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Opinion It is time to stop paying people to spread hate

Hit them where it hurts. When so-called ‘provocateur’ Milo Yiannopoulos overstepped the line, he lost his book deal and now he is reported to be heavily in debt, writes Kate O’Brien.

WE NEED TO have a conversation about free speech and no-platforming.

No-platforming is the idea of denying a ‘platform’ to a speaker deemed harmful or dangerous.

That platform could be a spot in a university debate, a newspaper column, a radio show, or a Twitter account. 

In 2011 a society in Trinity College Dublin invited then-leader of the BNP to a debate, which resulted in student protest and that invite being rescinded.

The objections to such protests, tend to cite the value of free speech, critics argue that to deny a platform to a racist or a misogynist sets a dangerous precedent, that it is a slippery slope towards silencing those we disagree with.

Where is the line?

For many people, the question is where do we draw the line?

I would argue that there is a huge difference between topics that people merely disagree on and speech that causes material harm.

Harmful speakers include those that contribute to rape culture or transphobia and those who draw comparisons between migration and infestation.

These ideas are dehumanising and normalise violence, and they are also harmful in and of themselves.

We each have a personal idea of what constitutes right and wrong, who should be protected and who we should object to. So we each have to judge how much harm something does and where the line is. 

Protests happen when a lot of people decide together that certain ideas are so harmful, or certain words so cruel, that we must organise ourselves to protest against the speaker in order to lessen their harm.

Free speech includes the right to protest.

Since Trump’s campaign and election in 2016, there has been an increase in Islamophobic and anti-Semitic violence in the USA.

Many scholars and commentators have drawn a link between the normalisation of anti-immigrant rhetoric and these increases in targeted violence. 

The rise of the far right on YouTube and Twitter has been linked to the increasing radicalisation of white youth. So we have to critically examine that link between racist rhetoric and racist violence.

And we have to also look at the role of less overtly violent, but dehumanising, language feeding into this normalisation.

Does YouTube have a responsibility to de-platform users who promote racism?

Recently in New Zealand, a white supremacist killed 50 people in a mosque. He was reportedly radicalised online and he announced his plans for the attack on the site 8chan.

8chan provides a completely anonymous, uncensored, un-moderated platform for white supremacists to encourage the worst in each other without any accountability.

Thankfully common sense has prevailed and the authorities in  Australia and New Zealand are now moving to block white supremacist-linked sites including 4chan and 8chan. 

No platforming works

Every time no-platforming is suggested, the idea is rejected on the grounds that people are being silenced and that free speech is at risk, or that this is some kind of  ‘liberal fascism’.

But by giving certain people a platform, we are actually amplifying their views.

We are also creating a space in which irrational hatred becomes normal, acceptable even, not just online but on TV and the radio too.

And these ‘provocateurs’ know that the more terrible they are, the more famous they will become.

The more extreme things they say the more money they make – be it from YouTube ad revenue or book deals.

The more outrageous the speech, the more clicks on the article. The more attention the article gets, the more profit and publicity generated for the paper.

So there is a monetary incentive to be more cruel and to outlets who platform cruelty.

Currently, we are not just allowing hateful speech, but encouraging it.

No-platforming is an attempt to de-incentivise hatred and the good news is that no-platforming works.

Take the so-called ‘provocateur’, British contributor, Milo Yiannopoulos who created a successful career, including several book deals with his ‘controversial’ comments. 

Yiannopoulous is famously Islamaphobic and at one of his talks, he projected a photo of a feminist writer, when she was a teenager, with the word UNFUCKABLE superimposed on top.

But it was only when Yiannopoulos made comments justifying paedophilia that he was finally judged to have overstepped the boundaries of the acceptable levels of ‘controversial’.

He then lost his book deal and stopped being invited to speak at universities and now he is reported to be heavily in debt. 

De-commodifying hate

Some people argue that it is best to allow these ideas to be platformed so that they can be crushed in a debate by others using superior logic, the problem is that most of these harmful ideas are not new. 

For centuries people have sprouted racist theories a but despite the fact that science has utterly refuted these theories and rational debaters have tried to highlight the flaws the hate-filled commentators continue.

What could we possibly learn from listening to this?

No one has an automatic right to a platform for hate.  You have the right to speak, but no one else is required to engage you seriously. 

When a private company, an organisation or a national broadcaster, platforms someone whose speech we see as harmful, we have a right to protest that decision. 

Furthermore, no one is required to pay for harmful opinions and refusing to pay for something is not censorship.

No-platforming is the radical idea that we shouldn’t pay people to be terrible.

No-platforming is a method of de-commodifying hatred.

I think most of us can agree that at least some ideas are dangerous. By refusing to platform hatred we send a simple message – I won’t pay you for that.

