. If you can say it on the street of New York, you can say it on Parler, founder John Matze explains.

This branding effort capitalises on allegations competitors such as Twitter and Facebook unfairly censor content and discriminate against right-wing political speech.

While other platforms often employ fact checkers, or third-party editorial boards, Parler claims to moderate content based on American Federal Communications Commission guidelines and Supreme Court rulings.

So if someone shared demonstrably false information on Parler, Matze said it would be up to other users to fact-check them organically.

And although Parler is still dwarfed by Twitter (330 million users) and Facebook (2.6 billion users) the platforms anti-censorship stance continues to attract users turned off by the regulations of larger social media platforms.

When Twitter recently hid tweets from Trump for glorifying violence, this partly prompted the Trump campaign to consider moving to a platform such as Parler.

Matze also claims Parler protects users privacy by not tracking or sharing their data.

Companies such as Twitter and Facebook have denied they are silencing conservative voices, pointing to blanket policies against hate speech and content inciting violence.

Parlers free speech has resulted in various American Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz, promoting the platform.

Many conservative influencers such as Katie Hopkins, Lara Loomer and Alex Jones have sought refuge on Parler after being banned from other platforms.

Although it brands itself as a bipartisan safe space, Parler is mostly used by right-wing media, politicians and commentators.

Moreover, a closer look at its user agreement suggests it moderates content the same way as any platform, maybe even more.

The company states:

Parler may remove any content and terminate your access to the Services at any time and for any reason or no reason.

Parlers community guidelines prohibit a range of content including spam, terrorism, unsolicited ads, defamation, blackmail, bribery and criminal behaviour.

Although there are no explicit rules against hate speech, there are policies against fighting words and threats of harm. This includes a threat of or advocating for violation against an individual or group.

There are rules against content that is obscene, sexual or lacks serious literary, artistic, political and scientific value. For example, visuals of genitalia, female nipples, or faecal matter are barred from Parler.

Meanwhile, Twitter allows consensually produced adult content if its marked as sensitive. It also has no policy against the visual display of excrement.

As a private company, Parler can remove whatever content it wants. Some users have already been banned for breaking rules.

Whats more, in spite of claims it does not share user data, Parlers privacy policy states data collected can be used for advertising and marketing.

Read more: Friday essay: Twitter and the way of the hashtag

Given its limited user base, Parler has yet to become the open town square it aspires to be.

The platform is in its infancy and its user base is much less representative than larger social media platforms.

Despite Matze saying left-leaning users tied to the Black Lives Matter movement were joining Parler to challenge conservatives, Parler lacks the diverse audience needed for any real debate.

Matze also said he doesnt want Parler to be an echo chamber for conservative voices. In fact, he is offering a US$20,000 progressive bounty for an openly liberal pundit with 50,000 followers on Twitter or Facebook to join.

Clearly, the platform has a long way to go before it bursts its conservative bubble.

Read more: Don't (just) blame echo chambers. Conspiracy theorists actively seek out their online communities

Link:
Parler: what you need to know about the 'free speech' Twitter alternative - The Conversation AU

Editor:

How come free speech isnt free for everyone?

How come the police cant use choke holds or excessive force, but criminals can?

How come flying a Confederate flag is seen as a problem, but burning an American flag is not?

How come some of our statues must be taken down, but not others?

How come burning, looting and rioting is regarded as peaceful protesting?

How come ordinary citizens go to jail when they commit a crime, but many politicians and celebrities dont?

How come news from conservative sources is scrutinized for accuracy, but news from the liberal side isnt?

And last but not least, I wonder why President Donald Trump is considered a racist but columnist Leonard Pitts is not.

Consider these questions food for thought. Wake up, America.

Keith Folk

Gilbertsville

Go here to see the original:
Letter: Why doesn't everyone have right to free speech? - Reading Eagle

From left to right: Yascha Mounk, Mike Pesca, and Osita Nwanevu.Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Getty Images Plus, CBS, Slate.

A week ago, 153 public intellectuals signed an open letter to Harpers magazine that decried illiberalismor a censorship of free speech, dissenting opinions, and open debatewithin traditionally liberal discourse. A lot of people disagreed with this letter, and disagreed strongly. Sometimes disagreeing so strongly that a few of the letters signatories said, well, that makes my point. No, that misses the point, argued the objectors, some of whom signed their own letter.

