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No Platforming and censoring opposing voices only leads them to thrive underground.Frustratingly, the article offers no evidence for this claim.
I understand the argument that censorship and deplatforming are bad because they are morally wrong - that it doesn't matter the effect they have because they are inherently bad tools to use.
But I don't really understand the argument that they're bad because they're ineffective. When you drive something underground, it thrives less than it would on the surface, no?
We have plenty of examples of censorship being effective. Take opposition to the US invasions of Iraq, for instance. Anyone who opposed it - even the Dixie Chicks, famously - was deplatformed and attacked in the media. There was no reasonable debate about whether it was a good idea. And it turned out it was not a good idea, and there were no WMDs, and it was a quagmire. But because opposition was pushed underground, it had no political power.
Or take another superpower. The PRC has no moral objection to censorship. And certainly there are non-moribund underground dissident political and religious movements, coded ways of referencing 4 June 1989, etc. But could any argument be made that the PRC has made a tactical mistake in pushing these movements underground, that they're thriving because they were underground and would be less successful above ground?
Frustratingly, the article offers no evidence for this claim.
I understand the argument that censorship and deplatforming are bad because they are morally wrong - that it doesn't matter the effect they have because they are inherently bad tools to use.
But I don't really understand the argument that they're bad because they're ineffective. When you drive something underground, it thrives less than it would on the surface, no?
We have plenty of examples of censorship being effective. Take opposition to the US invasions of Iraq, for instance. Anyone who opposed it - even the Dixie Chicks, famously - was deplatformed and attacked in the media. There was no reasonable debate about whether it was a good idea. And it turned out it was not a good idea, and there were no WMDs, and it was a quagmire. But because opposition was pushed underground, it had no political power.
Or take another superpower. The PRC has no moral objection to censorship. And certainly there are non-moribund underground dissident political and religious movements, coded ways of referencing 4 June 1989, etc. But could any argument be made that the PRC has made a tactical mistake in pushing these movements underground, that they're thriving because they were underground and would be less successful above ground?