Cory Doctorow: Inaction is a Form of Action
In XKCD comic 1357, “Free Speech”, Randall Munroe offers a characteristically concise and snappy summary of one of the canonical arguments about free expression: “The right to free speech means the government can’t arrest you for what you say. It doesn’t mean anyone else has to listen to your bullshit, or host you while you share it…. If you’re yelled at… or get banned from an internet community your free speech rights aren’t being violated.”
I have a lot of sympathy for this argument! After all, what’s the alternative? That the government should order other people to host your objectionable speech? Surely there’s a free speech interest in not being compelled to publish things you disagree with. “Free expression” includes the right not to speak, and the right not to listen.
But Munroe’s account of “free expression” is nevertheless incomplete. It’s true that the US First Amendment shields us from government interference in our expressive activities, but just because the government isn’t silencing you, it doesn’t follow that the question of free expression has been settled. Imagine two different restaurants: one prohibits any discussion of any subject the management deems “political” and the other has no such restriction. It’s easy to see that we’d say that you have more right to freely express yourself in the Anything Goes Bistro than in the No Politics at the Table Diner across the street.