We have seen so much back and forth about this, but one thing that I havent seen or heard is back and forth in the same place between different sides of the debate. Luckily I have a podcast. With that in mind, I wanted to host for a debateor a structured disagreementtwo intelligent and important people representing each side.

On my show the Gist, I invited Yascha Mounk, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins, a contributor to the Atlantic, the founder of Persuasion, a publication and community forlets say, people who felt the Harpers letter spoke to their concerns. He signed the letter. Also joining me was Osita Nwanevu, whos a staff writer at the New Republic, and whose recent article, The Willful Blindness of Reactionary Liberalism, is the most frequently cited critique of the Harpers letter. (Mounk and Nwanevu both previously wrote regularly for Slate.)

A portion of the discussion is transcribed below. It has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Mike Pesca: Yascha, do you think the problem is the size or the symbolism of this phenomenon? Or is it the slope, where it could be going?

Yascha Mounk: I think theres actually a lot of cases. You can go on Twitter and find dozens and dozens of these cases. I dont think its at all a negligible number of cases. And I always get a little bit nervous when we say, well this is just a few cases, lets tolerate those because of the sort of cause behind it. I think we can build a just society without giving up and sacrificing innocent individuals along the way.

But I think most importantly, it is absolutely about the chilling effect. I have an email in my inbox every day from somebody who says, I want to make this very reasonable point, and Im afraid of doing that. Or, Im being punished in various ways for doing that. If you talk to writers at every major newspaper and magazine in this country, they say, if I talk about topic X, I get to write whatever I want. As soon as I want to talk about topic Y, suddenly everybody is so scared that the article never sees the light of day, or its so mutilated that I dont recognize it a being in my own voice at all.

Ive talked to people at all of these institutions and they are telling me, I cannot say honestly, publicly what I believe. And thats something that should make readers incensed.

Osita Nwanevu: I think the actual number, measured in a rigorous way, is important. Because theres a way you can have this discourse where youre saying, lets take this or that case seriously and adjudicate, or try to figure out whether this was justified. And then theres a way you can frame this discourseand I think the way that it has been predominantly framedwhere you say, there is something sweeping American society that we need to all sit up and pay attention to. I think that second claim requires a burden of proof that hasnt really been met.

You can say that there have been dozens of cases where people have been fired for not having the right opinions. Dozens of cases within the scope of American society is nothing. One-tenth of 1 percent of the number of people who are fired in a given yearI think 20 million people lost their jobs in 2016is 20,000 people. If you can find 20,000 cases, one-tenth of 1 percent of people who are being fired in this country because their opinions were not sufficiently progressive, I think that then we could have a real conversation. I think that seems like a good starting point. But if youre relying on viral anecdotes that come to you via Twitter, I think that people have to be a little bit skeptical about the scope and reach of the analysis.

[]

I think we could talk about the merits and demerits of particular cases and their substance, but I think its an active misdirection to say, as many people have, that what were fundamentally talking about is free expression or free speech.

Mounk: The question is, what do we actually want discourse to look like in the United States? And [Osita], you said, oh well, you know some of these people, they just made the mistake of going into spheres of life where theyre now subject to those progressive pressures. So you know, just let them go over to the right. I mean, first of all, I think we shouldnt wish for people who are part of our coalition to go over to the right, because the most important thing in this year of 2020 is that we win an election against Donald Trump and make sure that people with views that we both find abhorrent dont continue to hold actual political power in this country. But its also a very strange view of what the purpose of a university is. And sure, you know, somebody getting fired from a position at a university is not an infringement of the United States Constitution. But it is a very serious abridgment of some norms and some freedoms that we want to defend for good reason.

Nwanevu: Its all well and good to talk broadly about free speech, but I think that people understand that there is something more complicated happening here. And I think theres a very good example of this outside of universities that we can talk about, that emerged last week.

If you were to ask anybody who engages in cancel culture discourse, do you think it is OK for somebody to make controversial remarks in a private forum, to have those remarks discovered by an anonymous tipster who goes to a major news outlet, to have those remarks published by that outlet, and to see that person lose their job for making statements [in the private forum] that most people would disagree with and find objectionable but that millions of people in this country dont actually have a problem with?I think most people would say, yeah, thats a pretty good example of cancel culture. Thats what happened to Blake Neff at Fox News, right? He made remarks in his private life that were racist and objectionable, and he lost his job for it.

