
UK minister to tell universities to stop 'no-platforming' speakers - vixen99
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/dec/26/jo-johnson-universities-no-platforming-freedom-of-speech
======
naturalgradient
Reporting from Oxbridge:

This is a real issue but actually most people have reasonable notions of free
speech. It is just that the types that end up being
welfare/student/women/minority officers are extremely aggressively attacking
perceived attacks/hate speech/dissenters/traitors to the cause.

If anyone remembers the Tim Hunt story and the witch-hunt that followed (and
let us not forgot the role the Guardian played in peddling that), there was a
situation where Tim Hunt was supposed to give a speech at a college.

The women's officer was outraged and riled up freshers who where thoroughly
convinced that a man accused of making a sexist joke merely _speaking_ in a
room inside their college was a violation of their own safety, a phrase I
recall is 'The college is our home and our safe space'.

Most faculty/graduate students/undergrads are actually very reasonable and
want to hear dissenting opinions. The problem is just that most well-adjusted
people quickly tire of outrage-driven student politics, so it's left to the
ultra-aggressive types.

~~~
Baltoli
I was closely involved in this controversy at the time and I can attest to the
"loudest voice" problem where a small number of people magnified the situation
far beyond what it needed to be. Definitely surprised to see a comment
referring to it on HN more than 2 years on though!

~~~
naturalgradient
It stuck out with me because it made me realise that many students were not at
all emotionally well equipped to handle certain situations of adult life.

A problem here especially is how quickly anything done by the university is
framed as an attack on the mental health and safety of students.

For example, in a recent survey, students were asked about their mental health
issues. Examples of the university not being supportive enough were things
such as 'I was not given an extension on an essay'.

These incidents make me realise that a non-trivial fraction of this generation
of students really feels _intense_ emotional distress to a point of needing
counselling over things my generation would book under normal aspects of adult
life. In these cases, there is also little self-reflection on one's own
responsibility to handle such situations - everything is framed as an attack.

------
matthewmacleod
This is a meaningless dog-whistle comment by an incompetent minister. To my
knowledge, the OfS will have no real power to regulate student unions, which
are the primary organisations where “no-platforming” would be a policy, and
fining institutions for the behaviour of students unions is just dumb.

I think it’s utterly vital that controversial views are aired, and that
ludicrous fascist and racist views are publicly exposed to ridicule. But
student unions are private organisations, governed generally democratically,
and they must equally be free to decide on what policy they will take towards
external speakers. The “no platform” policy of the NUS which is mentioned in
the article is very narrow – it applies to six specified organisations, and
forbids the use of union premises, speaking at union events, and rules out
membership of those organisations for union officers.

Personally I don’t think it’s worth the cost, in particular because these
policies have muddied the debate with a lot of ill-informed misinformation
from every perspective - the various controversial speakers, for example, are
not subject to any “no-platform” policy, but have been excluded from
discussion based on the decisions of individual students.

Frankly the far bigger problem is the attitude of those individual students.
It’s been about a decade since I was at university, but even then the entire
sphere of student politics was filled with ill-informed reactionaries who had
very little tolerance for the idea that people might disagree with them while
not being evil. The idea of Peter Tatchell being excluded from a discussion of
gay rights is outright _ludicrous_ , and just reflects the bubble that these
folk tend to live in.

That’s the thing we should be worried about, rather than some bogus hand-
waving about safe-space policies that don’t actually exist and are just red
meat to the usual shit-stirrers.

~~~
PrimHelios
>and that ludicrous fascist and racist views are publicly exposed to ridicule

I agree, but putting those views on a platform where they are heard more than
the views of the people they're attacking is absolute horse shit. Why is it
perfectly fine to give platforms to people spouting Nazi talking points, or
transphobia/homophobia/racism, but the minorities those people are saying
should be killed aren't given anywhere near as high a platform by
universities? If you're going to give a platform to people spouting bigotry
and bullshit, you have to give even more of a platform to the people
peacefully talking about why they shouldn't be killed just for being alive.

~~~
LV-426
I've seen some strange downvoting here, but what's this about?

They simply argue that hate speakers should not be given as much time as their
targets/potential victims/people not advocating hate, and their post is
virtually white.

And none of the people who downvoted put their name to it by making an
argument/reply/rebuttal.

~~~
PrimHelios
It's Hacker News, where everything is somehow free speech and if you disagree
with extremist conservatism, you're the enemy! /sarcasm

In all seriousness though, HN has an echo chamber, it's the inverse of Reddit.
Reddit and HN function very similarly with their voting systems, and everyone
knows Reddit is an extreme-left shithole, but HN is getting more conservative,
I've definitely seen a lot more comments that are low-effort and look like
they could be from T_D now that Reddit is banning a fuck-ton of them for
brigading. Give it a few years and I guarantee this becomes T_Dv2 (or at least
a lot more like /pol/).

~~~
LV-426
Yes, it's sad that while so much is discouraged here, far-right/racist
comments or voting by certain users is tolerated.

