and allow people to see the world from other perspectives. As such,
safe spaces and online equivalents can be an effective way to tackle the
imbalance of platforms that are given to different voices. In the last five
years, platforms like Twitter have facilitated movements such as ‘Black
Lives Matter’ and ‘Me Too’, providing an outlet for marginalised voices,
enabling them to share their stories in a communal space. These two
movements are of particular significance in addressing issues of other
media platforms. They provide a position of dissent against institutions
which have, for so long, dominated speech and opinion on, nay been a
perpetrator of, such issues.
On the other hand, Twitter also lends itself to Levinas’ understanding of
the said: Levinas describes this kind of communication as involving the
ego and resembles what Williams (2002: 100-110) termed the ‘fetish of
assertion’, a sort of one-way ‘broadcasting’ instead of a back and forth
communication (Peters, 1999). The nature of Twitter, the character count
and the propensity for users to feel compelled to assert their opinions,
means it tends to compress the nuance and the detail out of a complex
discussion, as demonstrated by the increase of debate online which is
derailed by a push towards ‘fact-based reason’, objectivity being more
important than being attentive to the subjectivity of experience.
It could be argued that moral communication and the freedom of
expression is only achieved when communication moves away from the
individualistic and the ‘other’ is allowed to share something that would
otherwise be unnoticed. Often the media perpetuates the idea that
communication is something to win or lose, that there is one point-of-
view that will trump all others. This is problematic in the argument that
intolerance should be tolerated in the name of free speech, as those who
tolerate harm will go unnoticed in communication. Instead, freedom of
speech is being used as a convenient phrase to, instead of fighting for
a collective freedom of expression, fight for the right not to be argued
against. Here, it is worth returning to Peter’s (1999) point-of-view of
communication, that for moral and inclusive freedom of expression we
must listen not only to the words but to the silences and gestures.
Conclusion
The preceding arguments demonstrate the paradoxical nature of
discussing intolerance in freedom of speech: if intolerance curtails free
speech, should it be tolerated? Free speech allows a position to be
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