Who is most supportive of free speech?

snaves (39)in #freespeech • 6 years ago

Has the left really turned against free speech? Survey data analyzed by political scientist Justin Murphy suggests the issue is more complicated than that. Based on data from the General Social Surveys in the US between 1972 and 2016, Murphy compiled the data into the following graphs showing attitudes toward free speech over time based on different types of speakers and ideology. In the survey, people were asked whether they thought public speakers who were communists, militarists, racists, homosexuals, and antitheists should be allowed.

Source: http://jmrphy.net/blog/2018/02/16/who-is-afraid-of-free-speech/

Attitudes toward free speech over time

Attitudes toward free speech over time, by ideology

The proportion of people who would allow these types of speakers has increased over time for every category except "racists," which has remained relatively steady. The proportion of people who would allow speakers from all but the racist category increased by about 10-25%. Support for "homosexual" speakers had the greatest increase. Looking at the support for free speech broken down by ideology, Murphy notes several insights:

Both the left and right have become more tolerant toward many groups. The exception to this rise in speech toleration is speakers deemed racist.
Free speech support generally increases from conservatism to liberalism.
The largest shift away from allowing speech is for that of racists among the liberal and slightly liberal.
People against allowing racists are substantially more willing to allow militarists despite the common notion that anti-racism is linked with anti-fascism.

Interestingly, while much current censorship seems to be coming from the far left, especially with deplatforming on college campuses, according to the data, extreme liberals show the most tolerance toward free speech, racists included. Murphy suggests this could be because a minority of leftist activists who wish to suppress free speech happened to gain media attention. It could also have to do with how the category of liberal is defined. Liberalism is traditionally associated with support of free speech and the wording of the survey questions may gear the category towards classical liberalism/libertarianism.

The discrepancy between high free speech tolerance by extreme liberals and the fact that most current censorship on college campuses comes from the left could be explained by the difference between "liberal" and "leftist." "Extreme liberal" isn't necessarily the same as "far left." "Far left" includes a broader range of ideologies.

It's also interesting that the highest tolerance of racist speakers seems to be found among both extremes. Overall, the trend lines for both extremes also follow the same general rises and falls while the trend lines for the other ideological categories have a more steady increase.

The push for censorship, political correctness, and deplatforming on college campuses by leftist activists is still a serious issue, but it is more nuanced than "the left is no longer for free speech." Those activists don't represent all liberals and they also aren't the only group that doesn't want to allow certain speakers.