Dare to speak : defending free speech for all

Dare to speak Defending free speech for all

Suzanne Nossel, 1969-

Book - 2020

"A vital, necessary playbook for navigating and defending free speech today by the CEO of PEN America, Dare To Speak provides a pathway for promoting free expression while also cultivating a more inclusive public culture. Online trolls and fascist chat groups. Controversies over campus lectures. Cancel culture versus censorship. The daily hazards and debates surrounding free speech dominate headlines and fuel social media storms. In an era where one tweet can launch--or end--your career, and where free speech is often invoked as a principle but rarely understood, learning to maneuver the fast-changing, treacherous landscape of public discourse has never been more urgent. In Dare To Speak, Suzanne Nossel, a leading voice in support of f...ree expression, delivers a vital, necessary guide to maintaining democratic debate that is open, free-wheeling but at the same time respectful of the rich diversity of backgrounds and opinions in a changing country. Centered on practical principles, Nossel's primer equips readers with the tools needed to speak one's mind in today's diverse, digitized, and highly-divided society without resorting to curbs on free expression. At a time when free speech is often pitted against other progressive axioms--namely diversity and equality--Dare To Speak presents a clear-eyed argument that the drive to create a more inclusive society need not, and must not, compromise robust protections for free speech. Nossel provides concrete guidance on how to reconcile these two sets of core values within universities, on social media, and in daily life. She advises readers how to: Use language conscientiously without self-censoring ideas; Defend the right to express unpopular views; And protest without silencing speech. Nossel warns against the increasingly fashionable embrace of expanded government and corporate controls over speech, warning that such strictures can reinforce the marginalization of lesser-heard voices. She argues that creating an open market of ideas demands aggressive steps to remedy exclusion and ensure equal participation. Replete with insightful arguments, colorful examples, and salient advice, Dare To Speak brings much-needed clarity and guidance to this pressing--and often misunderstood--debate"--

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Subjects
Freedom of speech.
Published
[New York, New York] : Dey St., an imprint of William Morrow [2020]
Language
English
Corporate Authors
Dey Street House (New York, N.Y.), PEN America
Main Author
Suzanne Nossel, 1969- (author)
Corporate Authors
Dey Street House (New York, N.Y.) (-), PEN America
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
xiv, 304 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9780062966032
  • Author's Note
  • Introduction
  • Part I. Principles for Speaking
  • 1. Be Conscientious with Language
  • 2. Fulfill a Duty of Care When Speaking
  • 3. Find Ways to Express Difficult Ideas
  • 4. Defend the Right to Voice Unpopular Speech
  • 5. Apologize When You've Said Something Wrong
  • Part II. Principles for Listening
  • 6. Consider Intent and Context When Reacting to Speech
  • 7. Call Out with Caution
  • 8. Fight Hateful Speech and Hate Crimes
  • 9. Protesting Without Silencing
  • 10. Consider When to Forgive Speech-Related Transgressions
  • Part III. Principles to Follow When Debating Free Speech Questions
  • 11. Understand the Harms of Speech
  • 12. Don't Equate Speech with Violence
  • 13. Don't Politicize Free Speech
  • 14. Don't Caricature the Arguments For and Against Free Speech
  • 15. Prevent Free Speech from Reinforcing Inequality
  • Part IV. Principles to Follow in Considering Speech-Related Policies
  • 16. Know the Legal Limits of Free Speech
  • 17. Beware Expanded Government Controls on Speech
  • 18. Beware Expanded Corporate Controls on Speech
  • 19. Hold Tech Platforms Accountable for Their Influence on Public Discourse
  • 20. Know the Case for Free Speech
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Index
Review by Choice Review

Nossel's Dare to Speak is a thoughtful, accessible, but sometimes infuriating defense of free speech against suppression--not so much suppression by government, rather suppression stemming from intolerance and self-righteousness. The book is replete with examples of the harms that even constitutionally protected speech can engender, and also with examples of suppression of speech from various ideological perspectives, well-meaning and otherwise. For the most part, however, Nossel offers only naïve and circular prescriptions for mitigating injury without inviting censorship. She argues for the "need to find ways to self-govern ... discourse," but the ways she finds are almost as obvious as individuals' apparent inability (or unwillingness) to employ them. The take-away from much of the book is a Rodney King-esque "Why can't we all get along?" But when Nossel finally focuses on the cynical enablers of humans' worst inclinations, the social media platforms, her prescriptions become robust, even exhilarating. She rightly observes that there are "clear risks to empowering private, profit-driven companies to exert untrammeled control over the huge proportion of ... public discourse under their purview." Her proposed remedies would protect both freedom to speak and freedom from the most egregious speech harms. Summing Up: Recommended. With reservations. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; general readers. --Eric Bennett Easton, emeritus, retired, University of Baltimore

