There is a leftist activist out there who has gained for herself the dubious reputation as a censorious individual who, along with other activists of her acquaintance, has been an open foe of the concept of freedom of speech. This person Roanna Carleton-Taylor of a small but noisy Left wing organisation called ‘Resisting Hate’, has used her numerous platforms, outlets and the facilities provided by some of her associates, such as,in the past, the Tell Mama organisation, to attack those who disagree with her politics and allegedly attempt to de-platform them. Ms Carleton-Taylor is the very model of a modern neo-Marxist in that she believes that freedom of speech should be curtailed and controlled. She also pushes the morally and ethically dodgy concept of ‘hate speech’.
As I said Ms Carleton-Taylor has a lot of potential outlets for her writing and her opinions, yet she would deny such platforms and outlets for others when they hold views that run counter to her own. One outlet that has given Ms Carleton-Taylor a platform is the Huffington Post and in this article, which I have reproduced below with comments, she argues that: ‘Hate Speech is not Free Speech’.
In this post I will challenge Ms Carleton-Taylor’s ideas and this article will incorporate both her article and my comments. Ms Carleton-Taylor’s original Huffington Post text is in italics whereas my comments are in plain text. I will also endeavour to ‘play the ball and not the woman’ in this piece and avoid too many character attacks on her. I do this even though it has been in my experience that many of those involved with or who are supportive of the ‘Resisting Hate’ group, have not extended such a courtesy to their opponents. If readers want background to some of the dubious activities and contacts of the Resisting Hate group, then I can recommend Nick Monroe’s article on Ms Carleton-Taylor and her associates which can be found here. There is much that Ms Carleton-Taylor can be criticised for but here I choose to concentrate on her censorious attitudes to speech.
Ms Carleton-Taylor said:
The no platforming of far-right white supremacist hate site Gab.ai last week reignited social media’s favourite debate topic of free speech v hate speech.
We do not have to go more than one sentence into Ms Carleton-Taylor’s article to find something that could reasonably be described as an error bordering on a falsehood. The description of Gab as a “ far-right white supremacist hate site” is wholly inaccurate. Whilst I will concede that there are neo-Nazi fraggles on there, such people are openly opposed by the more normal and decent users of Gab. Also many of us Gab users mute the nutters and carry on talking to other users of this platform who are in the main quite OK and decent people.
It has been my experience with open communication systems ranging from the modern day internet, via Usenet to CB radio, that any free speech space will attract arseholes as well as those who are not. These can be political arseholes or personal arseholes but they have just as much right to speak as do those who are not so generally objectionable. One thing that Ms Carleton-Taylor is leaving out of her extremely warped description of Gab is the fact that there are far more Jews on Gab than it would take to make a prayer quorum or Minyan, I’ve definitely seen more than ten Jews on that platform and that fact sits uneasy with the author’s claims about Gab and her description of it.
As regards the debate between free speech vs hate speech, for me the answer is clear and that there is no such thing as hate speech, as everyone’s speech about any subject could be seen as being ‘hateful’ by others. The Jewish rejection of the claimed divinity of Jesus offends some Christians for example and I can guarantee that nearly every other strongly held view sparks similar levels of offence in those who are in disagreement with them. The Jewish view of the nature of Jesus could be seen as hateful by Christians, however it is not, it is merely an alternative interpretation of the Jesus story). Similarly, those who question the behaviour of the man whom Muslims claim is a prophet, Mohammed, are probably mortally offended by the publicisation of the more unsavoury aspects of both this figure’s life, and similar information about those who have followed Mohammed’s example.
Both of these examples which encompass Christianity, Judaism and Islam, cause offence to someone,both of them could be conceivably judged as ‘hate speech’ yet they are both statements that must plainly come into the category of free speech. We must be free to debate matters that are important, such as religion, politics, culture and the human condition as that is how we grow intellectually as a species. I truly believe that the best way to deal with bad ideas is to challenge them or at the very least learn about them to see which one of them could be a real life threat to you and yours in the future. We cannot challenge bad ideas and we cannot inform ourselves about them, if they are hidden or driven underground by well meaning but censorious people like Roanna Carleton-Taylor.
