I've noticed a new wrinkle in the rhetoric of deplatforming lately—asking explicitly why something was platformed, with the suggestion being that it shouldn't have been. 1/?

In some cases, it was a trivial bit of "content"—the lady with the "queer haircut" for example. In other cases, it was just a bizarre question: why did this ruling class news organ platform a commentary expressing the desires of some part of the ruling class? 2/?

Deplatforming has been generally considered a special tactic for use against fascists:

1. fascism depends on the Spectacle and thus is immune to rational debate.

2. fascist organizing is propaganda-by-the-deed, so violence (physical, not rhetorical) always accompanies it. 3/?

Deplatforming has historically not been used against garden-variety reaction for a few reasons:

1. garden-variety reaction is impossible to deplatform anyway

2. platforms are a site of struggle, so limiting platforming always harms the left more than the right
4/?

There's always a bit of an intellectual exercise to it: even people who always have the wrong answers sometimes ask interesting or even crucial questions, and are worth tangling with. 5/?

This is why the left has historically been in favor of free speech, expansive artistic expression immune to party discipline (one of the best ways to root out counter-revolutionaries btw), and trained in examining ideological claims disguised as facts or common sense. 6/

This is also why the left has historically invested in its organs, ranging from leaflets put together by a Workers Internationale of three to graffiti. It was understood that practically speaking left thought would be underplatformed within mass culture. 7/

The far-right always depicts the left as censorious, whether by claiming that Antifa attacks anyone it disagrees with at any time (that Antifa did not manifest in the US during the Bush era goes unremarked upon) or by locating ruling-class media moderates on the far left. 8/

Militant liberals—that is, people with liberal but not radical politics, but who use some radical-sounding terms—are often skeptical of left-wing organs, which admittedly are much smaller than ruling class organs. 9/

Thus a lot of platform-skepticism boils down to liberals engaging in comstockery, canceling marginalized people far more effectively than ruling-class entertainers, and refusing to engage in intellectual debate.

Unsurprisingly, the far right has filled the void. 10/

Thus a working-class queer writer being harassed by hundreds of people in defense of the world's 4th-largest company, using hardware manufactured by the 2nd and 3rd and fueled by the 1st.

In the name of liberalism and victims.

11/

Thus a trans writer forced to out herself and report to a mental hospital by people demanding to know why her work was ever platformed.

In the name of mental health and safety. 12/

The platform-skeptic makes a methodological error, measuring power too minutely. A quote-tweet is not intrinsically oppressive. A newspaper owned by the world's richest person, who is also the world's largest bookseller, is. 13/

This is true despite the fact that the Washington Post, like most ruling-class newspapers, is fairly ideologically diverse. (More diverse than Workers Struggle or White Power Monthly anyway.) 14/

The platform-skeptic, almost invariably a militant liberal, simply sees space for themselves in ruling class publications, but of course doesn't want to rub shoulders with people somewhat to their right or left. 15/

Thus, while it is upsetting, it is no surprise that the left practice of deplatforming fascist organization has been appropriated by militant liberals seeking to secure a berth in ruling class publications by nudging those immediately to their left and right out of the way. 16/

In conclusion: don't fall for it. Deplatforming tactics are for use against fascists only. The left needs to support expansive free expression—which includes expansive freedom to critique reaction—in almost all cases. Or the right will *pretend* to and win the day.

17/