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Nossel, CEO of PEN America, debuts with a reasoned, well-sourced argument for protecting free speech, even in cases where it's morally reprehensible. She contends that "informal self-governance" is preferable to enacting bans on offensive speech, and laments "the decoupling of speech from considerations of intent and context." To combat hate speech, Nossel advocates respectful "counterspeech" rather than furious tirades or "speech-suppressive strategies." She notes that free speech as a political issue has gone from a liberal priority to a conservative crusade in recent years, and provides data suggesting that millennials are more in favor of censoring speech in order to protect minorities than previous generations. To help counter this "troubling tendency," Nossel commends progressive talk show host Bill Maher and President Barack Obama for defending the speech rights of those with whom they disagree. She criticizes the influence of "call-out" culture and offers guidelines on how to tell the difference between real and pseudo apologies. Some of Nossel's suggestions for defusing offensive speech seem overly optimistic, but her ardent defense of this constitutional right is based persuasively on personal experience and straightforward evidence. Readers will find this clearheaded account to be a helpful guide to navigating today's partisan extremism. (May)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Nossel, CEO of PEN America, has written a book for anyone who communicates online or in print and wants to retain "free speech" while acknowledging boundaries, maintaining empathy, and respecting the complexity of identities, especially when exploring or discovering how different political and social groups explore the flexibility and mutability of language online. Nossel carefully and thoughtfully outlines principles for speaking, listening, and debating free speech, beginning with a valuable compendium of legal and policy-related considerations. Beyond those fundamental elements, she repeatedly invokes empathy as a necessary component of all aspects of free speech, from what we say to how we respond, along with how to consider the ethics of protest, silencing, and intervention. The book provides clear, actionable steps and examples that range from individual/personal to large-scale and legal, which makes it at once accessible and informational. Each chapter ends with a how-to guide, which, while useful, may seem a little too straightforward for practices as changeable and varied as those she describes (such as misappropriations, contextually inappropriate word choices, and audience-specific nuances). VERDICT An informative work for readers interested in human rights, free speech, censorship, and how they interact. [See Prepub Alert, 10/21/19.]--Emily Bowles, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

The CEO of PEN America suggests how to protect free speech in a digital age. As Nossel notes in her debut book, Herbert Marcuse argued that "creating a broadly tolerant society demands intolerance of certain ideas, including right-wing ideologies." With far-right extremism on the rise, his view is making a comeback, writes the author, and she rebuts it in a defense of free speech that alternately hits the mark and wanders far afield from First Amendment issues, dealing instead with cultural insensitivity or noninclusive language. In much of the first half, Nossel serves up unedifying bromides on how to respond to "unintended offenses" such as stereotyping millennials as "snowflakes" or "asking a fellow party guest if she's pregnant when she isn't." The narrative gains traction when the author addresses urgent questions such as how to protect free speech while responding effectively to harmful material like online revenge porn, terrorist recruitment, and deepfake videos. Nossel, who has also served as the COO of Human Rights Watch, shows in chilling detail how tech companies are failing to moderate content appropriately. Google and Facebook, for example, "demote problematic posts, limiting how often they are seen without excising them entirely," or "shadow ban" them by "suppressing social media users so that, unbeknownst to them, their posts and content cannot be seen by others." The social media giants must become more transparent, argues Nossel, partly by notifying users promptly if they face sanctions. Throughout the book, the author argues persuasively that "informal self-governance" protects free speech better than corporate or government restrictions, but after reading her accounts of abuses by Silicon Valley behemoths, few readers are likely to disagree with one of her conclusions: "Mandated transparency is one area where government regulation of online content may be a positive step and would not entail intrusions on content in violation of the First Amendment." Apt and inapt arguments commingle in a passionate defense of free speech. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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