The Substack Censorship Wars: Round 2
Dialogues with Censorship Bullies on Notes
Round 1 of the Censorship Wars Is Now Unlocked!
Paid subscribers enjoyed early access to Round 1 featuring dialogues from April 2023, and it is now available to all:
The Substack Censorship Wars: Round 1
Below you will find my skirmishes in The Substack Censorship Wars, starting with Round 1 from April 2023 after the launch of Notes. Round 2 occurred in December 2023 after the Substack founders endured another barrage of attacks for defending free speech and will be published separately.
Round 2: December 2023
Round 2 of the The Substack Censorship Wars took place after The Atlantic published a smear piece titled Substack Has a Nazi Problem on November 28, 2023, as I discussed in this post:
On Fearing Freedom—Plus Thanking Substack for Standing up to the Censorship Bullies
“It was the fear of freedom, with all its dangers, that got the Germans into trouble in the first place.… Free inquiry on a free platform is the only practice that distinguishes a free from a slave society.” —Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45
The following scrimmages transpired in December 2023 after I posted a Note thanking Substack Cofounder Hamish McKenzie for expressing Substack’s continued dedication to protecting free speech despite renewed pressures from the censorship bullies, only to find myself besieged by attacks from said subjugators.
The exchanges start off mild with someone who turned out to be surprisingly open-minded and then segued to a vitriolic name-caller before crescendoing with a troll who flirted with incitement to violence against me.
MAA:
Thank you,
, , and for persevering in your courageous commitment to free speech! That is the primary reason I chose Substack when I joined in April 2021, and it is one of many reasons I remain so passionate about this platform.As the epitaph to What Noam Chomsky Can Teach Us About Freedom of Speech reads:
“If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don’t like. Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re in favor of freedom of speech, that means you’re in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of freedom of speech.”
—Noam Chomsky
Richard Gregson FRSB:
“If you believe in freedom of speech,” …
I believe in freedom of speech for decent, civilized people who do not espouse extreme ideas, white superiority and racism etc etc. There is a red line that should not be crossed here and “freedom of speech” does not trump all other values in our world.
MAA:
Ah, so you agree with Goebbels and Stalin in the Chomsky quote I cited. Thank you for clarifying your position.
“If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don’t like. Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re in favor of freedom of speech, that means you’re in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of freedom of speech.”
Richard Gregson FRSB:
Of course not - those people were well beyond the red line to which I referred. Simply put, I do believe in free speech but not absolute free speech. Some views are too foul to be given breathing space in a decent world. If he was alive today would you honestly give a platform to Goebbels?
MAA:
Thank you for your thoughtful reply,
.The problem is who defines those lines and values, and totalitarian governments always censor free speech in the name of good-sounding causes—just as they’ve been doing to the detriment of humanity for the past four years.
As Orwell writes:
“At all times the Party is in possession of absolute truth, and clearly the absolute can never have been different from what it is now.”
We have the right and the duty to sift through different information and discard what is vile while celebrating what is loving and beautiful. Outsourcing that responsibility to the State, Big Tech, or another authority constitutes a dereliction of our duty as sovereign human beings and relegates us to the infantilized role of dependents whose critical thinking faculties have atrophied and who no longer have the will or ability to decipher good from bad, truth from lies, freedom from slavery.
We have the right and the duty to sift through different information and discard what is vile while celebrating what is loving and beautiful. Outsourcing that responsibility to the State, Big Tech, or another authority constitutes a dereliction of our duty as sovereign human beings and relegates us to the infantilized role of dependents whose critical thinking faculties have atrophied and who no longer have the will or ability to decipher good from bad, truth from lies, freedom from slavery.
And yes, I would let Goebbels speak because I would want to know who he is and what he believes rather than his statements festering underground, spreading unchallenged by those who are capable of dismantling his propaganda. As the historical ACLU held, the best way to combat unpleasant speech is with more speech. The better ideas will prevail in an environment that allows ideas to roam free.
I discuss free speech absolutism in greater depth in this piece.
