Over the weekend, someone launched distributed denial of service (DDos) attacks against at least three outspokenly feminist websites: Freethought Blogs, Skepchick, and Feminist Frequency. I’ve written one or two pieces critical of some of the ideas promulgated at all three of these websites, but I’d like to publicly register my complete disgust with this tactic. The appropriate response to speech you don’t agree with is to promote public argument and speak up for your own views, never to try to shut someone down.
It is not very difficult to find examples of some people from some of those websites publicly applauding successful attempts to shut down other people’s free speech on the web. I am compelled to condemn such tactics, regardless of the source and regardless of the target. Attacks against speech are attacks against us all, and we should all stand up to defend the principle of free speech, without regard to how onerous we might find the speech itself.
As Evelyn Beatrice Hall once wrote, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” So let it be with all of us who take up the mantle of freethought.