Gab was taken offline after it was shown that the perpetrator of the Pittsburgh shooting was using the site as a platform to share his anti-Semitic views and to gain validation for his hate from the echo chamber of anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim prejudice that Gab had become notorious for. Shooter Robert Bowers even used the platform to announce his attack only minutes before opening fire inside a Synagogue.
Again Ms Carleton-Taylor is being very selective here. There have been a number of atrocities committed by individuals across the world over recent decades. Those who have carried them out have done them for a variety of different reasons. Some of these reasons were political or religious and others were not. People have committed atrocities like Pittsburgh for all sorts of reasons from mental illness to racialism, from revenge and for the perverted thrill of killing. In many of these cases, the killers have had a social media presence of some form or another on places like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I have watched Ms Carleton-Taylor’s writing for a while now and I don’t recall her calling for the shutdown of any of these mainstream platforms following atrocities committed by individual users of these platforms. However, I have seen her call for censorship, but then censorship as many may be aware by now, is her schtick.
The reactions of fellow ‘Gab’ members in the immediate aftermath of the shooting made for desperate reading. The celebratory posts and the gleeful support for this atrocity were indicative of the climate of hate on Gab that I had been monitoring for several months.
I have a word for such people and that is ‘wankers’. I mute them or challenge them, they are loud but unimportant to me in the great scheme of things. They may be idiots but even idiots have the right to speak their brains, what they’ve got of them. Mute, mock and challenge are how adults deal with such people, not with censorship. I don’t recall seeing Ms Carleton-Taylor or her group active on Gab and actively challenging the neo-Nazis. when I have seen the Resisting Hate group on Gab or accounts that I presume to be the Resisting Hate group or its supporters, the main targets have been conservatives, Tommy Robinson supporters and people who say unpleasant but sometimes true things about Islam, I’ve never seen this group go after the genuine neo-Nazis. If Ms Carleton-Taylor really was serious about ‘resisting hate’ then she and her crew would be much more active than they have been in going after the ‘kill the Jews types and challenging their ideas.
Gab was set up by founder Andrew Torba as a supposed haven for free speech. The motto of the site is ‘speak freely’.
This facility has been very welcome for those who have the misfortune to live in countries where there is little or no real freedom of speech
The site attracted individuals and groups who had been banned for offensive speech across other social media platforms, including high profile figures like Twitter suspended Milo Yiannopolous and convicted fraudster Stephen Yaxley Lennon.
The great irony here is that the reason why Gab has become a haven for those who wish to speak freely is because they have been driven to Gab and other alternative social media by the censorious actions of groups like Resisting Hate. It is censorious Left wingers who refused to debate with those they disagreed with and instead called for the removal of accounts that they found ‘offensive’ that have created Gab. Gab is a creation of the left’s policy of censoring ideas that they disagree with. Ms Carleton-Taylor lambastes Gab for its free speech policy yet it was her group’s actions, in calling for censorship and working with groups like Tell Mama that are also favourable to censorship, that helped to create the exodus of former Twitter users to Gab. Gab is an unintended consequence of leftist censorship.
As regards her comments on Milo Yiannopolous and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (Tommy Robinson) Ms Carleton-Taylor is leaving out the information that Milo was banned not for his own actions but the actions of some of his followers, people who he had no direct control over. She’s correct that Mr Robinson has a fraud conviction, but again she is being selective with the actualite, as this fraud was I believe was related to inaccuracies in connection with a self certificated mortgage, something that others have done but have not been imprisoned for. When self certificated mortgages, sometimes up to 100% or more of the value of a property, were a thing many people, not just Mr Robinson, were being less than honest on their mortgage applications but did not serve time in gaol for doing so.
Gab was marketed as an environment where speech would not be censored and, in particular, as a place where right wing and conservative views would not be silenced (the far right erroneously believe that mainstream media and established social media sites like Facebook and Twitter intentionally censor conservative voices.)