Richard Gregson FRSB:
I don’t deny that the decision is difficult and at the end all I can suggest is that these matters are handled by the (possibly mythical) “men of goodwill”. My biggest problem with platforming people like Goebbels is that there will be people who hear them, are not immediately revolted and misguidedly decide that here is someone who speaks to them … and so the harm is done. Too risky if we value our world.
MAA:
I understand why you would feel that way, but consider when that power is in the hands of a Goebbels—and if the power to silence others is allowed, it always will inevitably be controlled by someone of his ilk—and that person then uses it to suppress the voices of “men of goodwill” who expose his deceit because he is claiming they are the enemies of the State, they are the evil ones, they are the threats to society and must be silenced.
We have witnessed that very dynamic play out over the past four years—the State has claimed it has the right to strip doctors of their licenses for not following what turned out to be lethal and injurious edicts, and the State seized that power in the name of the “greater good,” “public health,” and fighting “Nazis.”
It is not possible to institute such power without it being abused, so the only way to ensure people of goodwill are not silenced by tyrants is to allow all speech, as detestable as some of it may be. Good people will expose and humiliate those who are spreading bad ideas—or the latter will be ignored entirely, which is the best way to snuff out the embers of hate.
Richard Gregson FRSB:
All I can say really is that “Good people will expose and humiliate those who are spreading bad ideas—or the latter will be ignored entirely, which is the best way to snuff out the embers of hate” isn’t working to stop Trump. Not a black and white choice, but I am more comfortable trying to keep nasty people in a small and soundproof box.
MAA:
Ah, but you do realize that if the MSM hadn’t fanatically obsessed over Trump, social media platforms hadn’t deplatformed him, and politicians hadn’t tried to silence and jail him, he would not have anywhere near the support he currently has, right?
Every attempt to stifle him has fanned the flames of his popularity, even garnering support from those who previously disliked him because they recognize how wrong it was to censor him. His fans perceive his persecution as evidence of his efficacy. If his enemies had just ignored him, you would be looking at a brushfire rather than a conflagration. The power of the Streisand effect cannot be overestimated.
Richard Gregson FRSB:
Oh, absolutely … and I have no clue what the answer is. It’s an imperfect world.
Enjoy the holidays.
MAA:
Thanks, Richard. I appreciate your open-mindedness on the matter. There is no perfect solution, sadly, but I do know that freedom requires sacrifices, and as I quote in “In Praise of Dangerous Freedom”:
“Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem [I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery].… It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”
—Thomas Jefferson in a letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787
Richard Gregson FRSB:
Good quotation that … not being from the US (though I live close by) I had not seen it before. Yes, I can go with those thoughts.
MAA:
I appreciate that, Richard. When you consider that before their guillotinings, the last word Sophie Scholl scribbled down was “Freedom” and the last words Hans Scholl spoke were “Long live freedom,” you realize how heartbroken they would be to see how cheap people now hold the liberty they sacrificed their lives to defend. Freedom is the foundational value upon which all other values rest and thus must be preserved at all costs. Once individuals cede their right to speak to the State, it’s game over for humanity.
When you consider that before their guillotinings, the last word Sophie Scholl scribbled down was “Freedom” and the last words Hans Scholl spoke were “Long live freedom,” you realize how heartbroken they would be to see how cheap people now hold the liberty they sacrificed their lives to defend. Freedom is the foundational value upon which all other values rest and thus must be preserved at all costs. Once individuals cede their right to speak to the State, it’s game over for humanity.
Chandra Hardy:
Thank you for being complicit in neo-Naziism and misogyny.
As the Jewish daughter of a woman tortured and murdered in her own home, I’m so profoundly grateful for your internalized misogyny.
Keep being a bold and brave woman out there championing other women!
Free speech absolutism = a pass to harass….
MAA:
I am very sorry about your mother’s tragic end, Chandra. It is terribly sad that you would embrace the very censorious policies the Nazis used to achieve power, silence their critics, and round up both your and my ancestors for concentration.
I will continue following in the footsteps of those who valiantly sacrificed their lives to defend the freedoms fascists trampled during their stampede to totalitarianism. They would be ashamed to see their descendants trading their most precious treasure for the illusion of safety and comfort.
