This archive report was first published on 18 July 2020.
On the one hand, the left has long argued that free speech is a fundamental right that should be protected. However, in recent years, some progressives have begun to question whether this approach is still tenable in the face of rising social media platforms and the increasing power of corporations to shape public discourse.
As Zaid Jilani noted in a recent article, 'If it were harder for employers to fire people for frivolous reasons, Americans would have less reason to fear that expressing their views might cost them their livelihoods.' But this argument seems to overlook the fact that the left is often quick to take advantage of precarity to punish people for political disagreements.
One of the key issues at play here is the question of how to balance the need to protect marginalized groups with the need to preserve free speech. As Wasow pointed out in a recent interview, 'Much of what we call 'cancel culture' is just culture.' However, when the range of proscribed speech is so wide that the rules are hard to even explain to those not steeped in left-wing mores, it becomes a problem.
Writing in the 1990s, Ellen Willis warned that progressive movements sow the seeds of their own destruction when they become censorious. 'It's impossible,' she wrote, 'to censor the speech of the dominant without stifling debate among all social groups and reinforcing orthodoxy within left movements.' This is a warning that still resonates today, as the left grapples with the consequences of its own censorious tendencies.