Now, the response to people who bring this up has generally been, well look you shouldnt lump this in with other cases, because Blake Neff is a racist. And this is where it gets sticky. Once you say its OK for somebody to lose their job because theyre a racist, the question then becomes, OK what is racism? What is sexism; what is transphobia? It becomes not a question of speech and liberalism in the abstract, with one side supporting liberalism and free discourse and the other side not supporting liberalism and free discourse. Its a question of where the lines are. And people are functionally going to disagree about that.

What we have is people who say, you are overly concerned about sexism, or racism, or transphobia. And therefore, your criticism of me is equivalent to the Cultural Revolution that happened under Mao. Osita Nwanevu

I think that people in liberal society have the freedom to disagree about those decisions, and define their values and affiliations as narrowly and as openly and theyd like.

To Yaschas point about, wouldnt this lead to a society where everybody is on the left or on the right and theres no in betweenIm not prescribing that, and Im not saying that that is an ideal outcome. And I dont really think thats particularly likely. Yascha has just started up a project [Persuasion] where he is going to bring people on who are aligned with his values, and there are people who are not going to be aligned with those values who are not going to be brought on. And thats kind of the nature of discourse. There are these different discursive spheres in American society, in all societies, where people have loose or tight affiliations, and things are messy. But ultimately, I dont know that it makes sense to say that people utilizing freedom in a way that we find unproductiveor in a way that we think is worthy of criticismare then illiberal because we disagree with the way that they have chosen to define their organization. I think thats something that is aimed at shutting down discourse rather than allowing discourse to flourish. I think thats something, again, that is often hypocritically done against specific people with specific ideological priors.

Mounk: Obviously every newspaper has an editorial policy and has a set of ideas about whats within the realm of what can be debated, and a set of ideas of things that they wont allow to be debated. Theres nothing wrong with that. There can nevertheless be two concerns about the way in which that tends to play out at the moment, which I think are worth taking seriously.

The first is that when a writer or a journalist agrees with left-of-center opinion on 19 out of 20 issues, or agrees with progressive opinion on 19 out of 20 issues, but on one out of those 20 issues they have a principled disagreement that falls very far away from being a form of bigotry. They simply want to challenge some assumption within the discourse. If that means that those views are hidden from the audience, then I think thatll make for worse newspapers. Thats a small objection, but an important one if youre thinking about how places like the New York Times or Slate should be run.

The second, bigger problem is that people arent only criticized for that particular point of view. That particular point of view is not only debated, but then theres pressure to say, if they think that, then they should not have employment within these institutions. If they dont recant this view, then they are a bad human being and we should punish them. And that goes quite a lot further in creating an atmosphere of fear in which the people who create the public discourse can never quite say what they believe, because theyre always afraid of falling on the wrong side of a line of which we dont exactly know where it falls.

And you can see, as youve seen a few times in last months and years, a public discourse in progressive spaces jumping from one received wisdom to another within a couple of days. And everybody moves with it, because the first [position] wasnt really able to be challenged at one point, and then something changed in the conflagration and suddenly everybody believes the other thing. I dont think that is healthy for us, ourselves, in these spaces. We should be very concerned about that.

Nwanevu: Well, so I think its worth asking Yascha directly. You know, when it comes to people holding controversial opinions, and the extent to which progressives or maybe journalists, people in the media, are deluding themselves if they think its helpful to get rid of people who represent the views that exist out in the country: I just ask if you think that Blake Neffs firing, or I guess resignation, is an example of cancel culture?

I dont see how, in the abstract, what happened departs that much from the other cases people have brought up, except for the fact that the content of his views mark him out as different in some kind of subjective way.

Mounk: Look, I never said that there arent certain limits that we should draw. My point is that when the limits are drawn so narrowly, and when you have to agree on such a large number of propositions in order to be in good standing, then were stifling debate on our own side in a way that will make us deluded about the truth and incapable of convincing anybody to actually vote for progressive and important causes.