I will continue following in the footsteps of those who valiantly sacrificed their lives to defend the freedoms fascists trampled during their stampede to totalitarianism. They would be ashamed to see their descendants trading their most precious treasure for the illusion of safety and comfort.
“In the name of all the German youth, we demand that Adolf Hitler’s government return to us our personal freedom, the most valuable possession a German owns. He has cheated us of it in a most contemptible manner.
“We have grown up in a nation where every open expression of opinion is callously bludgeoned. Hitler Youth, the SA and SS have tried to conform, revolutionize, and anesthetize us in the most fruitful years of our educational lives. The despicable methodology was called ‘ideological education’; it attempted to suffocate budding independent thought and values in a fog of empty phrases.…
“This is a beginning in the fight for our free self-determination; without this, intellectual values can never be created.…
“This has to do with genuine scholarship and true freedom of thought! No threats can dismay us, not even the closing of our colleges.
“This is a battle that we all must fight for our future, our freedom and honor in a political system that is conscious of its moral responsibility.…
“We grew up in a state in which all free expression of opinion is ruthlessly suppressed. The Hitler Youth, the SA, the SS, have tried to drug us, to regiment us in the most promising years of our lives.”
Chandra Hardy:
You’re not sorry. You want women to die. You’re psychopathic like this Trumper.
I’ll bet you also voted not exception for rape, incest or the life of the mother, misogynist…..
MAA:
It is sad that a simple statement in defense of our most inalienable right triggers such vehement and baseless accusations, but I defend your right to say them.
Unlike you, I don’t much care what someone I don’t respect thinks about me, so I will just do what I recommend you do—ignore the attackers and move on with your life.
And with that, I bid you adieu.
Chandra Hardy:
You dumb bitch.
Do you think my elderly mother tortured and murdered in her own home could simply “ignore her attackers?”
You think online hate has no real world consequences?
Note: I let Chandra have the last word since she summarizes her arguments and ethical stance so eloquently, nobly becoming the embodiment of online hate, presumably to make her point ;-) I also did not include all of her images because some contain explicit language and don’t mean a great deal decontextualized, but you can see them in her original Notes if you really want to. Her meme about genocide demonstrates the degree to which she has fallen for the left-right psy-op, the irony being that she almost certainly cheered on the democidal policies that have led to 17 million deaths and counting.
Wendy Llewellyn:
I would like to think you’re right but in fighting ideological tyranny we have to fight with similar contemptuous superiority as is currently bring used to browbeat us … think Churchill (although of course he’s been cancelled by ill educated twats too, temporarily). So, Congratulations to us. despite the best efforts of the universe, most of us survived another year! Merry Christmas 🎄🎄
MAA:
The best way to fight ideological tyranny is with the truth, and since ideological tyranny is propagated by those who hold power (government, media, Big Tech, etc.), the only way for truth to out is for censorship to never, ever be tolerated. It is the first and most critical step toward totalitarianism.
The best way to fight ideological tyranny is with the truth, and since ideological tyranny is propagated by those who hold power (government, media, Big Tech, etc.), the only way for truth to out is for censorship to never, ever be tolerated.
As Milton Mayer writes in They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45:
“Free inquiry on a free platform is the only practice that distinguishes a free from a slave society.”
See more harrowingly applicable quotes from the book recommendation section of this piece.
james:
The state does have the right to strip doctors of their licenses. It has the right to strip drivers licenses, hunting licenses, fishing licenses, etc, etc. Its called a democracy. Dont like it, vote your representatives out! We need to get back to relying on truth being defined by experts not the internet! Judging by your post about the last four year bologna, you spend way too much time on the internet!
MAA:
😆 That was a hilarious and spot-on illustration of menticide—thank you for the laugh, james!
Fortunately, a federal judge who actually understands the Constitution issued a preliminary injunction against AB2098, and then Newsom repealed it because he knew it was doomed to defeat and he is trying to white-out his authoritarian rampage before giving the presidency a go.
“We need to get back to relying on truth being defined by experts not the internet!”
Big Brother, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and all other totalitarians agree that the experts they bankroll should be accepted as the Ministers of Truth and that anyone who has the audacity to critically assess a wide variety of sources from thousands of scientists, physicians, data analysts, and independent journalists and then make their own determination about the veracity of that information should be punished for being a disobedient thoughtcriminal and enemy of the State.