Here we have another inaccuracy and another example of this author playing fast and loose with the truth. The censorship of the right on legacy social media is not an erroneous belief of the ‘far right’, as Ms Carleton-Taylor claims, but is something that is eminently provable. Mainstream news outlets like USA Today have admitted that such censorship exists, the non extreme conservatives of the You Tube Prager University Channel have also been hit by censorship and the President of the United States himself has expressed concern over this issue. Also others, outside of the conservative current, such as the Liberalist Sargon of Akkad have also, in various videos, commented on the problem of conservative voices being silenced by Big Tech. In addition former employees of these companies such as one at Facebook have also claimed that conservative voices have been restricted. We also have the Damore incident which has exposed a great deal of Leftist thinking at Google, the type of thinking that may influence the technical side of the company and thereby how it manages its web searches. I have to say that there is much more evidence that there is censorship of conservatives on legacy social media than there is to back up Ms Carleton-Taylor’s claim that this censorship is a ‘far right myth’.
The site quickly degenerated into a cesspit of trolling, Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, Racism and anti LGBT prejudice.
In other words a place where people could speak freely. What Ms Carleton-Taylor is complaining about is the very concept of freedom off speech itself. This concept, this unalienable right, is not just there so that those with comfortable, socially acceptable views can use it, but also so those with ‘out there’ ideas can use it as well. We have to let the bad people with bad ideas speak so that they can be challenged and ultimately discredited by better people with better ideas. Because of this I tend to agree with those who say that the way to deal with speech that is hateful is more free speech to counter such utterances.
It was the site on which Jonathan Jennings (recently jailed for 16 months) posted his death threats toward Jeremy Corbyn, Gina Miller, myself and others. High profile events were reported with bias and lies – I documented this racist response (unmoderated by the platform) to the Royal Wedding.
Credible threats of death do not come into the category of freedom of speech anywhere in the world and certainly not in the United States where they are not First Amendment protected speech. Threat to kill has also been an offence at least since the UK Offences Against the Person Act 1861 which quite obviously predates Gabs existence. As for the comments on the Royal Wedding and in particular the Duchess of Sussex, yes I admit they are in my opinion over the top, but I would not ban people for saying such things, I just choose not to associate with them and, along with others, if possible try to challenge their ideas. When I saw the attacks on the Duchess of Sussex on the grounds that she is mixed race, I just classified the attacker as a ‘wanker’,muted them and moved on. This is the adult way to approach and deal with such wankers.
The exposure of the extremism on Gab led to support for it being pulled by payment providers PayPal and Stripe, domain owner Go Daddy and Server Host Joyent. This effectively closed down the site. Andrew Torba vowed the site would be up and running again and it has since found a new host Epik. But Torba has perhaps failed to comprehend that every law enforcement agency in the world will now be watching it. Gab if not yet actually dead is certainly in its death throes.
If I was Ms Carleton-Taylor I would not be in too much of a hurry to count her chickens before they are hatched. The site’s outage has given it a boost and a greater impetus to exploit emerging technologies to evade the sort of infrastructure problems that have recently been an issue for Gab. I’ve noticed a great many more people using the site and also a lot more of what could be called ordinary people, curious as to what Gab is about who have signed up to enjoy their own freedom of speech. Gab never was, as Ms Carleton-Taylor erroneously claims, ‘a far right hate site’ but it does have some users whose views are quite pungent, however these more ‘out there’ users are getting steadily more diluted as more normal people flock to the platform to escape the censorship they feel under at places like Twitter. Ms Carleton-Taylor may be very surprised to know that there are a good deal of other views apart from ‘white nationalism’ expressed on Gab. Gab users are Christians, Jews, conservatives, liberals, gays, black people, white people, ex Muslims, atheists and many others from different groups. I would like to invite Ms Carleton-Taylor to come to Gab and openly defend her claim that ‘hate speech is not free speech’ and we shall see what transpires shall we? I suspect that she and her associates would lose such a debate comprehensively.
There has been a backlash on social media relating to the shutdown of Gab with many complaints that de-platforming a social media site is in violation of the American constitution, namely the first amendment – the right to the freedom of speech.
