Facebook has removed the page of Britain First because it has “repeatedly violated its community standards”.
But if social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter decide to remove far right opinions from their platforms, where will these opinions be voiced instead? Surely it is easier to monitor extreme opinions for anything that breaks the law, when those views are expressed on social media, rather than driven onto the dark web or into the quiet corners of a King George V pub in Dagenham. Disclaimer: I do not know if there is a King George V Pub in Dagenham or whether Britain First supporters drink there.
I do not wish to trivialise the far right drivel that these pages are riddled with. But I do think that free speech is nothing without the right to offend and be offended. Whether you lie on the far right of politics or the far left, you have every right to voice your opinions, as long as those opinions do not include direct threats to people.
The question is whether we want to live in a free society or not. The world is not a children’s party full of cuddly toys and cupcakes at which no one is allowed to be unkind to anyone. In an adult free society we must be allowed to say what we believe, even if it means we offend each other. That is free speech.
But Tuesday 14th March – the day Facebook silenced Britain First – was not a good day for free speech. Another politically over correct move reported that day was the call by the NSPCC for the Etsy online shop window for creative types to remove a series of cards featuring Karen Mathews, Josef Fritzl, and Jimmy Saville, calling them “thoughtless and irresponsible”.
It is easy to find the cards insensitive and offensive. But others could well judge them as a humorous approach to condemning both Saville, and those who kidnapped Matthews, in which case, why should the opinion of one group be allowed to silence the opinion of the other?
In the case of the cards, might it be better to be reminded through humour of some of the deplorable things people do than to be forced to forget they ever happened?
If the PC Police are allowed to filter our Facebook feeds and censor our cards, what next: stand up comedy? Oh wait a minute that’s already under threat. Award winning comedian Louise Beamont is being sued by her husband for being mean about him on stage.
Instead of trying to bubble wrap ourselves away from the opinions we don’t like, we should grow up and grapple with what really should offend us, such as the refugee crisis, inequality, racism, poverty and Donald Trump.
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