Everyone knows good citizens don’t think for themselves, question authority, challenge the astroturfed narrative, or seek out trustworthy sources. It is their duty to believe everything the television tells them, Trust The $cience™, and mindlessly accept the daily gaslighting from the very people who have been demonstrably lying to us for years.
Everyone knows good citizens don’t think for themselves, question authority, challenge the astroturfed narrative, or seek out trustworthy sources. It is their duty to believe everything the television tells them, Trust The $cience™, and mindlessly accept the daily gaslighting from the very people who have been demonstrably lying to us for years.
Don’t worry, Newspeak will soon be the official global language, and then people won’t be capable of judiciously assessing the claims of experts for themselves:
“The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought—that is, a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc—should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.
“Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.”
MAA:
And contrary to what the propagandists have been hypnotically repeating for decades, the United States is not a democracy—it’s a constitutional republic.
“I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty.”
—John Adams
Mike Mizener:
So, to summarize what you saying, I can incite a mob on social media to kill Margaret Anne [sic] Alice, and it is perfectly within my right to do so because that is true freedom. Do I understand that correctly? You’re fully aware Nazis have and will continue to harm and kill people.
But sure, it’s cool they have a place to monetize hate.
And I’m certain you leaning into Nazis freedoms of speech, you’ve got some new subscribers. Congrats.1
MAA:
Nice straw man, Mike, but incitement to violence against an individual is already illegal and not permitted on any platform, including Substack. And for what it’s worth, I did make an exception for incitement to violence in my letter exchange with
where I discuss this topic:“I would agree with that sentiment as well as the Brandenburg v. Ohio caveat excluding protection for speech that ‘is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.’”
You are likely not self-aware enough to realize this, but you do know that you and the other particularly strident voices screeching for the curtailment of our liberties are the ones who are sounding and behaving like Nazis, right? You guys are the ones who have been making literal threats, aligning with fascist values, and calling those of us who value “true freedom”—as you so sneeringly state—vicious, dehumanizing names for having the audacity to speak out in defense of your civil rights. Oh, the irony.
You do know that you and the other particularly strident voices screeching for the curtailment of our liberties are the ones who are sounding and behaving like Nazis, right? You guys are the ones who have been making literal threats, aligning with fascist values, and calling those of us who value “true freedom”—as you so sneeringly state—vicious, dehumanizing names for having the audacity to speak out in defense of your civil rights. Oh, the irony.
I’ll save you the trouble of further hypocritical and incendiary attacks as I am heading to bed. Goodnight, Mike.
Note: Inline links have been embedded for ease of reading. I have left mistakes intact for fidelity.
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Curiously, this Note has not only been deleted, but Mike Mizener’s profile also appears to have disappeared since this exchange. Was he a transitory troll who had a temporary account to attack people like me before slinking back into the darkness, or did his account get deleted because he violated the law by suggesting incitement of violence against me? If the latter, I personally would prefer that the evidence of his violation be preserved but understand why he would be banned if he made legitimate threats of violence against others, too.
Madame, the quote, “Free inquiry on a free platform is the only practice that distinguishes a free from a slave society,” is not quite true. The true defining characteristic that distinguishes a free from a slave society is the recognition, respect, and practice of the right to bear arms. Arms are the badge of a citizen. Disarmament is the shame of slaves.
Otherwise, you hit another home run. I do believe that English is a second language for Chandra. Bless her heart.
Excellent work, MAA!
An under-explored factor in the free speech discussion is the opportunity cost of preventing certain ideas to be spoken. (For those not familiar, opportunity cost is an economic term that attempts to quantify the cost of not investing in a particular opportunity -- or how much benefit did you give up by not pursuing something.) In the free speech argument, the opportunity cost of shutting down certain speech can be viewed as what have we lost by not having the chance to view evil or potentially harmful ideas and acts. If we destroy Civil War general statues in an attempt to remove all references to slavery, how will future generations even know that slavery existed? If they don't know about it, won't they be more susceptible to it in the future?
This concept is a main tenet in your postings and I thank you for addressing it so well.