Banning Speech Isn’t a Threat to Democracy

The case against free speech absolutism

A lot of ignorance about free speech and its history has developed. The free speech absolutism promoted by Elon Musk is a symptom of this. In most ways, it will undermine rather than enhance freedom of expression. Of course, Elon Musk didn’t invent this concept, but it is rather become a popular banner for many who don’t want the hate speech challenged. Ironically, people who are not committed to free speech at all but who are eager to ban anything they don’t like, especially if it is speech advocating some kind of marginalized group they dislike. What is going on here? Everyone says they favor free speech, but evidently have very different ideas of what that entails.

To understand better, it helps to put free speech in a historical context. Free speech advocacy historically grew out of the difficulty of criticizing the rich and the powerful. The elite controlled the speech and made sure they were immune to criticism. For a society, that meant that the common people, the poor and the weak were deprived of a voice. They could be squashed and abused without any way to really speak out against their oppression.

Thus, the history of free speech is intrinsically linked to the ability to speak truth to power. It is for those at the bottom to challenge those at…