By Armchair Mayor

ROTHENBURGER: The world decides not to play the killer’s game

Mar 16, 2019 | 6:56 AM

AS SURELY AS IF by referendum in every country, in every city and every house on every street and country road, the world made a decision on Friday. It was the right decision.

We voted as a global community to opt out of the long-held premise that if we’re to have freedom of expression, it must be absolute. That there must be no exceptions. Under the old way of thinking, once we deviate even an inch, all will be lost. We will inevitably descend into the world of Orwell’s 1984, controlled by the Ministry of Truth and the language of Newspeak.

That’s over. We decided there must be exceptions in order to protect the whole, and that we can manage those exceptions.

The turning point was the mass murder in New Zealand in which a killer (at this writing it’s unclear if he had accomplices) planned a live video production of the rampage in which he slaughtered 49 people. It was a terrorist act and a hate crime recorded and distributed around the world in a way that had never been done in previous mass murders.

It was intended to glorify and to shock, and to strike fear, and to inspire other haters to follow. We said no.

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Social media platforms reacted by shutting down the video and searching for remnants and copies. Some mainstream media published still photos excerpted from the video but most quickly removed them. Internet ghouls continued to share, of course, but they have no agency in this movement.

The question of whether this all happened quickly enough remains open but the attempt was made pretty unanimously.

Police urged that the video be extinguished. Politicians, media and right-thinking people united in refusing to take part in the killer’s game. They refuse to watch or listen to his video. They refuse to read his manifesto.

To borrow from James Peters in his editorial yesterday, they refuse to make him a hero.

What’s remarkable is the lack of the usual debate over the sanctity of freedom of speech. In every other mass murder and terrorist attack, there have been those who insist that we need to watch, we need to see the death and the blood. Because, they insist, that’s freedom of speech.

They justify themselves by saying facts are always friendly. Under this reasoning, we must know all the gory details in order to understand the enemy and do something about it.

It’s a fake argument. By coincidence, the issue arises on the heels of Freedom to Read Week, an annual event that, this year, was held Feb. 24 to March 2. Basically, the message is that censorship is bad.

The Freedom to Read website states:

“Freedom to read can never be taken for granted. Even in Canada, a free country by world standards, books and magazines are banned at the border. Books are removed from the shelves in Canadian libraries, schools and bookstores every day. Free speech on the Internet is under attack. Few of these stories make headlines, but they affect the right of Canadians to decide for themselves what they choose to read.”

The fallacy of this line of thinking is the assumption that every opinion or act deserves to be heard and seen.

A little over a year ago, I was part of a panel discussion during Freedom to Read Week.

A fellow panelist, a librarian, argued against censorship in any circumstances. I had another view. I’ve never believed freedom of speech is absolute and find no contradiction between being a journalist and favouring censorship in certain situations.

On this particular evening, I pointed out as an example some of the truly odious content on the Internet. What I was thinking to myself was the availability on the Internet of instructions on the best ways to commit suicide.

I wrote about suicide last week and if you read that column you’ll know I strongly believe we need to talk about suicide. But that doesn’t include acknowledging or allowing to continue unfettered some of the disgusting material freely accessible with the click of a button.

What I wanted to say to the librarian was, “Teaching a 16-year-old how to end his own life is freedom of expression. Now tell me how that’s a good thing.” I didn’t say it, but wish I had.

There’s the seemingly complicated question of how to set limits on our freedom of speech but it’s not really that complicated. We’re already doing it.

We have laws against defaming someone’s character, against lying under oath, against hate speech, against inciting others to commit violence. Censoring ourselves is a dynamic proposition — as times and circumstances change, we adapt.

To consume and distribute the garbage produced by the Christchurch killer is to participate in his evil. It carries us past the status of observers towards becoming willing partners.

The reaction to the tragic events in New Zealand during the past two days gives notice we don’t intend to do that. The old argument in favour of total freedom of speech has been lost, but in its place is a new, nuanced and compassionate principle.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and newspaper editor. He publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.