Too tired to write substatantive posts, but when I can link to stuff like this at the Ministry of Truth then, well, that's good enough. He's managed to capture my attitude to No Platform ideas completely; counter productive, and in the long term damaging to the idea:
there are many who still try and hold to the idea of ‘No Platform’, a tactic that I long ago concluded was ultimately counterproductive as efforts to ’silence’ the National Front, BNP and others and prevent then getting their message out only serve to contribute to the false mystique they try to create around their appaling ideas and values in order to convey the impression that they are somehow dealing in ‘forbidden knowledge’ rather than errant, pig-ignorant, bullshit.He then goes on to cover a specifi case in generality over how racists can abuse the ASBO system. The basic principle of a method of dealing with genuine anti-social behaviour is a good one. But the blunt and open to abuse intstrument we've been granted is not a good way to go about it. Especially when it's this open to abuse.
‘No platform’ also leaves us wide open to the charge that we are censorious and acting as the enemy of free speech, sometimes with some considerable justification, and all too easily leads us into hypocrisy.
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