[tptacek]

Is this a phenomenon that occurs outside of college campuses?

(I assume you follow FIRE, and know that this problem isn't contained to the "speech is violence" people; there are numerous right-wing attempts at suppression on campus as well.)

[rayiner]

So far, I haven’t really seen it outside campuses, but there is a strong push to have private companies deplatform people, and government action is always a tool in the toolchest that people might invoke.

As to your second point, FIRE tends to advocate for free speech on campus generally, including private schools. A lot of the right-wing attempts at suppressing speech happen at places like private religious schools (Duquensque and Georgetown are two top posts in the FIRE website). I tend to stop short of that—I think private schools are free to restrict speech in ways public schools are not. But, as I said in my post, attempts to suppress speech have historically been a right wing phenomenon.

[tptacek]

But private companies deplatforming people is exactly the thing you were speaking approvingly of earlier; that's simple freedom of association, articulated through commercial pressure.

[rayiner]

I think private companies doing that based on commercial pressure is fine. I don’t trust, however, that it will stay that way. Many of the same people who approve of those efforts also see government intervention is a key tool to achieve social policy. (Which is also something I don’t necessarily oppose.) I just worried about what could happen when those two lines of thinking collide. Deplatforming hate speech based on commercial pressure is a temporary alliance between progressives and liberalitarians. It wouldn’t be the first time, however, where such alliances have broken down as progressives pushed harder.

[tptacek]

That makes sense. The last Make No Law episode covers some of this in detail as well.