It is my contention that this backlash has been justified. It was wrong to de-platform Gab when other platforms have also had violent nutters as users but have not faced such a sanction.
It is my view that hate speech does not constitute free speech.
I’m afraid it does. This is because any speech can be seen as hateful to someone else if you push the ‘hate speech’ envelope far enough. Any opinion no matter how mild from any critic of any religion, political current or ideology, can be taken as ‘hateful’ by the recipient. This is why hate speech is also free speech and that hate speech laws dangerous to societies that wish to have free speech as part of its culture.
I do not believe that the freedom to speak should involve the right to abuse other people, to post their private information and to call for violence and mass genocide against them.
Freedom of speech most certainly involves the right to abuse people and their ideas. Although I try to be as polite as necessary in life, we do not challenge bad people and bad ideas by being overly polite to them or their ideas. Threats of violence and threat to kill as I have said earlier lie outside of the bounds of freedom of speech and doxing is illegal under many jurisdictions. As regarding those who call for genocide, well like Ms Carlton-Taylor, I despise such people but not only do I believe in arguing back at them, I also want to know how they think and why they think the way they do. I want to know who my enemies are, who they are talking to and what they are talking about. It is only by knowing my enemy’s mind that I can properly prepare to defend myself against them.
To put this in terms that the far right will understand. I detest Donald Trump. I believe I have the right to express my opinions of his politics on any platform of my choice. I have the right both on American and British soil to criticise the man, the decisions he makes and the impact he is having on both his own country and the world.
Firstly Donald Trump is not ‘far right’, he’s a conservative as are many of his supporters. I also agree that Ms Carleton-Taylor does have the right to criticise the man and his policies, but her next statement is one about which I cannot agree.
I do not have the right to assume that every Christian holds the same beliefs as Trump and I do not have the right to demonise the faith by seeking to use one individual as a representative of it.
Oh yes she does. It’s called freedom of speech. To classify every Christian as a Trump supporter is as fallacious as saying that every Islamic group is linked to terrorism but she should have the right to say this. Ms Carleton-Taylor has the perfect right to say that all Christians are Trumpists, but because she would be wrong, this would be pointed out to her pretty quickly, along no doubt with a great deal of evidence to prove that fact.
I do not have the right to find private information and pictures of Republicans who support Trump and post them over the internet with calls for people who agree with my politics rather than theirs to commit violence against them.
I think that you will find that it is the Left that has been engaging in this tactic recently, more often than not, most notably with the attempted home invasion at the Fox News contributor Tucker Carlson’s residence.
I do not have the right to accuse Republicans with whom I disagree as being ‘paedophiles’ and circulate their pictures with this accusation in public forums.
If people make statements that are obviously wrong then correct them. Like Ms Carleton-Taylor I also despise those who make fake paedo accusations, such those behind the Pizzagate conspiracy theory and the Hampstead Satanic Ritual Abuse hoax, not only are these claims morally wrong and damaging to individuals, but they also divert attention away from real abuse cases. However, I think the best way to deal with this problem is to discredit those behind the hoaxes publicly and, if necessary and possible, go to law and sue for libel.
I do not have the right to call for Trump supporters to be harmed, abused, violated or killed.
Credible threats of violence and murder have never been a part of freedom of speech.
Simply put, expressing my views is free speech, abusing others is hate speech.
I disagree, sometimes abusing others either for their character or their views or their actions is an intrinsic aspect of freedom of speech.
All of these examples I have provided are genuine illustrations of how the members of Gab.ai have conducted themselves in the past, using the guise of free speech to excuse themselves from posting threats, abuse and hatred that create an environment where the weak minded are radicalised into far-right extremism.
Selectivity with the facts is something that has characterised a lot of this article by Ms Carleton-Taylor on the subject of Gab. She fails to mention that there are those on Gab (including many who have been banned from Twitter) who take on the neo-Nazi dickheads and ridicule them. Gab is not only for neo-Nazis, it’s for anyone who wants to speak freely.
