Even_noxious_ideas_need_airing.pdf

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Even noxious ideas need airing–censorship only makes them
stronger; Guest comment: Jacob Mchangama
Date: Jan. 31, 2020
From: The Economist
Publisher: Economist Intelligence Unit N.A. Incorporated
Document Type: Article
Length: 1,554 words

Full Text:
Restricting free speech in the name of liberty fuels illiberalism, says Jacob Mchangama of Justitia, a Danish think-tank

“Freedom of expression has its limits. Those limits begin where hatred is spread … where the dignity of other people is
violated.”

So said Angela Merkel in a speech to the Bundestag last November. The German chancellor grew up under a communist dictatorship
and leads a country where vicious propaganda once paved the way for genocide. So few people have stronger credentials when it
comes to balancing the pros and cons of free speech. And she is not the only democratic leader concerned about extremism. French
President Emmanuel Macron has worried that the internet is becoming a “threat” to democracy.

Ms Merkel and Mr Macron have overseen laws clamping down on online hate speech and fake news, adding new layers to already
extensive limits on free speech. Other democracies–including Britain and Denmark–seem poised to follow. And ever-more restrictive
“community standards” by Facebook and Twitter fuel this from the private sector.

But despite the good intentions, they are charting a dangerous course. Fighting illiberal ideas with illiberal laws not only perpetuates
illiberalism. It also removes the “steam valve” that lets noxious ideas get diluted in society rather than build up pressure until they
explode.

The attempt to rein in the internet in the name of democracy raises problems both in principle and in practice. Removing millions of
posts based on subjective criteria such as “hate”, “extremism” and “offense” often results in collateral damage that winnow important
discussions in society–especially if the role of censor is placed on tech companies whose rules lack transparency and due process.

Speech that directly incites violence obviously must be prohibited and punished (though admittedly, there can be some gray areas).
But when policing speech that is clearly non-violent, as many of these rules do, no group is more than a political majority away from
being the target rather than the beneficiary of the suppression of ideas. And the efforts by democracies to limit online expression are
regularly imitated by authoritarians.

The arguments for and against tolerating extreme speech are well rehearsed. Yet history provides insights that can help democracies
draw the boundaries based on centuries of experience. Despite the unprecedented speed and ease of communication offered by the
Internet, the dilemmas faced by current generations are hardly unique.

Moral panics tend to erupt whenever the public sphere is democratised and marginalised groups are given a voice through new
technology or new rights. The pattern repeated itself with the printing press, newspapers, telegraph, radio, cinema, television and
now the internet.

At such junctures, those who traditionally shaped public opinion fear that the new, openly-expressive “mob” will be manipulated by
dangerous ideas and propaganda that will corrode the social and political . (Is it any surprise, then, that mainstream politicians
and legacy media outlets blame social media for “weaponising” free speech.)

From the very start, the concept of free speech has been a perpetual tug of war, usually between the privileged who are willing, within
limits, to tolerate open discussion, and previously powerless groups who assert their rights to make themselves heard. The elitist vs.
egalitarian conception of free speech stretches back to antiquity. It takes form in the differences between Athenian democracy and
Roman republicanism.

In Athens, “isegoria” (equality of speech) and “parrhesia” (uninhibited speech) were cherished values. “Isegoria” allowed all free-born

adult male citizens to debate and vote in the Athenian assembly, and “parrhesia” allowed them to be candid and bold when
expressing opinions (though there were limits).

The Roman republic, by contrast, was rigidly top-down and elitist. Ordinary citizens were not allowed to speak in popular assemblies
and there was no Roman equivalent of “parrhesia”. Elements of free speech were included in the Roman concept of “libertas”, but
were mostly exercised by elites in the Senate and magistrates before assemblies.

The Roman philosopher and statesman Cicero loved Greek philosophy and oratory, but lamented that Athens “fell owing to that one
evil, the immoderate liberty and licentiousness of the popular assemblies”. For Cicero, free speech was the prerogative of the “best
men” in the Senate, not the plebs.

This conflict would repeat itself in the early modern era. When Enlightenment thinkers in the 18th century established the principle of
free speech, they looked to Rome rather than Athens. While they demanded a voice in public affairs, they did not necessarily think
that everyone should enjoy such a right.

Voltaire, for instance, fought hard for freedom of the press (though he never wrote “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to
the death your right to say it”). Yet he welcomed “enlightened despotism” and the privileged status of “les philosophes” over the
uneducated, whom he felt “must be treated as monkeys” to some degree.

