This is entirely correct, but I feel like it ignores far more than it addresses. yes no platformimg is not censorship and they can speak in other ways, but it does inhibit the free flow of ideas and control them in ways that do not really depend on the correctness of those ideas. It may be easy to think it is fine because they can communicate in other ways and important to deny bigotted views a platform when it is ideas you hate that are having the oxygen removed from them. However when it is ideas you support, or literally yourself, you may well feel that this strategy can be appllied to any ideas and is a dangerous way for a minority of people to prevent ideas they dislike from getting the exposure they need.Tessa K wrote: ↑Wed Jul 08, 2020 12:10 pm
On no-platforming: It's not as if people are being denied any public access at all. Refusing to debate someone doesn't silence them entirely and it is better to have opinions out in public where they can be countered if necessary. I wouldn't debate a Creationist for example because that would imply some parity between their beliefs and science but that doesn't stop them spreading their beliefs elsewhere.
I have felt that it was wrong for Tommy Robinson to be given a platform of addressing the oxford union and as far as I can tell various forms* of restricting far right speech in the past have been necessary (though it makes the liberal free speech advocate inside me cry in pain). But I have also felt very frustrated at times when ideas i think are worth hearing get stifled (I can't think of a no-platforming example just now where i was not sympathetic to the people protesting it, but i suspect there is one). So i think it is more complicated than most people admit and normally whether people take the "this is an awful infringement of free speech" line or the "free speech does not require us to give you a platform" line is normally determined by the person's actual opinion about the specific case.
*maybe one can make an equivalence between this cancel culture from the previously dis-empowered and the way some television news channels have either chosen never to air the view of extremists (white supremacists, people advocating violence in the name of religion, etc) or views far enoughoutside of the mainstream, or when they do air them, just treat them with contempt and scorn.