A Challenge to Free Speech from Left and Right
Freedom is a muscle that requires exercise to sustain it. It's time to take The Sniff Test.
The Faraway Falklands
Mr. Tibbett was the parents’ favourite. The boys considered him a soft touch. A story circulated that he disturbed a burglar, sat and talked with him about life choices, and let him go. A week later his house was stripped bare.
Whether true or not, commuting through Birmingham in a stand out school uniform taught boys that not everyone has good intentions. This is the heart of the liberal dilemma. How do you extend tolerance to those who demand it but don’t reciprocate?
In an early diary of Adrian Mole, he bursts into his parents’ room to announce that Argentina has invaded The Falklands. His father leaps up thinking they’re just off the coast of Cornwall. When Adrian corrects him, he goes back to bed.
When war is far away, in time or distance, we are protected from its horrors. When threats feel remote, we dismiss them and continue with our lives. The minority that opposes freedom grows stronger with our silence.
Artists know that an attack on one of them is an attack on them all. The dissidents that fought back against the Soviet Union demanded the freedom to think, communicate and publish. They did not demand the right to be heard.
It is said that you may not be interested in politics, but it is interested in you. When we ignore the partisan bickering, we give in to a minority dictating who may be heard. We can have little complaint with what follows.
Media is a Business
Last week, Jeff Bezos announced that the Washington Post opinion columns would promote free speech and free markets. Meanwhile, the Trump administration began selecting which media outlets can attend smaller events, such as cabinet meetings. Yet Bezos and Trump are considered to be on the same side.
Denying someone the right to speak because of who they are is a dangerous game. We start by silencing racial hatred, then deny a platform to those we call privileged and reject the right of infidels to criticise our religion. Pretty soon we are book burning, tearing down statues and stripping away people’s livelihoods. This is what the Soviets and the Nazis did and we have seen it at home in recent years. Do you think it stops there?
Free speech means accepting people’s right to say downright disgusting things. The challenge has always been where to draw the line between opinion and incitement. John Stuart Mill drew it at urging action in front of the angry mob.
Bezos explained his decision with a concise explanation of the importance of freedom.
“Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.” Jeff Bezos on X.
He did not define free speech or free markets. The first is easier than the second, as free markets don’t exist. Tariffs, trade barriers and regulations all serve to impede markets, most often to justify protecting the public interest. To opponents, Bezos is another media magnate using the bully pulpit to protect his business interests.
The Opinion Editor of the Washington Post resigned over Bezos’ stance. More than 75,000 subscribers have cancelled, to add to the over 200,000 that left when he refused to endorse Kamala Harris. The Post has lost 14% of subscriptions since October.
Perhaps the editor felt that free speech requires him to publish opinions opposed to it. This opens the door to the majority of opinions being in opposition to the interests of the owner. The Post is a business, media is competitive and Bezos is willing to lose money. If you want to oppose his views from within, you must be willing to lose your job. Dissidents in oppressive regimes lost far worse.
Mike Solana of Pirate Wires has little sympathy for Post journalists, or those excluded at the White House. The latter are members of the White House Correspondents’ Association, which has long dictated which outlets get access to the president. The left must do what the right did and establish new media to challenge incumbents from the outside.
Meanwhile in the UK, a minority demands we listen to its views.
Gary Linker and Gaza
No institution has the right to survive. In the commercial world, profits determine which ones win out. In the UK, the public funds the BBC and thereby protects it.
Last month the broadcaster pulled a documentary about life in Gaza. The child narrator is the son of a Hamas deputy minister and other participating children have been photographed posing with armed insurgents. Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK and it is inappropriate to publish its propaganda.
The BBC has form here. The corporation has issued a number of corrections after using unattributed Hamas propaganda in its stories. Why? Someone made an editorial judgement.
That judgement extends to softening the message during translation. Swapping the word “Jew” for “Israeli” in subtitles, repositions documentary participants as freedom fighters rather than religious warriors. The producers reinterpret the truth by claiming to know what the speakers mean.
500 journalists signed a petition demanding the BBC reinstate the documentary. Chief among them is Gary Lineker, whose picture decorated my wall when I was a boy. Lineker has his own media outlet – The Rest is History and The Rest is Politics are two of his most popular podcasts – and is capable of running his own Gaza documentary.
The BBC is funded by licence payers. The licence is compulsory and therefore a tax on watching television. The BBC is different from the Washington Post because it cannot go out of business if its opinion is unpopular. As a result, it should exercise power with restraint and err on the side of caution.
The corporation argues it competes to be heard in a global market, but you cannot serve two masters equally. The price of editorial freedom is the loss of subsidy. The price of the subsidy is to root out the radicals, including the journalists demanding control over what the public watches.
Meanwhile, Trump has decided the media cannot be trusted to convey his message, which is a dangerous precedent. To fight back, news outlets with privileged access must demonstrate they are even handed. Like the BBC, their staff includes journalists who are anything but, but how big is this minority?
Relying on the Rich
Brian Armstrong is the CEO of Coinbase. Last week the SEC dropped charges against the crypto exchange, which is listed on the New York stock market. There were no grounds to go after it, other than pure partisan politics.
In 2020, Armstrong became a poster child for America getting back to business. Employees came to Town Hall meetings demanding to know the company’s stance on Black Lives Matter. Armstrong said he would get back to them and several hundred downed tools.
In June that year, Armstrong issued a statement against racism. In September, he announced his company would be a politics-free zone and offered severance to those who disagreed. What changed?
In conversation with The Free Press, Armstrong explains that his first instinct was to get people back to work. He then dug into Black Lives Matter and realised he could not support an organisation wanting to defund the police. He agonised over quitting the company he founded while engaging with employee groups. In doing, he uncovered a silent majority too scared to speak out.
Coinbase and other crypto companies do engage in politics. They were big financiers of the Trump campaign. Armstrong says politics has a place when the company’s survival depends on it. When we rely on business leaders to fight for our freedoms, we take the rough with the smooth.
Armstrong did not deny the right to political opinions, or bar supporters of Black Lives Matter from Coinbase. He said that its issues had nothing to do with the company’s mission and would not be part of its policy. 5% of Coinbase’s staff took severance. That’s a good guess as to the size of the radical element of society.
But why leave business leaders to fight this minority for us?
Our Responsibility
Free speech is a privilege. When we look around the world we see how limited it is. Our rights are granted within the confines of countries by the laws and traditions of its people. We must exercise them to keep them healthy.
If you come to a country you respect its laws and traditions. In the West, you may lobby to change laws and to speak in favour of new traditions. There is no obligation on others to listen and you have no right to be heard. Others may argue against you.
If your opinion is popular enough then you can change the laws of the land. In many countries constitutional amendments require a supermajority of elected officials and confirmation by the courts. This is to avoid the mob seizing control in a moment of madness.
The essence of freedom is opportunity. It is inevitable that this leads to unequal outcomes, and we elect governments to rebalance when the scales tip too far. When politics becomes too partisan, our elected officials lose sight of this obligation and no longer govern in the general interest. Freedom is lost.
Do you still have a voice if you refuse to speak? Free speech is a muscle that requires exercise to sustain it. This is hard when its opponents would shout you down. Yet if you don’t want the radical minority or big business to speak down to you, then you must speak up.
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” – attributed to Thomas Jefferson