England at the time enjoyed one of the freest presses in Europe. But it rested on a delicate balance between and liberty.
Criticism of the existing by radicals and the newly-emerging working classes was punished as sedition. Reforms in the first half
of the 1800s removed obstacles to speech, and lowering Stamp Act duties (a tax on paper) boosted newspaper circulation. In 1848
John Stuart Mill wrote that the working class had thrown off the yoke of “paternal” government “when they were taught to read, and
allowed access to newspapers and political tracts.” What had once been considered seditious had become a vital part of democratic
citizenship.

While these historical examples of censorship are a far cry from today’s restrictions, they are a reminder that an egalitarian concept of
free speech depends on recognising the equality of all people, and that one’s right to expression is contingent on a willingness to
concede the same right to others, be they minority groups or political opponents.

However proponents of limited speech argue that the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th century changes the calculus of tolerance.
After all, the Nazis shamelessly exploited the press freedom of the Weimar Republic to spread their propaganda, only to ruthlessly
censor their opponents once in power in 1933. But despite its liberal ideals, Weimar Germany was not committed to free speech
absolutism. In fact, Germany’s historical attempts to counter political extremism demonstrate the perils in principle and practice of
“intolerance towards the intolerant.”

Prior to the Weimar Republic, Bismarck’s Imperial Germany cracked down hard on Social Democrats, banning some 1,300
publications and jailing 1,500 people. Socialists were also hounded after Bismarck. In the first half of 1913 alone, 104 journalists were
punished for their writings.

By comparison, Weimar Germany protected freedom of opinion. But it came with caveats. Cinema and pulp fiction were censored
after campaigns against “trash and filth”. Although the authorities failed to adequately punish Nazi violence, the Nazis were often
punished for their words. Hitler was prohibited from public speaking and several Nazi newspapers, including Joseph Goebbels’s Der
Angriff and Julius Streicher[acute accent]s virulently anti-Semitic Der Sturmer, were frequently banned or their editors imprisoned.
Democratic politicians warned that press freedom had become “the most poisonous weapon against democracy”. Draconian
measures were introduced to curb political extremism. In Prussia, 284 newspapers were suspended by decree in little over a year,
ensnaring liberal ones too.

Not only did this fail to stem the tide of national socialism, it often had the very opposite effect: it played into the hands of Nazi
propaganda. Goebbels proudly proclaimed Der Angriff Germany’s “most frequently banned daily.” The censorship didn’t stop huge
Nazi electoral gains that helped bring Hitler to power.

Once in power in 1933, the Nazis eagerly exploited these democratic but illiberal precedents to target the opposition press until it
could be crushed entirely. And yes, they surely would have censored their opponents anyway, but having the mechanisms already in
place was convenient and made it easier for them to attack their opponents for hypocrisy.

Today we are reaching a historic crossroads for free speech. The internet is the new public sphere. But it presents the same
challenges as did radio a century ago and the printing press before that. Far-right websites and leaders not only attract readers with
their venom, but parlay criticisms, victimhood and censorship into a seductive lure to strengthen their appeal.

The history of free speech suggests that these restrictions are themselves dangerous. It winnows the internet’s initial promise of
global “parrhesia”, the uninhibited speech of ancient Athens. If the content prohibitions grow, some of those excluded from the public
sphere might be the 21st-century equivalents of history’s suppressed reformers. After all, both Gandhi and Martin Luther King were
imprisoned for nonviolent protests by the leading democracies of their day. As late as 1979 the editor of a British LGBT magazine
was convicted for blasphemous libel.

Free speech remains an experiment in exposing society to new ideas. No one can guarantee the outcome of allowing everyone an
equal voice. And all freedoms come with costs and risks. But history suggests that absent authoritarian methods, suppressing ideas
empowers them, while giving all human thought an airing is the best way to advance societies committed to freedom, democracy and
tolerance.

_______

Jacob Mchangama is the executive director of Justitia, a think tank based in Copenhagen focusing on civil liberties and the rule of
law, and the host of the podcast “Clear and Present Danger” on the history of free speech.

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2020 Economist Intelligence Unit N.A. Incorporated
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Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
“Even noxious ideas need airing–censorship only makes them stronger; Guest comment: Jacob Mchangama.” The Economist, 31

Jan. 2020. Gale College Collection, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A624581472/GCCO?u=mia56118&sid=lms-GCCO&xid=aeb16a98.
Accessed 1 July 2021.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A624581472

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