Kate O’Brien is a disability rights activist with a master’s in Human Rights Law from Queen’s University Belfast.

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    Mute Martin Sinnott
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    Apr 7th 2013, 8:50 AM

    Send them the report in the Irish language !

    62
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    Mute Ian Crowley
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    Apr 7th 2013, 9:40 AM

    Irish is considered an official language in the EU.

    AFAIK, all EU documents eventually get published (printed???) in every language for dissemination to the other member states.

    Not taking the piss but I believe there are a series of robots that deliver documents through out the EU building in Brussels that follow pre-programmed paths. The look like a cross between a shopping trolly and a 1950′s Sci-Fi “Future-Dog”.

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    Mute Keith O'Brien
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    Apr 7th 2013, 11:54 AM

    Wrong Council. Official COE languages are English and French.

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    Mute Damocles
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    Apr 7th 2013, 8:54 AM

    Of course they don’t care about the badgers, badgers aren’t bondholders. ;)

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    Mute skerriesred
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    Apr 7th 2013, 8:58 AM

    I thought that nobody knows who the bond holders are.
    Why couldn’t it be the badgers?

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    Mute Little Jim
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    Apr 7th 2013, 9:02 AM

    I thought that was the wombles of Wimbledon common.

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    Mute Dilcos
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    Apr 7th 2013, 9:30 AM

    Do Bondholders carry TB as well?

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    Mute Damocles
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    Apr 7th 2013, 12:27 PM

    “Why couldn’t it be the badgers?”

    Because then the government would be falling over backwards to help them.

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    Mute JibberIrish
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    Apr 7th 2013, 10:53 AM

    I think the Irish motorways are culling enough badgers.

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    Mute Dermot Fennelly
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    Apr 7th 2013, 8:39 AM

    That’s the least of our worries , I’m sure our friends in Europe have filed very detailed analysis

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    Mute Pádraig O'hEidhin
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    Apr 7th 2013, 8:46 AM

    Next they’ll want detailed analysis on the amount of tiddly-winks played on an annual basis.

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    Mute Figo murphy
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    Apr 7th 2013, 10:03 AM

    It’s not the least of the Badges problems

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    Mute Vinnie Bonar
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    Apr 8th 2013, 12:14 AM

    It’s an island… Why do they care?

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    Mute Maureen Ellen McGill
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    Apr 7th 2013, 9:55 PM

    article is about badger culling though one wouldn’t think so from the comments. Science has proved that killing badgers does not stop Bovine TB from spreading so let’s just give these guys a break and clean up best practice and hygienic farming.

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    Mute cormac
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    Apr 7th 2013, 11:57 AM

    European law my ass. Free trade across the eu? I just paid €3000 in vrt to bring a car in from the UK. We can choose which laws to enforce or not. I am not worried about a badger law. I’ve never seen as many of them in my life.

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    Mute Keith O'Brien
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    Apr 7th 2013, 12:12 PM

    It’s highly worrying that a secondary school teacher can’t distinguish between the EU and COE …. especially when that person claims to be interested in politics.

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    Mute Íde Mhic Gabhann
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    Oct 19th 2013, 9:25 AM

    Especially when the article refers to Bern

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    Mute Tom Kiely
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    Apr 7th 2013, 10:06 AM

    Next ill be telling Europe how many squares if toilet paper I use….but us as nation of sheep..I say no more

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    Mute Clifford Brennan
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    Apr 7th 2013, 11:19 AM

    Im sure we recently learned that EU wide agreements dont necessarily mean anything.

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    Mute John Burke
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    Apr 7th 2013, 1:06 PM

    I met a badger last night in the local, not bad looking either

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    Mute OU812
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    Apr 7th 2013, 9:25 AM
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    Mute Dermot Fennelly
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    Apr 7th 2013, 9:30 AM

    Let’s send them that

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    Mute Ian Crowley
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    Apr 7th 2013, 9:42 AM

    Thats fantastic. Nothing will ever be the same again….EVER!

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    Mute RP McMurphy
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    Apr 7th 2013, 12:00 PM

    ‘Russian dancing men’ also catchy!

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    Mute John Anthony Duignan
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    May 22nd 2013, 8:10 PM

    There is huge debate about this, the farming lobby think that these creatures spread TB to cows, many of us think that this a simplistic take on things. The debate is really that of industrial scale farming that has encroached up and indeed nearly wiped out the majority of Irish wildlife in the name maximizing profit per square meter of land, the hell with the cost to the natural environment and the diversity of wildlife that lives in tune with it. We on the environmental side of the debate feel that this kind wonton destruction has no justification whatsoever. Unfortunately the farm lobby is powerful in both finance and in terms of governmental representation and it is a bit of a battle.

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