Nicholas Goldberg: We rarely prosecute bigots and racists who spew hate speech. And rightly so. But they say things like that, and you are forced to go to court to defend yourself.
In the end of August, the California Supreme Court held its decision in the “California Racist Bias” case. It found that a video that had been posted to Youtube by a white nationalist that referred to a black man as “the other white man” and a Jewish man as “the other Jew” and asked white supremacist to commit genocide was not just protected speech, but could be used to support a hate crime.
That video prompted a torrent of social media posts, both in celebration and condemnation of this ruling. From the former and mostly in the form of support, which included many white nationalists and their fans, on the other hand there was much condemnation of the court on social media from people who said this ruling meant that their voices were now silenced and that their hatred would no longer be tolerated.
The most prominent supporter of the ban, as the California Supreme Court decided, was former Trump supporter and author Ann Coulter. On her popular podcast, The Daily Sessions, Coulter said:
I think that the only justice that would do this to us would be a member of the KKK. And I think we have the video now. And I have a feeling that if I get a phone call right now, I would not answer the phone. This is the time to call your senator. Right now. Go to your congressmen. Tell them to denounce it. And go to the president and tell him that we won’t pay for your court, we won’t go to your inauguration, and we are not going to watch your racist films.
Coulter’s sentiment is almost always the same: that, as a woman of color and as a conservative, she is “a minority,” and that conservatives like her are seen as somehow under attack. Coulter’s view is one of being seen as oppressed, a victim of some social justice outrage, whether by the ACLU or by some liberal minority. That is very different than the views of those who have made the YouTube ban.
Those voices are loud but far from dominant — they are largely ignored by social media platforms that would otherwise be a safe area for expression. Yet they speak with such power and authority because they have a voice that those with power on social media cannot