Seems like I have at least one such user following me around now, downvoting
my comments (my anti-racist comments anyway) in different threads.

We'll see if they anonymously announce themselves with this post too.

Edit: And right on cue, the test produces a result: mere _minutes_ after
making this post - _two_ more downvotes, including a post already downvoted.

So either someone is keeping themselves awake 24/7 to religiously reload a
dead thread, or my comments page, using multiple accounts to downvote (which
while completely insane is still flattering), or it's a bot with no limit (for
reasons that can only be guessed at) that checks for new posts and downvotes
automatically.

(Perhaps more tests are needed, I can then write a Medium and submit the
results here.)

Either way it's an interestingly hostile response to someone commenting about
far-right/racist users at Hackernews.

~~~
PrimHelios
Yeah, someone's definitely following you, my response wasn't downvoted at all.

Some people are so childish.

------
insickness
This is probably a step in the right direction since, in my estimation, there
is a clear bias against conservative speakers at universities. However, this
is still government forcing people to allow certain kinds of speech. That's
the other side of the coin of the government disallowing certain kinds of
speech. In the UK, people are getting jail time for posting speech deemed
offensive on social media. Both involve delineations best left out of the
hands of government. I wouldn't want to see the government force free speech
or punish offensive speech on privately-owned platforms like Facebook, Twitter
or Hacker News. But when it comes to publicly-funded universities there may be
no way around this.

~~~
DanBC
> In the UK, people are getting jail time for posting speech deemed offensive
> on social media.

Please could you link to some of these cases? Because in almost all of the
ones I've seen it's been someone making threats of violence, not just being
offensive.

~~~
dogma1138
The most basic google search would show that’s not the case; rude and racist
remarks sure but not actionable threats.

Section 127 of the communications act is an abomination.

~~~
DanBC
Please link to any cases. So far when anyone has linked a case it's turned out
(with one exception) to be someone making very many direct, credible, threats
of harm, or engaging in a campaign of harassment.

But those cases got widespread, mostly american, coverage of the attack on
free speech. Those sites are wrong.

~~~
supreme_sublime
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu47muw--
A4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu47muw--A4)

This guy in the UK has been in court for 2 years for making this video. It is
an obvious joke, yet the crown is acting like he is a secret Nazi trying to
use his dog to convert people into extremism.

------
maxehmookau
Whatever your views on this, it has to be seen through the lens of the
Conservative government in the UK hiking tuition fees and overseeing the
biggest rise in university executive pay in a generation. It's nothing more
than misdirection to take attention away from the things that real students
_actually_ care about. The majority of undergraduate students in the UK
probably don't even care one way or the other.

------
StudentStuff
I'm not keen on safe spaces, the harsh reality is your going to run into a
broad range of people with varying views and a variety of degrees of sanity,
better to let them have a shitty little backroom at UW and not give them a
good story to take to the media that an insane mofo got banned from a college
for spreading hate down there.

Throwing media attention at those who seek to push us gays back into the
closet is counterproductive, akin to fanning a flame. Milo and his ilk love to
be no platformed, as it makes for great PR when they can say "Blah college
banned us, how dare they!".

Suppression of ideas doesn't work, let them die in the brutal, harsh light of
public discussion and debate. With free media attention and a stunted
discussion, this will only continue to snowball.

Building walls never works, unless you prop them up!

~~~
anon1385
>Throwing media attention at those who seek to push us gays back into the
closet is counterproductive, akin to fanning a flame. Milo and his ilk love to
be no platformed, as it makes for great PR when they can say "Blah college
banned us, how dare they!".

Quite a few of the people involved already have a 'platform' writing for major
national or international publications[1], or regularly featuring on TV. So
yes it does give them something else to moan about in their regular newspaper
column, but I'm not sure it makes all that much difference to how much
attention they get. The media is already pretty much saturated with people
like Germain Greer, and they are all very adept at generating controversy to
promote themselves without outside help - that's how they got where they are
today.

That's the irony of this really - it's a bunch of people with the biggest
megaphone imaginable complaining that they have been silenced because people
didn't want to come to/host their utterly insignificant student debate. The
fact that such an insignificant thing has become a major story is evidence of
just how loud their voices are, sadly.

[1] there are other people being 'no platformed' as well, but I'm not sure the
government/Daily Mail is really suggesting they want to force universities to
host Abu Hamza al-Masri or face fines

------
kgraves
Good. The purpose of going to university other than getting an eduation is to
have your views challenged by people you don't agree with.

~~~
boyce
People have differing objectives when they go to university

~~~
scotty79
Should anybody beside them care?

~~~
boyce
Not sure what other members only clubs beside SUs the government thinks it can
interfere with the running of

------
guuz
I consider myself a free speech proponent, but I do not feel comfortable with
fines. Groups that defend/want to hear unpopular opinions should organize
themselves to oppose hysterical speech and to guide the debate to a less
aggressive rhetoric. Is it an ideal and distant solution? Maybe, but is better
than official coercion. There must be a way, most people are not downright
hostile to controversy.

Edit: I do think that welcoming some ideas is a waste of time, or perhaps
dangerous (fascism, for example). But I cannot see why Peter Tatchell is an
imminent danger.

