I've long been convinced of the importance of a robust defence of free speech. It should be needless to say, but that includes speech I personally find offensive. (I find, for example, election speeches that explain how free speech is only the freedom to say things with which the speaker agrees, not things she finds unkind, particularly offensive, but it is that person's right to make such a speech, and the right of those taken in by it to vote for her.)
Free speech is curtailed if we can lose our livelihoods because of thoughts we have expressed in a personal capacity. Kenan Malik has discussed that here.
Given all that, something quite funny happened today. I pay a number of small subscriptions to various newspapers, writers and websites. One website to which I contribute via Patreon runs an Arts account on Twitter, and hosts an interesting hashtag each week. I used to contribute to the hashtag conversation, and in doing so met a guy who at first seemed very pleasant (and indeed has pleasant traits mixed in with everything else, as have we all).
But this guy gradually began to behave in a bullying manner on Twitter. I agreed with his politics - I think Brexit is a bad idea, for example - but not his way of attacking people who disagreed with him. If someone supported Brexit it was because they were racist and a bad person. It was dangerous to listen to opponents' views (presumably because they might trick you into agreeing with them, but also, it seemed, because treating them like human beings was somehow equivalent to being a collaborator).
He emphatically was not a free speech advocate. He liked the idea of writers who had been found 'problematic' automatically losing their publishing contracts, for example. I'd considered talking to him privately, because we got on very well, and explaining how this kind of censorship can have the opposite effect of the one he wanted - because I don't doubt he wants a kind and fair society, as I do. I was going to point out how the liberal left's abandonment of free speech meant that women were unable to freely discuss how trans rights were conflicting with our sex based rights, and how detransitioners were silenced and left without support.
Then he quote-tweeted (he liked quote-tweeting - it's a way of summoning your followers so they can abuse a wrong-doer) a tweet timidly supporting gender critical lesbians with the hashtag 'TERF'. For those unfamiliar with the connotations, here is Helen Lewis explaining the misogyny. On Twitter, it is like being branded as a witch - you are henceforth considered fair game for death and rape threats. Putting it with the hashtag meant that those looking for women to harrass would easily find the person. And the woman in question? Was the guy's sister-in-law.
Anyway, at that point I stopped interacting with him. Not because I disagreed with him about trans rights, but because he was incapable and uninterested in having a discussion about it, and because when he strongly disagreed with you, he was a vindictive, nasty, closed-minded bully on Twitter (he's probably pleasanter in real life, most people are).
Back to the Arts website I support via Patreon, who are good friends with Quote-Tweet Guy. I knew they were vaguely of the pro-censorship side of the left (sadly, I think that's the norm now), in fact they also agreed with authors losing their contracts if they were deemed bad people, but the work they do is valuable and I'm happy to support it. Today, somewhat strangely, I got a message from Patreon to say that the Arts website was now a Patreon supporter of the Quote-Tweet Guy. I've never gotten an email like this before, so I don't know whether it happens automatically or whether they decided to send it out. Anyway, here I am, giving money to an Arts site, and that Arts site is giving money to someone who at this point probably thinks I'm the devil, and who actively storms around Twitter bullying women who believe humans are sexually dimorphic. What to do?
Well, nothing, of course. I'm supporting the Arts site, and even if they were taking my money and giving it directly to him, it is for his creative work, not for his Twitter rages. How he behaves in his personal life is just that. I do agree with boycotting where a company is making its products in an unethical way, but that's not what's happening here. In a way, I kind of hope that they did send me the email deliberately to get me to cancel my subscription. I quite like the idea of that fiver a month giving them convulsions.
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