Locating freedom of speech in an era of global white nationalism

Abstract

The chief spokespersons for this more refined sentiment against persons and voices that are new and unfamiliar to the campus and intellectual discourse are not the purveyors of gutter hate speech. They are polite and polished colleagues. The code words of this backlash are words like merit, rigor, standards, qualifications, and excellence. Increasingly we hear those who are resisting change appropriating the language of freedom struggles. Words like intolerant, silencing, McCarthyism, censors, and orthodoxy are used to portray women and people of color as oppressors and to pretend the powerful have become powerless. 1

Deplatforming “the people”: media populism, racial capitalism, and the regulation of online reactionary networks

“…), a 5-year-running episodic livestream, and its “Groyper” followers in the United States. Dominant interpretations of the First Amendment disarm U.S. federal platform regulations, making the white supremacist and capitalist overtones of the regulatory turn especially salient (Vats and Dutta, 2020). America First merits greater attention due to its resilience in the face of this bourgeois regulatory regime.…”