What does the #DayForfFreedom mean in a wider context?
It’s too easy to dismiss a protect decrying limits to free expression as just a far-right gathering of different shades of hate. Dealing with why these political discussions are being controlled at the behest of private companies and perceived thought crimes is a far more challenging matter.
Thousands attended last Sunday’s #DayofFreedom in London, witnessing protestors flying national flags and holding placards in the name of free speech, specifically dismissing obfuscation of that speech. It came in the wake of Tommy Robinson’s social media account being permanently banned from Twitter, and I wasn’t the only non-white face there.
Robinson had called for the demonstration in response to Twitter’s decision to ban him for “hateful conduct” after he posted a message saying: “Islam promotes killing people.”
About 2,000–5,000 attendees were present and if anything the event proved-as Robinson reiterated constantly-that such a gathering and its political context is now a mainstream affair and that such censorship is injurious to public debate. You don’t like what someone says or argues? Then debate it, dismantle it, critique it, ridicule it academically-why ban it to avoid doing all those things?
These points were reiterated by a number of speakers including Breitbart London Editor Raheem Kassam, the leader of Ukip, Gerard Batten, the Vice magazine co-founder Gavin McInnes, the YouTube personality Sargon of Akkad, Anne Marie Waters of the political party For Britain and the former Breitbart senior editor Milo Yiannopoulos.
It doesn’t matter if you hate them all or dislike every single one of their view points, what does matter is that controlling political discussion is not okay to do it for one party but not for another. This is manipulation is it not, albeit it in the digital space?
I’m not going to go into whether agreeing with Tommy Robinson in any shape or form condones him to any extent but doesn’t he-as any one of those speakers at the event and members of the audience-have a right to speak and tweet freely, as well as to espouse the defence of that right? It is a right that must apply equally to the speaker as well as the subject he or she is railing against. For if freedom of expression is a right worth the paper it is written on then it should be indivisible. The law protects those where that right goes out of the realms of political discourse and veers off dangerously into an incitement to clear-often violent- action.
What of the argument that Twitter is a private enterprise, which has the right to eject any tweet if they wish, just because they don’t like what someone has to say? It goes beyond discretion when they are in fact a vessel for the state to exercise authoritarianism because it is politically expedient for them to do so. Their actions are informed by a belief by the British state that it’s okay to censor far-right content and to block conversation around it, no matter if people want to and are willing to listen to it.
If a discernible crime is being committed at the behest of that free speech-such as in the case of Islamist Anjem Choudary-then that is a matter for the law, not just for social media giants and a state that would rather shut you up and detain you rather than have the political will to listen to, dissect and debate your political point of view.
The world as it is today seemingly exists-to a greater extent that not- through social media platforms, they’ve become central to public discussion and debate. Without it, Donald Trump would probably lose a significant medium to communicate and the media would be at a loss, following how he conducts state business on Twitter and considering how ‘journalists’ these days compile entire reports by squeezing in freeze frames of entire Twitter and Facebook conversations.
These digital formats have become de facto public squares, a space where forums are debated, launched and are powerful enough to force multinationals to even change their business practices. So by banishing someone from a major social-media platform, you’re muzzling their ability to work politically in a modern world.
Given the power of this format, this muzzling is censorship pure and simple. Private companies are now deciding what’s hateful, what’s controversial and what’s problematic-just how patronising can you get?
