Persuasive Essay On No Platforming

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There is power to be an activist during your tenure at university, this can be done by joining a group or committee that takes part in deciding whether or not a speaker should be no platformed or given one. No-platforming is using a veto power to prevent a speaker from being given a platform to present their ideas or opinion, this is done to those who speak slander, hate speech or in a fascist manner. Those in favour of the use of “No-platforming” presented the definition of what no platforming really is and listed several reasons why it should stay. Some of these reasons were, the right of free speech is lesser than the right to freedom from harm and hate speech, no platforming isn’t solely an issue revolving around the right of free speech and free speech isn’t equitable to a right to be …show more content…

power and the misuse of justice. They argued that the councils and committees who’ve been given the power to no platform a person or group don‘t always have the right to it. This is due to the fact that there is no universal criteria on which a person or group can be judged upon, to determine whether or not they are deserving of this power. At this point, the idea of authority versus power was introduced. Power is having the ability to make decisions or prevent others from doing so whereas authority is having the legitimacy or right to use power. Primarily, the reason why I sided with those was because the opposition wasn’t giving arguments about the question at hand. Those in favour of keeping no platforming set the tone correctly because it seemed as though they knew the opposition wouldn’t attack no platforming but rather the misuse of it, so they gave a definition of what no platforming really is. The question at hand was “Is no platforming a legitimate tool of activism?” and instead of responding to this the opposition was presenting reasons why the misuse of no platforming is not a