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Re:Freedom of speech is in retreat by makomk on Tuesday June 07, 2016 @11:49AM (#11855291)
The problem with this is that restrictions on "no-platforming, etc" are themselves restrictions on speech. Which makes the entire concept inconsistent and something that only provides freedom for the (usually right-wing) speech its proponent agrees with.

For example, recently a student got so offended with the politics of a poem in his campus newsletter he went to the office of a professor involved with producing it, demanding to know who "approved" it and refusing to leave (as though it was the duty of the university to protect him from such views). If a left-wing student had done this, we'd have seen all the familiar complaints about "outrage culture" and the death of "free speech" on campus, demands that the university punish him, etc. However, he was a right-wing activist objecting to left-wing content, so in the eyes of the same groups like FIRE etc this makes him a hero of student journalism who must be protected. There's no actual principles there; "free speech" is just a weapon of the right against the left, something that means freedom of right-wing views and freedom from left-wing ones.

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