Are liberals opposing free speech?
This morning I posted on my Facebook page that I thought it was wrong that Donald Trump was banned from Twitter and asked what others thought. While I expected that amongst my liberal friends there would be a majority in favour of the ban, what I was not expecting was that I would be in a minority of one.
On the surface I find this surprising. After all, being a liberal is fundamentally about liberty. About freedom. If there is one political group you would expect to stand up for someones right to freedom of speech surely it would be liberals?
So what explains this seemingly bizarre tendency to advocate restrictions on someone else’s freedom? Undoubtedly Trump is a bit of a bête noire for those of us with a liberal disposition. His tirades, incoherency, irrationality, and blatant lies are anathema to the liberal mindset. It’s easy to jump to the conclusion that the best thing for everyone is to to just shut him up. Starved of the oxygen of publicity his hate and those inspired by it will fade away into obscurity.
I’m sure that a desire to deny him a platform for his extreme views and the division it creates does drive some to support a ban, illiberal though that may be.
However, I do most of my fellow liberals a disservice by suggesting that that this is the main reason for their support for the ban. The real core of the argument is about the reasonable limits of free speech.
What would John Stuart Mill think about it?
I have recently been reading Mill’s ‘On Liberty’ which contains the classic defence of freedom of expression. In the chapter ‘Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion’ he systematically builds the case for free speech arguing that:
‘there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it maybe considered’.
But how does Mill help us in thinking about Trump and Twitter? To me, there are two aspects of his work that can help us untangle the issues underlying the Twitter ban:
Our human pre-disposition to intolerance
On Liberty was first published in 1859 so it’s not surprising that in the context of a constrained Victorian society so much of Mill’s essay was devoted to justifying free speech and there is little, if any, direct discussion of its limits.
However, what is really pertinent to today is his argument is that intolerance is the default condition of human societies. Or, to put it more bluntly, our natural inclination is always to silence those that we disagree with.
This is important, in an age such as ours where our immediate reaction is captured, published, and amplified by social media there is perhaps a need to reflect and to question our own natural desire to censor. My hope is that this natural desire to censor explains much of the initial support for Trumps Twitter ban and that on reflection people will revise their views.
Free speech, the harm principle, and inciting a mob against corn dealers
In On Liberty Mill asserted;
‘that the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others’.
This is Mill’s famous harm principle, and it is from this principle that liberals justify restrictions to free speech (or indeed any restrictions to freedom).
At the beginning of chapter 3 ‘Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-being’ Mill distinguishes between the forming and holding of opinions on the one hand and acting upon opinions on the other. Key to our debate he notes:
‘No one pretends that actions should be as free as opinions. On the contrary, even opinions lose their immunity, when the circumstances in which they are expressed such as to constitute their expression a positive instigation to some mischievous act’.
The price of corn was a hot political topic in Mills time and he goes on use it as an example, saying that it would be simply wrong to express an opinion that ‘corn dealers are starvers of the poor’ to a mob gathered outside the house of a corn dealer. In such a circumstance he argues that (in one of my favourite Mill quotes) ‘The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make a nuisance of himself’.
Did Trump breech the limits of free speech?
Was Trump simply inciting the mob? If so, then it seems pretty clear to me that he should be banned from using Twitter or any other media platform. This I believe is where many of my fellow liberals conclude their thinking. I would however ask them to think a bit more. There are two arguments that pulled me away from the desire to censor Trump.
‘Positive Instigation’ and the benefit of hindsight
In Mill’s quote above he refers to ‘positive instigation’, this is important. There needs to be a direct link between the words and the subsequent actions. Was this the case for Trump? Indeed, a better way of phrasing the question would be to ask; ‘would a reasonable person have expected the storming of the Capitol Building to have resulted from the comments made?’
My assertion is that they would not, indeed I have found no direct reference in either the tweets he made or the speeches given to any form of civic disobedience. Furthermore, Trump is known for his aggressive and divisive rhetoric and has deployed it consistently during his candidacy and presidency, never before has it led directly to violence on this scale. Indeed, in his defence, once the violence was underway he did take to Twitter asking supporters to “go home”.
In that regard, are many of us simply looking at these events with the benefit of hindsight? It does of course change the expectation for the future. Should he give a similar speech then it would be perfectly reasonable to expect violence, and in that regard his words would be a ‘positive instigation’.
Who gets to decide? The law or silicon valley tech giants?
There is no doubt that Twitter and other social media platforms have profited over the years from those who, like Trump, seek to challenge the boundaries of free speech. That now, after making billions, they stand up righteously and proclaim the public interest has a very hollow feel. Being cynical you could argue that all they are doing is acting to avoid public sentiment shifting against them and damaging their stock price.
My view is that any media company has a responsibility beyond their shareholders to the wider community. After all a healthy media is a key component of a healthy democracy. This means that they should not, as some suggest, be free to ban Trump on the basis of him transgressing their terms and conditions, they need to think of their wider public responsibilities.
If I ran a shop and made it a condition of entry that you had to be male (or black, or over 6ft tall, or part of the LGBT community etc.) there would undoubtedly, and rightly, be public uproar. That is because by engaging in business I enter into the public sphere and have to abide by a number of socially and legally imposed constraints designed to protect individual rights and freedoms.
In the same way Trump, much as I dislike what he says, should not be precluded from a public platform on the basis that we disagree with what he has to say or who he is. Indeed, as Mill argues so strongly, this vehement disagreement is precisely the reason why we should allow him to continue. Furthermore if we are not careful it amounts to the worst form of tyranny, that of succumbing to prevailing public opinion, the tyranny of the majority view.
It is useful to remember that the US does, like the UK, have laws regarding incitement to violence. These should be our guide as to whether to restrict the freedom of Trump on Twitter or other platforms. If he has not broken the law how can we justify restricting his freedom of expression? Isn’t everyone innocent until proven guilty? We should resist in this instance trying him in the court of public opinion.
However, if it can be shown that according to the democratically constituted laws of the US that he has indeed incited violence then there is an exceedingly strong case for restricting his freedom of expression. To do so otherwise is to place the decision in the hands of a self interested tech elite who will bow to the worst instincts of the public and enforce the tyranny of the majority.
Concluding remarks - on being a real liberal
Freedom is core to being a liberal. It is from freedom that we get our love of diversity, our desire to protect minorities, and to challenge entrenched interests for the benefit of all. But I have always thought the true test of a liberal comes when they have to defend something that it is not only unpopular but also something with which they fundamentally disagree. The quote (falsely) attributed to Voltaire seems to sum it up perfectly; ‘I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’.
Unless you can do this are you really a true liberal?
This is where I am with Trump. America has never known a more divisive and offensive president. I am truly pleased that the American public voted with a resounding ‘you’re fired’ last November. But that does not mean he should be removed from Twitter.
It is a finely balanced situation with no easy answers where I have found myself to be in a minority amongst liberal friends. At its most basic level it comes down to how high the bar needs to be before we think about constraining freedom of speech. Fundamentally, I believe that should be higher than many others. It comes back to freedom. body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.