So Im not saying that there arent certain people [with] certain kinds of positionsit depends of what kind of positionwho express deeply bigoted views, who therefore should not be, you know, the chief writer for a huge television show. What Im seeing in our spaces, though, is that people who agree with their friends and their peers and their colleagues on 19 out of 20 issues, and have reasonable disagreements on the 20th issuewhere I might fall on the other side of them, I might disagree with them, but its not in any way a bigoted point of vieware then unpersonned and punished, and yes canceled, for the expression of those views. That has a chilling effect on our ability to talk honestly and energetically and truthfully about the world that I think we should all be worried about.

I think when that chilling effect takes over, we wind up in a society in which we cant actually talk honestly to each other. That is a very bigproblem. Yascha Mounk

And by the way, if you really care about our ability to have those open debates, if you really care about freedom of speech, if you really care about a robust public discourse, then why are you so concerned about some people being overly worried about that? If I really care about sexism, and I think some people are overascribing how much sexism there is in society, I dont think youre a terrible person for exaggerating how much sexism there is. I think, hey you know what, I disagree with you on this. Good news, perhaps theres a little bit less sexism than you think. But I agree with you that there is a lot of sexism, and we should fight against it.

Nwanevu: All right, so I think that is functionally not what actually happens in this discourse. What we have in this discourse is people who say, you are overly concerned about sexism, or youre overly concerned about racism, or youre overly concerned about transphobia. And therefore, your criticism of me is equivalent to the Cultural Revolution that happened under Mao. That is the discourse that we have, right? So I think its important to actually recognize that, and not sort of create in this discussion an alternative universe that does not actually exist. So

Mounk: But I dont know, Osita, why is this an alternative universe? Im one of the most visible people in this discourse. Weve been talking for 40 minutes. Why are you ascribing views to me that are not mine?

Nwanevu: Im not ascribingIn fact, Im saying that because there are people who are not you, Yascha, who are defining this discourse also, we should recognize that and use that to actively, accurately develop a sense of where this discourse actually is.

I do think, and Ive written about this and Ive given chapter and verse of examples of this, of people who criticize progressive identity politics and then say, not just that I disagree with this person, or I dont like that view, but, this persons adoption of this view is going to lead to the gulags. It is equivalent to Stalinism. It is incompatible, as Jonathan Chait said, with liberal democratic society. I think that is wild.

We have, in the Harpers letter, the claim that liberal expression is becoming daily more constrained. I think that is an ahistorical claim that has absolutely nothing to do with the progression of speech in American society. But we have all these kinds of wild generalizations happening. On top of issues that I think are deeply complicated.

You say that there are people whose views are aligned 19 out of 20 with people at major institutions, but they have this one little view that shouldnt be a big deal and shouldnt be considered bigoted, that prevents them from speaking freely or whatever it is. But thats a matter of perspective, right? People are going to disagree, again, about what bigotry is, and what the implications of a particular opinion are going to be. I dont think it makes sense for people to say, well if you disagree with me on that 20th issue, that means that youre an illiberal who opposes open discourse. I think thats silly. I dont think thats a productive way to have a conversation.

Mounk: No, Im not saying that if you disagree with me on that 20th issue youre against liberal discourse. Im saying that if you think that for disagreeing on that 20th issue, you should be fired, or youre making my workspace unsafe

Nwanevu: It depends on what the 20th issue is, right?

Pesca: What Osita just said is what I was going to say. With so much of this, it depends. When Osita laid out the broad contours of the Blake Neff firing, my thought was, well, it depends what those things said in private channels were. I kept thinking about J.K. Rowling, who certainly agrees with most of liberalism on things, and then has this one carve-out for her opinions on trans rights.

Is the pushback on her canceling her? Or is it spirited, vocal, extremely impassioned pushback that she should be able to take?

Mounk: Well, so first of all, when were talking about Neff, its not the 20th out of 20 issues. I mean, he seems to have

No, no. Neff was an example of how it all depends on what the specifics are. When Osita laid out a scenario where a person said certain things in private channels, I was just thinking, it depends what those certain things are. Neff is not [an example of only disagreeing on] the 20th out of 20 views.

Nwanevu: But it illustrates how difficult it is. Thats my point. Its very easy to say, well a racist person shouldnt get to keep their job. People disagree about what racism is. And so you can have this broad, abstract conversation about speech. But functionally, what is actually in question is not speech or liberalism. I think the people who are derided as illiberal, or people who are derided as people who dont care about free speech, do. They just disagree and draw their lines on these particular questions, in these particular cases, in different places than Yascha might, or Jesse Singal might, or any of the other people in this discourse might. And when drawing that line in a different place, the charge against them is not just, well I disagree with you about where that line should be, but that the act of drawing the line signals that you are opposed to the fundamental principles undergirding our society, which I think is ridiculous.