Their supporters will tell you ‘it is only words’ but these words created the conditions that led to Robert Bowers massacring innocent people at worship in a Synagogue.
It is ‘only words’,what matters and what needs to be dealt with are actions. Robert Bowers would have killed Jews whether or not Gab had existed. He had his own demons inside himself that made him act the way that he did.
Death and violence are the real life consequences that result from hate speech.
Not necessarily. Correlation is often not indicative of causation. I can listen to and read the most excoriating hatred of Muslims, some of which may include calls for the mass murder of Muslims, but I do not act on these words, I don’t have the inclination to do so. I also understand that although Islam is in my opinion a disgusting, disgraceful and oppressive ideological system, I know that not every Muslim supports such things every aspect of this ideology. I know the difference between words and actions as do many other Gab users. Ms Carleton-Taylor seems to be suggesting that social media and indeed society as a whole be censored to such an extent that it does not trigger the weak minded into immoral action. This is a very Victorian attitude to take to be quite frank. Should adults who wish to debate sometimes contentious issues be forbidden to do so merely because of one raving nutcase? I don’t think that should be the case. The majority should not be punished for the actions of the murderer Bowers.
Gab supporters are missing the point. Nobody is trying to silence free speech.
Oh but some are trying to silence freedom of speech. Not only do we have the examples I’ve given above, there is also the example of the behaviour of the Resisting Hate group themselves who have been steadfast in their pursuit of censorship. I have also noticed that they only seem to go after certain types of speech and they do this in a very selective manner. I’ve yet to see Resisting Hate go after the thugs of Antifa, nor am I seeing them getting stuck in and taking on via debate the real neo-Nazis on social media platforms.
If they wish to express their opinion in a way that does not contravene the boundaries of human decency then they are welcome to do so.
If have a society where only those whom Ms Carleton-Taylor considers as ‘ decent’ then that is plainly not where freedom of speech is either respected or accepted. We do not grow as a species or improve the world only by speaking about or to those with ‘approved’ opinions, we have to allow the outliers to speak as well, if only to disprove the views of these outliers.
They are welcome to converse, to express, to debate and to discuss. What they are not welcome to do is abuse, demonise and vilify others in the process.
I’m afraid that although it may be painful for Ms Carleton-Taylor to comprehend, sometimes demonisation and vilification does play a part in public debate as does verbal abuse. The right to say what we want about political and social matters is a vital and necessary one, even if does cause ‘offence’. It is a principle that goes right back to the 18th century with John Wilkes and his North Briton publication, an organ which satirised the ruling classes and was no doubt considered by the Establishment of the time to be ‘offensive’. The battle to respect the rights of citizens and subjects to speak freely about the matters that concern them has been long and hard fought not just over the Wilkes case but in many others. The gains in the area of freedom of speech should not be surrendered because some find the views of others offensive or nasty. Ms Carleton-Taylor presents us with a world where her and her ilk decide what is permitted to be said and what is not, that is not a world that any person who respects freedom should want to live in.
The belief that the ‘big tech’ of the internet is looking to silence conservative voices is a fantasy borne from far right paranoia.
No it is not. This I have proven and is something that others, not just those from the right, can prove as well.
The aim is the eradication of hate speech, not conservative speech.
The big question here is who decides what is ‘hate speech’? The problem the whole idea of ‘hate speech’ is it closes off areas that maybe should be debated openly. Do we really want a society where Ms Carleton-Taylor decides for us what we should think and say, I think not. It is a very small and dangerous step from prohibiting ‘hate speech’ to prohibiting any speech that someone somewhere finds ‘offensive’.
Though the question the right leaning supporters of Gab should be asking themselves is why so many self-proclaimed conservative voices cannot see the difference between the two.
Many of us make no distinction because we do not believe that there is such a thing as ‘hate speech’ only opinions, sometimes completely off the wall opinions, that we may or may not agree with. If you want to get a glimpse of what the ‘hate speech utopia’ that Ms Carleton-Taylor demands, then rearrange Orwell’s words and imagine Roanna Carleton-Taylor stamping on your face forever.
