Donegan confuses consequences for censorship in free speech debate 

Once again, John Donegan uses the "liberal" straw man to bolster logically hazy talking points and incomplete thoughts.

In his column ("Free speech and the left," Dec. 22), he claims that an unspecified swath of liberals worshiped billionaire Elon Musk until he purchased Twitter for $44 billion, and liberals went "apeshit." Mr. Donegan indicated that the collective outrage from liberals over Musk was somehow an appeal to censorship, and that any terms they use to describe certain speech as "fake news," "hate speech," and "misinformation" are somehow a ploy to batter down narratives they don't like.

Let's go over the ways Mr. Donegan is ridiculously wrong to portray liberals as free speech abolitionists in the absence of specific examples.

The twice-impeached former President Donald Trump, a member of Mr. Donegan's political party, was the one who used fake news as a blanket response to independently verifiable and corroborated reporting. Unlike others who have bandied the term for their own purposes, Trump believed some of the fake news wasn't fake at all, which is why he used his presidential authority to retaliate against journalists who got under his overly tanned skin.

In October this year, Trump floated the possibility of imprisoning journalists who don't name sources, should he get re-elected. That is objectively far more threatening to free speech than liberals disparaging disagreeable views and inconvenient truths with derision and spite.

Mr. Donegan scoffs at liberals using hate speech to describe actual hate speech.

It was Musk who personally suspended disgraced rapper Kanye West for what he described as "incitement of violence" against Jewish people when he tweeted out a photo of a symbol combining a swastika and a Jewish star. Just two months prior to that suspension, West, formerly a Trump supporter, was suspended for tweeting that he vowed to "go death con 3" on Jews. The rapper's tweets are actual hate speech, which unfortunately spurred actual hate.

In Los Angeles, an extremist group hung a banner over a busy freeway proudly declaring that Kanye was "right." In New York City, a 63-year-old man was assaulted by a man yelling antisemitic insults at the victim as well as endorsing West for president in 2024. The Anti-Defamation League, a world-renowned Jewish non-governmental organization, found that antisemitic incidents in our country reached an all-time high last year. West has fueled those antisemitic flames thanks in part to Musk and his erratic, touch-and-go attitude about "free speech" on Twitter.

Clearly, hate speech is not some liberal construct to diminish free expression. More often than not, it is precisely what it is.

Similar to hate speech, misinformation is also an objective identifier of certain kinds of speech. Let's return to the Musk, well, once again, to shed light on what misinformation is.

Musk has repeatedly used his $44-billion bully pulpit to espouse misinformation. In October, Musk tweeted a link to unsubstantiated, homophobic allegations about the violent attack on Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband. Until it was deleted hours later, that tweet appeared on the timelines of his more than 112 million followers. And last month, Twitter stopped policing misinformation about COVID-19, allowing conspiracy theories about an ongoing pandemic and viable treatment options to fester. Musk then capped the dissolution of COVID-19 fact-checking by calling for Dr. Anthony Fauci, former chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, to be criminally prosecuted.

Free speech is not under threat by "woke" college students clamoring for "safe spaces," as Mr. Donegan suggests, because they're not the ones with the bully pulpit. They don't have the clout to influence millions of people into believing apparent hate speech, misinformation, and disinformation. They don't have the finances to buy influence. They're not the ones in power.

I will readily concede to one of Mr. Donegan's points: that there is a lack of tolerance for disagreeable views among certain segments of our population. But the impulse to reject disagreeable views and retreat to echo chambers or "safe spaces" is a bipartisan problem, so it's wholly disingenuous to portray "woke" college students and liberals as the only existential threats to free speech.

People seeking accuracy, clarity, and context for free speech is not censorship. Those attributing labels to certain speech, whether or not those labels are accurately applied, is not censorship. And people holding others accountable for morally problematic speech is not censorship, either. That's accountability. Free speech is not free of consequences.

Consequences have always existed within the framework of free market capitalism and the public square. Censorship refers to the literal taking of one's fundamental right to express themselves as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. That's why the ACLU intervened in a legal case to support the Nazis' right to march in Skokie, Illinois, as Mr. Donegan pointed out.

Yet, it's troubling that Mr. Donegan, a retired attorney, readily confuses consequences for censorship. Rest assured, Mr. Donegan, just because people disagree with your highfalutin', myopic, and factually absent tirade about free speech doesn't mean people want your right to free speech taken away. Δ

Aaron Ochs writes from Morro Bay. Send a response for publication to [email protected].