Mounk: But there are

Nwanevu: One other thing I should say, just before you startbecause you made a point about narrowness that I think is critical. This idea that we should be as open as possible to as many perspectives as possible within a particular boundary. One of the guidelines that you seem to imply should govern this boundary is, well if there are people out in the country who we need to understand and reach out to, you cant exclude them from the discourse. You cant ignore those opinions and brush them away.

Forty percent of this country is doggedly supportive of the president of the United States. Im not aware of very many people who either signed that Harpers letter or are involved in Persuasion who would declare themselves outright supporters of Donald Trump. I dont really see this as a discourse that is aimed at elevating those people and saying that those people deserve 40 percent of the op-ed space at the New York Times or a much more substantial percent of the op-ed space at the New York Times.

Theres a range of views in this country today about basic political questions, that is absolutely blacklisted from major institutions. And that absolutely no one is interested in having more adequately represented. And I think that the proof in the pudding is the fact that these free discourse efforts dont seem very interested in including those people or those perspectives at all.

Mounk: So, were now getting into caricature. I mean, the idea that I in any way argued for, you know, if 48, or rather according to my latest information, about 40 percent of the U.S. population support Donald Trumpthankfully its less than 48 at this pointthen we should have 40 percent of column inches in the New York Times be given to Trump supporters or something like that, is a mechanistic view of what opinion should look like, when I dont believe it.

And by the way, one of the problems that we get if we hermetically seal our own progressive spaces off to a lot of the other opinions is where we insufficiently understand that 40, or what used to be 48 percent of a population, to actually know how to manage to persuade many of them to join us in the endeavor of building a more just society. Which is incredibly important if we actually want to remedy some of those injustices.

But I think the fundamental distinction, Osita, between you and me, is whether we are thinking about discourse and critiques of various members of a discourseyou used this term, discourse, I think about 10 times in this conversationor whether were talking about the kind of institutions and rules that we need in order to make a very diverse society work better.

The question, to me, is what would a healthy, robust, left-of-center set of publishing spaces, political spaces, look like where theyre able to debate the world truthfully, understand how we actually remedy injustices in this country, and set us up to persuade many of our fellow citizens to join us in the endeavor of actually doing that? And no matter how much you sort of cite different examples, theres ultimately, I think, a pretty stark difference between a world in which peopleas very many people now feelhave a sense that they have to very closely adhere to orthodoxy on 20 different issues, that when they fail to affirm the orthodoxy, that not only earns them a lot of criticism of that particular point of view, which is perfectly fine, but gets them expelled from those spaces altogether and makes other people tell them that they are bad human beings that shouldnt really be part of the discourse. And I think when that chilling effect takes over, we wind up in a society in which we cant actually talk honestly to each other, and for those of us who have platforms, to our readers and listeners, that is a very big problem.

Now, that doesnt mean that I think people who express extreme bigoted or racist views should be hired by the New York Times. It doesnt mean that within civil society there arent limits to whom I would have over for dinner or to whom I would publish in Persuasion, my new venture. All of those things are taken for granted. But I think anybody who looks at these publications at the moment, and who listens to how many writers and journalists who are most ensconced in those milieus express their fear about deviating from orthodoxy, should grow a little bit concerned about whether were having the most honest, the healthiest debates. And about whether theyre being told the truth in the publications they read and listen to. And you know, no point about Fox News or Neff is going to dispel that concern for me, and I dont think its going to dispel that concern for many other listeners of this podcast.

Nwanevu: I think that what all of that functionally amounts to is thatwhen Yascha or people who are engaged with this project, this idea that progressive identity politics is undermining liberal institutions when [those people] make decisions about who should or shouldnt be allowed in the discourse or published by a newspaper, or given a spot at a university, that you can rely on them to be judicious and keepers of the liberal faith.

