Nazis, moral panics, censorship and free speech
To let lynch mobs or social media platforms restrict free speech is a bad idea. I am rather present on a platform that has minimal censorship than one that will censor content regardless of on which grounds it would censor.
As most of my readers have noticed, I rarely write about other politics than those concerning food, farming and environment and a tad of civilization critique. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have views about other politics, on the contrary. Don’t get me going over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the war in Gaza, increasing inequality, how to combat climate change, global development, Sweden’s membership in NATO.....
Don’t be afraid, I am not going to start writing about those issues. But I feel compelled to write some on my view of Nazis, moral panics, censorship and free speech. This is triggered (!) by an emerging debate about the presence of Nazis on this platform, Substack. I have not made any own research about how many Nazi sympathizers have newsletters in Substack and I am not even sure how Nazis are defined by the various people debating this.
I have absolutely no sympathy for Nazis, fascist, racist and a number of other -ists.
I am afraid and worried of the moral panic that often emerge around being on the right side, denouncing those on the wrong side, or having contacts with those on the wrong side or other far fetched guilt-by-associations. Having lived in small rural communities for most of my life I have come to terms with that it is necessary to interact with people you would certainly not interact with when living in a city. Some of them might be racist or other ists I don’t like (can’t remember meeting a Nazi lately, but fascism or racism in one or the other shape is not uncommon), but they are still fellow humans. I can still discuss things of common interest and try to avoid those topics where I know we have huge differences. Now and then I also take a stand.
Some month ago, I and my wife were interviewed by a newspaper about our latest book and when I linked the interview on my facebook page there was a minor shit storm about me letting a right-wing newspaper interview me. The persons commenting hadn’t actually read the paper, but they quoted another newspaper that had ran an article about the actual paper indicating some links to one organisation, of which one of the leaders people had made a racist statement in a speech 25 years ago. I had had a trial subscription to the newspaper for a few months and had concluded that they had a quite strange selection of news with a lot of coverage on China (very negative), nuclear power (positive), wind energy (rather negative), vaccines (dangerous?) and almost no news on the war in Ukraine, climate, emerging political issues, migration or Donald Trump (thanks God). The culture section was very different - and more interesting - from most mainstream newspapers in that it covered handicraft, folklore, religion and regional cultural events in Sweden compared to the mainstream media’s coverage of books, art exhibitions, movies and theatre as well as the culture debates maintained by less than hundred prominent persons debating with each other or gazing at their navels. It was really not possible to qualify the newspaper as right-wing. Having said that, I was also interviewed by an anarchist magazine the same year and I got no reaction about that.
Let me be clear: I am not interested in taking sides and if I sometime happen to have a similar view as a right wing demagogue or a bomb-throwing islamic terrorist, so be it. I also have no problem with taking an opposite view of groups I normally sympathize with.
Should Nazis, fascist, racist and alike have the right to express themselves publicly? I believe so as long as they don’t break the law (which means different things in different countries).
Should privately owned social media platforms, such as Facebook, X or Substack censor what is posted on their platforms. I don’t think so as long as the content doesn’t break the law. I also don’t like when they flag content as being offensive, possibly false etc.
By and large, I am a proponent of free speech, even though I realize that there will always be some restrictions. Should there be limits, those should be well grounded in laws. To let lynch mobs or social media platforms restrict free speech is a bad idea. I am rather present on a platform that has minimal censorship than one that will censor content regardless of on which grounds it would censor.
Of course, if Substack itself was promoting Nazism or any other ideology that I deplore, I would move somewhere else. It is bad enough that they are capitalists. But avoiding capitalism on the internet is almost impossible.
UPDATE: My view on free speach doesn’t include that I will allow any Nazist or racist comments on my blog. But I have quite a high threshold before deleting comments.
Next post, I will be back on my normal topics.
Living in a rural setting with farmers it is very important to learn how to communicate with someone who does not agree with you. I'm organic but some of my friends are conventional chemically. We both recognize that we are interested in having agricultural sustainable. So my conventional friends brag about the less chemicals they use and I brag about how little hay my horses eat. So we learn to get along.
My issue isn't with whether platforms should censor hate speech -- that is something best done within a robust legal framework, as you say. Whether they should profit from it is entirely another question, though.
I have no issue with refusing to support companies that profit from spreading any view I happen to disagree with. They are not entitled to my attention or to my money.
As for peer pressure about using such platforms, I can accept that people will make their own decisions about it. "I'm not a Nazi, but I'll help Nazis get paid for writing Nazi things" isn't a position of free speech, it's a position of being willing to help Nazis get paid for spreading their ideology. "Whether I'm on this platform makes such an infinitesimally small difference to whether Nazis get paid for writing Nazi things that I'm not willing to worry about whether I'm helping Nazis by being here" is also not a position of free speech, but it is entirely reasonable. So is "I'm going to avoid this platform because I think it gives too much space to Nazis."