~~~
dgudkov
>Groups that defend/want to hear unpopular opinions should organize themselves
to oppose hysterical speech

That's exactly how Charlottesville happened.

~~~
guuz
No, it is not. One can easily destroy nazi-fascism without being apocaliptic,
and I think that welcoming this ideology in universities is a waste of time,
as I said earlier.

The Charlottesville guys were not trying to engage in an educated debate or
expose their opinions to scrutiny, their creed does not accommodate the very
idea of dissent. Few among them [edit: previously " Few fascists"] are brave
or patient enough to be civilized. Groups like theirs generally value shock
tactics and its meeting was mainly conceived as a demonstration of power.

Like-minded people, good or bad, will reunite and some groups will use the US
free speech laws to propagate their hate and attract more followers. It is a
very different scenario than polemic opinions being treated like a
civilizational hazard in England (or elsewhere). Gay rigths, desegragation and
many other ideas now taken for granted were once unpopular. History does not
moves always forward and everyone that values freedom needs caution when
considering politics regulating speech - they can be used for nefarious
purposes or create unexpected precedents.

[Edit: formatting and grammar]

------
DanBC
The National Union of Students has a reasonable list of banned organisations.

Al Muhajiroun; British National Party (BNP); English Defence League (EDL);
Hizb ut Tahir; Muslim Public Affairs Committee; National Action

Some of these are proscribed organisations in the UK, eg
[https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-action-
becomes-f...](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-action-becomes-
first-extreme-right-wing-group-to-be-banned-in-uk)

The problem is that local branches go much further, and ban many more people.

~~~
saint_fiasco
Is the British National Party an actual political party? If so, it does not
seem reasonable to me that they are banned, unless they ban all political
parties.

Favoring some political parties over others should not be allowed.

~~~
DanBC
I think the very small list is reassuring. They're not banning all extreme
right wing parties. UKIP isn't on the list, for example.

~~~
frou_dh
What rating out of 10 does "extreme" denote in terms of right-itude?

"far" seems to start at about 3/10.

~~~
DanBC
Like I say, they haven't banned UKIP (which is seen as a strongly right wing
group), but they have banned the BNP.

If the bans started at 3/10 then UKIP would definitely be banned.

BNP members went on to form paramilitary organisations that are linked to the
murder of immigrants.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_18](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_18)

> Combat 18 is an openly neo-Nazi group that is devoted to violence and is
> hostile to electoral politics, and for this reason Sargent [ _the founder of
> Combat 18_ ] split decisively from the BNP in 1993.

------
PrimHelios
That's not how free speech works. FS protects your right to say things. A
university telling you you aren't welcome for whatever reason isn't in
violation of that right.

------
emn13
This title is misleading - can it be corrected to the actual title of the
article?

Because at issue isn't any ban on free speech, it's whether it's OK to ban
invited speakers expected e.g. to incite harassment, bigotry, or violence. And
obviously there's a grey area there, but it's certainly no restrain on the
message _at all_ \- merely the platform (not that that's irrelevant, but the
distinction isn't irrelevant either), and I kind of doubt you'd want to
provide a platform to _everything_ regardless of what kind of hate speech
they're spouting. There's a fine line between a constructive diversity of
opinions, including ones you don't agree with, and giving a microphone to
those saying nothing new, where the primary draw isn't the message itself, but
the drama and tribalism surrounding it.

~~~
vixen99
No, it isn't misleading. "Universities could face fines for failing to uphold
free speech if their student unions do not give a platform to speakers such as
Germaine Greer and Peter Tatchell, the higher education minister has said.".
Such behaviour if it occurred would be 'disallowing free speech' and might be
dealt with accordingly as described in the article.

Your second paragraph epitomises the problem highlighted by the minister. It
seems that you seek to judge free speech by considerations aside from its
legality. I am not aware that Voltaire added a qualification to "I disapprove
of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".

~~~
emn13
It's misleading not because it's false (it's not!), but because it's
selectively leaving out context. The original title is better. I'm not saying
there's no free speech dimension here, just that the original (since-
corrected) hacker-news title was more click bait than accurate summary.

------
boyce
When I was a student I was no fan of "no platform" and it was an important
factor in the No to NUS campaign I led back then. BUT...

Universities and student unions foremost reponsibility is to the safety of the
students and yes that can mean stopping the odd event.

Also unions are generally mandated to uphold an atmosphere of inclusion and
tolerance and that certainly means going further than the legal minimum in
rejecting hate.

~~~
felsish
It's not so much "no platforming" as "my platforming" now, purely territorial
aggression from self-proclaimed moral guardians that will cut out anyone who
disagrees, marginally offends or even ignores them. It's the very definition
of a "toxic" person: every community they touch is divided and destroyed from
the inside.

~~~
boyce
Student unions aren't dictatorships

They're a great environment in which young folks can have these debates with
minimal consequences