[But] when progressives say that the person who disagrees with me on the 20th position is wrong in some morally important way, [its said] those people are being unreasonable. Theres a narcissism of small differences there. And any reasonable person can say that on the basis on that 20th view, progressives should be more than welcome to have that person participate in the discourse on the basis of the other views that they hold, right? Theres people who are allowed and should be trusted to make difficult decisions about what is or isnt right, and what is or isnt worth discussing. And [yet] that class of people does not include people who think, well that 20th issue is actually very, very important, and we should take it seriously. We havent been taking it seriously before.

Again, this isnt about a bad-faith particular set of actors. I think that the ideas themselves are suspect here. Because theres a difference in your willingness to apply them universally. I think its tremendously important for people who say to themselves, well we need to have an open discourse and to have all kinds of views represented so we can understand whats happening in the rest of the country. And then we can learn to rebut those arguments, instead of shunting them aside. I think its important for those people to take seriously that a large share of the country supports the president of the United States and to include them in their editorial projects and their projects on discourse. And if they dont, you should be suspicious about what their actual priorities are. Because theyre not walking the walk.

Listen to this full conversation below, and subscribe to the Gist onApple Podcasts,Overcast,Spotify,Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.Join Slate Plus, and enjoy ad-free episodes of the show.

Readers like you make our work possible. Help us continue to provide the reporting, commentary, and criticism you wont find anywhere else.

See the article here:
Yascha Mounk and Osita Nwanevu Debate the State of Free Speech, and That Letter - Slate

Angry that the CEO of Goya Foods praised Donald Trump as an incredible builder, the Left has organized a boycott of the company. Goya, of course, brands itself as providing authentic Latino foods. According to its website, Goya Foods is the largest, Hispanic-owned food company in the United States.

CEO Robert Unanue was at the White House to participate in President Trumps Hispanic Prosperity Initiative. The initiative was created by executive order and seeks to improve access to education and economic opportunities in the Hispanic community.

According to the Mercury News, In his brief remarks, Unanue announced Goya would donate 1 million cans of Goya chickpeas and 1 million other food products to American food banks. He said the company wanted to help families hurt by the coronavirus pandemic. This is a nice gesture and shows corporate responsibility.

But for AOC and others, any praise or association with Trump is a capital offense that requires shaming and dire economic consequences.

Unanue protests that the boycott of Goya amounts to a suppression of speech. Well, not exactly.

Under the First Amendment, Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. The right to free speech cannot be impaired absent government action. We, as citizens, have the freedom to buy from whomever we choose, whether our reasons are good or bad. If, for example, Middle America boycotted the NFL because of its embrace of the radical woke agenda, this would not deny the players or league the right to speak their minds. Boycotts and protests are a proper tool that can be used to convey a message and/or put pressure on another private actor. But they should not be used lightly or casually.

While Unanue was incorrect to assert that his free speech rights are under attack, he is correct in saying that other democratic values are endangered. What is really at stake is American pluralism. The typical dictionary defines pluralism as a condition or system in which two or more states, groups, principles, sources of authority, etc., coexist. According to Thought.com, [t]he political philosophy of pluralism suggests that we really can and should all just get along. First recognized as an essential element of democracyby the philosophers ofAncient Greece, pluralism permits and even encourages a diversity of political opinion and participation.

With the present cultural revolution, there is no room for a diversity of opinions. You are either a supporter of the radical agenda or you are an enemy who must be silenced and destroyed. For the Left, if you are one of the 62,984,828 Americans who voted for Trump in 2016, then you are the evil. The new revolution denies that reasonable people can hold different positions on the best course for our country. Those expressing opinions contrary to Leftist dogma are being forced out of the marketplace of ideas by cancel culture run wild. Again, this crusade is not an attack on the constitutional right of free speech, but on pluralism.

There is no denying that we will have strong disagreements. Principles often have sharp edges and can cut. But we will not survive as a country if we cant agree to disagree. The fact that AOC and others would seek to tear down the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the United States for the CEOs nice words about Trump when Trump is pushing a program to help the Hispanic community shows Procrustean conformity is the only allowable course.

The United States is more diverse today than it ever has been. If we abandon pluralism, then our future will be nothing but warring factions seeking to cancel each other. We will be at perpetual war until one faction prevails. This winner will dictate what one is allowed to say, think, and do. We are headed in an ugly direction. Cant we all just get along?

See the rest here:
Goya Foods, Free Speech, and Pluralism | William J. Watkins, Jr. - The Beacon