"Don't be a jerk" doesn't seem draconian to me. The people I see whining about their speech having consequences (ie, Milo) are usually aiming to offend. They aren't running into obscure codes, they're being jerks for fun and profit.
My college had an atheist club that hung up a banner saying "Religion is for the feeble minded" - that's offensive to billions of people.
Can we shut them down and boot them off campus?
My college also had communist clubs with communist slogans - many of my extended family were killed by communists so that's obviously offensive.
Can we shut them down and boot them off campus?
> The people I see whining about their speech having consequences (ie, Milo) are usually aiming to offend.
By the time people like Milo come along hundreds of legitimate speakers have already been silenced - that's how people like Milo realize it's an easy and lucrative market to take advantage of.
That's a bad comparison. Clubs like those, especially at a public college actually ARE protected by the 1st amendment. You can choose not to join, but cannot prevent them from meeting. The only thing the school can do is limit the non-student guests a club brings, and even that power is typically limited to in cases of security concerns, which can often be remedied if the club helps foot the costs for increased security (see: UW Milo visit where counter protestor was shot)
Twitter and Reddit and the like are public platforms that belong to a private entity. So it's private property and the people who own it can curate or be selective if they choose.
All that said, I'm no fan of "no-platforming", but it's not as prominent as you might think, at least on the public college level. I went to a college where random fire and brimstone preachers would stand in front of the library, bang on buckets and call women "whores" as they passed by. Nobody invited them, they just wanted an audience. And though I hated those guys, I understand their right to do that (with a permit) and to say whatever. Likewise, it was my right to laugh in his face, call him an asshole. Because he was being a jerk.
> That's a bad comparison. Clubs like those, especially at a public college actually
I feel like we have our wires crossed - the parent was talking about university/college policy and not social media.
I'm saying if universities/colleges want to police speech for any offensive content then they need to apply the policy uniformly and ban the atheist and communist clubs.
> but it's not as prominent as you might think, at least on the public college level.
I think the crazy preachers are a bad example - a normal person who just wants to give an interesting talk does not want to put up with screaming protestors. They don't want the stress. They don't have a security detail. Etc.
The people who don't mind are the crazy preachers and the people who get paid for controversy like Milo.
