A liberal defense of no-platforming.

This article focuses on defining and defending no-platforming as the practice by private actors of obstructing or attempting to obstruct a speaker deemed deeply objectionable, usually for moral reasons. It argues that no-platforming, except when violent, constitutes a form of free speech protected under liberal principles in the United States and the United Kingdom, where constitutional free speech rights primarily bind public actors, not private ones. The article presents a taxonomy of no-platforming—from petitions and counter-events to violent obstruction—and contends that most forms are legally and morally protected speech, despite involving a moral wrong of social punishment without a right of redemption. It further asserts that public and private actors committed to free speech have a duty to protect and promote non-violent no-platforming while balancing the conflicting free speech rights of both no-platformers and those being no-platformed, framing the core conflict as one between competing free speech claims rather than between free speech and other liberal values such as non-discrimination or academic freedom.