Free speech doesn’t require giving Ahmadinejad a platform

It is worth returning to Channel 4’s decision to have President Ahmadinejad deliver its alternative Christmas message. Predictably, those who have attacked the decision have been accused of opposition to free speech—just look at some of the comments on the Skimmer’s post.

But this criticism misses a crucial distinction: there is a difference between allowing free speech and providing a platform. For example, I oppose criminalising Holocaust denial on the grounds that it is best to defeat these absurd and offensive theories in open debate and that people should be allowed to say what they want, short of incitement to violence, however wrong what they say is. But I would never give a platform on Coffee House to a denier. Voltaire did not say, ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I’ll build you a platform from which to say it.’