No-Platforming as Contestation

According to defenders of no-platforming, the removal of a platform from those who employ harmful speech delegitimises their views by preventing the continued enactment of oppressive norms and/or by undermining speaker authority. Missing from these discussions, however, is an account of how the wider social context informs the success of the no-platform event itself. With this gap in mind, this chapter makes two main claims. First, I suggest that the central harm from platforming speakers comes not from the causal effects of what they might say but from the constitutive harm of their invitation. In response, I suggest that no-platformers, rather than censoring the invited speaker, are themselves making a positive discursive contribution to the surrounding environment by engaging in a form of counterspeech. Those concerned with contesting the speech of the invitation, however, must take account of key features of the surrounding context when working out whether no-platforming is appropriate. In conditions where there exists significant community divergence on core social norms, then no-platformers may fail to satisfy the conditions required for their contestation to have successful uptake. Consideration of the broader discursive dynamics at play is thus necessary when working out how best to deal with controversial speakers.