_Corey Davidson is a junior journalism major at MU. He is an opinion columnist who writes about student life and politics for The Maneater._
The most important word of the First Amendment is not “speech,” nor is it “press” or even “free.” Instead, “the” establishes the most powerful message. In saying “the” free exercise, the Constitution asserts that the freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition precede the government. These freedoms are innate and have existed long before the creation of the United States.
This was brought to my attention in a speech by Austin Petersen last April in Memorial Student Union. Mizzou TPUSA brought in Petersen to speak about liberty, current events and the Republican establishment at large.
His tidbit about “the” really resonated with the crowd, and got me thinking about the First Amendment. I would argue that the purpose of free speech is not to protect the speech of the popular opinions, but the unpopular ones.
According to an article by the History network, freedom of speech has been discussed since at least the end of the fifth century B.C. The ancient Greeks often wrote about “parrhesia” meaning “free speech” or “to speak candidly” as being an integral part to their democracy.
This allowed Greek citizens to discuss religion, politics and the affairs of their government without the fear of being silenced. At a fundamental level, the First Amendment does that for us Americans, too.
Freedom of speech is important to political discourse, especially today. I find it incredibly alarming to see widespread support of deplatforming or censorship.
I point to Milo Yiannopoulos’ fervent opposition at UC-Berkeley in 2017.
Although I personally detest many of Yiannopoulos’ provocations, such as his affiliation with the alt-right and comments that were violent towards journalists, I respect his right to free speech.
The verbal political discussion that Yiannopoulos was not afforded would have been a much better alternative to the multiple bloody brawls that ensued from alt-righters and Antifa alike. It was ironic that the group claiming to be the anti-fascists engaged in physical violence to silence somebody during Free Speech Week.
This event speaks to an important distinction: People shouldn’t necessarily say whatever they want, but they should be able to.
Nobody defines this principle more than Alex Jones, the creator and most active contributor of Infowars.
Recently, Jones and most Infowars accounts were banned from participating on Twitter for abusive behavior. Twitter has been catching a lot of critique recently for its supposed politically charged censorship, even from President Donald Trump. If this is true, it’s a problem.
When bringing up people like Jones or Yiannopoulos, hate speech is a big concern and the subject of many court cases and public discussion. I assert that there should be no law prohibiting any speech, rather it be enforced by way of unwritten social contract. One would be allowed to speak hatefully, but encouraged not to do so by social ostracism instead of state prosecution.
As a publicly-traded company, Twitter and its top shareholders should have a right to operate their platform any way they want. However, this doesn’t free them from criticism.
Paul Joseph Watson put it best in a 2016 tweet, asserting that Twitter and Facebook’s compliance with other governments’ more restrictive speech laws invalidate their supposed impartiality.
As Twitter is becoming more and more of a forum for public discourse, I think it is becoming an important platform for discussion. Your average person is looking to online sources for their news and opinions; Twitter should foster an open marketplace to form them. And, as it stands, they’re not doing that.
Gab.ai has become a rising, but still small rival, to Twitter. Gab touts its tolerance for free speech no matter who is speaking, and has become a sort of refuge for Twitter users who fear silencing.
Censoring people’s work, even if it’s offensive, is destructive to the potential conversations they can raise.
“Night,” a memoir by Elie Wiesel about his survival of the Holocaust, has been pulled from some school curriculums. Students at Los Cerritos Middle School in California, for example, will miss out on an important perspective of one of the greatest atrocities of all time because their administration decided it was too graphic. This sort of censorship is incredibly unnerving.
Free speech is for everyone. Not just for the majority party, not just for the left or the right and not just for the winners. Even if the speech is foolish, offensive or misleading, it should not be prohibited. If freedom of speech is lost, the agency of our populace will be lost with it.