‘When Hate Spreads Faster Than Truth, Should We Fight Fascism With Censorship?’

Thinking is important. Before speaking, before acting… and definitely before writing. This week’s column took a lot of thinking. More than usual. And at first, I thought that was a problem. Writer’s block? But perhaps the very problem is me thinking there’s a problem because I don’t immediately have something to say.

This week’s Media Storm guest thinks for a living. And when I asked AC Grayling about my current predicament, he said: “You’ve identified a real problem there. The best pushback to it is to try to encourage everybody to start thinking slowly.”

The predicament I shared with him was that I believe in free speech, and I really want to live by that. But I’m scared. I write every week about how on the internet, lies spread faster than the truth, and how our professional news media is incentivised to publish divisive clickbait.

Last year in the UK, a fake news tweet about the Southport Stabbing triggered racist disorder on our streets; yet rather than leading to introspection about the scapegoating of migrants and Muslims, this week alone we’ve seen a visibly racist travel ban in the US, a UK PMQs about banning the burka, and two bogus front pages about non-Muslims being convicted for ‘blasphemy’ in the UK (which we’ll get onto).

I’m left wondering, in a world where hate spreads faster than the truth, how can we fight fascism without censorship?

Germany and Austria have anti-fascist censorship laws that make it an imprisonable offence to downplay Nazi crimes. It might seem out of place in modern democracy to outlaw reinterpretations of history, but these laws were introduced through hard-learned lessons.

Nevertheless, they often backfire.

The far-right AfD (some of whose leaders have been convicted under these laws) could have legally been banned last month when German intelligence classified them an ‘extremist party’. But the government rapidly backtracked when faced with fury they could be censoring opposition.

A similar backlash occurred when the Holocaust denier David Irving was arrested and imprisoned in Austria for his now-discredited rewritings of Nazi history. Paradoxically, this saw him become something of a free speech hero, later invited to Oxford University to speak on the topic.

Far more effective in discrediting his ideas, was the work of historian Deborah Lipstadt and her legal team, who proved in a famous libel trial that Irving was indeed a Holocaust denier—and that the Holocaust had incontestably occurred.

Free speech advocates take the example of Irving v. Lisptadt as proof that it is better to let bad ideas be aired and defeated, than to force them to simmer in the shadows. But our media does not operate like a courtroom.

In a courtroom, two sides present their views, in a civil manner, under oath, and with the opportunity to cross-examine.

By contrast, in our media, “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes,” as Mark Twain famously observed.

X owner Elon Musk removed fact-checking on the grounds it was equivalent to censorship (he also removed AC Grayling, which tells you all you need to know about today’s ‘free’ marketplace of ideas).

Meanwhile, professional news editors often opt for clickbait over accuracy.

Which takes me back to that Daily Mail and Telegraph front page about a man being convicted for burning a Quran.

The judge’s ruling told a different story: “Burning a religious book, although offensive to some, is not necessarily disorderly. What made his conduct disorderly was… that all this was accompanied by abusive language.” The defendant had yelled “F**k Islam” and “Islam is religion of terrorism”. It was this, not his Quran-defacement, that saw the protester sentenced.

But Conservative MP Robert Jenrick claimed Brits were seeing a return to a “blasphemy law” repealed in 2008 (which ironically, only ever protected Christianity).

Coming from a man who called to ban pro-Palestinian groups for challenging that there is an innate Jewish right to return to the biblical homeland, this is clearly partisanship.

Admittedly, the pull of binary logic is hard to resist, and I often find myself wondering whether I fall into inconsistencies. Here lies another danger of censorship; even if well-intentioned, it is likely to be applied with bias.

For example, I forcefully disagree with Donald Trump’s locking up of people chanting pro-Palestine slogans, yet I think I agree with Germany’s locking up of people chanting Nazi slogans. In my mind, this is because we have seen those chants lead to genocidal antisemitism before. But perhaps Trump (and Jenrick) are alert to the same risk, given Hamas’ recent genocidal attack?

Certainly, Hamas embodies how extreme Palestinian nationalism (like any nationalism) could become genocidal, but most pro-Palestinian activism I have witnessed simply defends Palestinians right to exist, and the evidential reality today is that it is Palestinians, not Israelis, who are suffering genocidal treatment.

I feel the same sense of disgust when I interview medics in Gaza about Israel’s ceaseless bombing of starving children, as I did when I visited Auschwitz— which remains standing for the precise reason to help people identify genocide when they see it.

What I concede to the Right is that we have seen extremist Islamism (to which Hamas’ militant wing subscribes) destructively takeover societies before. Indeed, the Kurdish population has hugely suffered from this phenomenon. I therefore accept that a Kurdish protester should be free to deface the Quran outside the Turkish embassy (there’s some more context that was left out of the frontpage story).

He should not be free, however, to shout hate speech while he does it. Indeed, if you think pro-Palestine marchers should be convicted if they shout “F**k Judaism”, you should also think a Kurdish protester should be convicted if he shouts “F**k Islam”. A £240 fine does not feel inappropriate here, and certainly does not warrant front page outrage.

I am happy with the judge’s rationale in this particular instance of state censorship. But authoritarian leaders can also use clever arguments to rationalise censorship. Trump has rationalised stripping migrants of free speech rights by saying the First Amendment only applies to citizens.

Migrants, his backers have readily accepted, come to the US on certain conditions, like complying with “national values”. If you think that sounds a bit “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others,” AC Grayling agrees.

“This is obviously absurd. What we expect of immigrants is that they’ll abide by the laws of the land. Once we say they’ve got to sign up to our values, you have to immediately ask: ‘Whose values?”.

Censorship is dangerous. But I am struggling to see how we fight the rising tide of hate and fear without it. Grayling’s remedy, with which I began this column, was “start thinking slowly”.

“The price of liberty is eternal vigilance,” he said. “It’s not only the responsibility of the mainstream media to try to be as factual and fact-checking as possible. It’s also the responsibility of each of us individually. Don’t just believe what you read. Start by asking that absolutely key question: ‘Really?’”

This captures the very essence of Media Storm and our mission to spread media literacy. And in keeping with that spirit, I shall make it a habit to take a little more time to think before writing.

Media Storm’s latest episode, ‘AC Grayling: Free speech, Wokeism and how to save democracy’ is out now.