I don't get it. Free Speech Under Threat At University? (Added Extra)

Yan007

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Jan 31, 2011
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You're probably talking about Warren Farrell's speech in Toronto U that was protested and people could not get in until the cops got there to help.
 

RikuoAmero

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Jan 27, 2010
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Yan007 said:
You're probably talking about Warren Farrell's speech in Toronto U that was protested and people could not get in until the cops got there to help.
That's probably it. I'm also thinking of protesters being present at the talk and then standing up and starting shouting very loudly, preventing the invited speaker from being heard, like with Milo at Rutgers.
THAT's what I call no platforming, THAT's what I call silencing of speech, denial of free speech rights. If you (generic you) are against what this person says, protest outside. Arrange a debate, show how they're wrong. Don't physically prevent those people who are interested in this person from hearing this person, or standing up and shouting like baboons.

Here's a great quote from an article about the Warren Farrell protest
from
http://www.joshuakennon.com/the-warren-farrell-protest-at-the-university-of-toronto/
Tonight, I am going to share a counter example with you. The way these protestors are behaving is exactly the opposite of how you should strive to live your life. If someone wants to promote an idea, you don?t block the doors and keep people out (doing so only indicates you fear what they say). Instead, you throw open the doors, turn on the spotlights, turn up the microphone, and then invite the informed to debate, discuss, evaluate, weigh, measure, and work out whether there is truth in the idea. You do not demonize your opponent. You don?t attack him or her as a person. It?s about the ideas. Good people can have terrible ideas and bad people can have excellent ideas. To think otherwise is to suffer from the halo and horns effect mental model and the mere association mental model.

If you stray from that willingness to consider all evidence, especially evidence that is counter to your core beliefs, you are setting yourself up for foolishness. You will see the world how you think it is, and not how it actually is. That?s not ideal. To use an example we?ve discussed in the past, it is this mental tragedy that explains how you get entire civilizations of people who will murder their neighbors as heretics for daring to question the barbaric practice of sacrificing newborn infants to a harvest god so the wheat grows a little higher.
and this one further down the page
These protestors just assured that several mental models are going to kick in that will ultimately help Warren Farrell. The forbidden fruit mental model, which causes people to want to know about and have access to what others are trying to keep them from discovering or enjoying, is powerful. The mere association mental model are going to result in people who were trying to attend the lecture out of curiosity ascribing a range of violent, hateful, anti-intellectual traits to feminism in general, much to the movement?s detriment. The reciprocity mental model means that some people may take actions against these protestors, perhaps even covertly, to undermine their cause as retaliation for the abuse they dished out to innocent passers-by.