The terrorist murders at Charlie Hebdo in France have caused a lot of discussion about freedom of expression and whether or not people’s sensitivities, religious or otherwise, can be used to justify silencing others’ voices.
But you don’t have to look far to find examples of the vexations of free speech and attempts to silence it in agriculture.
Some of you have probably been following the bizarre situation of the #farm365 hashtag on Twitter, which was originally established by Ontario dairy farmer Andrew Campbell to show daily photos of what he’s doing on his farm. (He has his own account, @FreshAirFarmer) which he controls, but a hashtag can receive Tweets from anybody who includes it in a Tweet.)
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A number of vegans – people who think it is bad or wrong to eat anything derived from animals – decided to pounce on the hashtag and load it with anti-animal-agriculture Tweets, including ugly photos of hurt animals and outraged statements about how terrible vegans think animal agriculture is. So the tag now is a bizarre mix of nice farmy stuff posted by farmers and passionate attacks on livestock farming posted by vegans. Some vegans have made their intention to take control of the tag pretty obvious:
And to me, that’s OK. That’s the free speech that Twitter offers us, and it’s a testament to the freedom we have in our liberal, secular society to voice contrary views and positions. We can do this nicely, or nastily, but we’re free to do it. We’re not free to incite violent behaviour against others, or incite hatred against identifiable groups, but we’re free to be as loud, outrageous and extreme as we want about most things. That includes animal agriculture.
This sort of messy but acceptable public discussion seems to be what’s happening on #farm365. Go look at it. It’s a fascinating example of free speech in the digital age. Tags are common property on Twitter and we can’t choose who hangs out in their feed.
To me, and I find myself quite passionate about free speech every since the slaughter at Charlie Hebdo, free speech truly seems the core of our democracy, our economy and our culture. In Parliament we see it with the antics of Question Period, with Parliamentarians acting in ways we don’t allow with elementary school kids. We see it in academic debates, which can at times become heated. In recent years, oddly, economists have often come to the fore as pugilists in mainstream public intellectual debate, shedding much of their image as dull purveyors of the dismal science.
And obviously we see it in the media. That’s where many of the conflicts over free speech naturally occur. It’s not always about high profile situations like Charlie Hebdo (which has a smaller subscriber base than the Western Producer), but in the daily work of newspapers, radio, TV and web sources. The conflicts aren’t always public or even realized. There can be an owner’s pressure on editors and reporters to not cover something, or to cover something in a certain way. Advertisers can attempt to lean on newsrooms.
Then there’s the legal pressure that can be brought on independent media by well-financed companies or organizations that know how to throw a libel threat like a grenade. And there’s always the danger of political interference and political manipulation.
There’s also sometimes pressure from readers to avoid certain topics, or be the champions of their communities, within the news section itself and not just in commentary.
When I look back at almost 25 years in this business, at a number of papers, I’ve seen almost all those types of pressure brought to bear on reporters, editors and publishers. And what’s been nice is that almost all of it has been fended off by a spirit of defiance that seems to be an innate characteristic of most journalists. Tell a journalist they can’t talk about something and they’ll want to talk about it, just to prove to themselves that they haven’t been silenced.
I think a lot of farmers share that spirit of defiance, although many are just now having to learn to feel it. Social media has thrown many farmers way out into the public sphere, on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and elsewhere online, and some have come to face the wrath of virulent critics. There are many strong “antis” right now, and they often pounce on farmers. Issues like GMOs, pesticides, animal agriculture, bees, soil conservation and climate change sometimes get turned on farmers as alleged perpetrators of something bad, and many regular farmers have had to learn how to deal with sudden outbreaks of criticism and hostility.
Most get defiant, but not in stupid ways. They don’t tend to argue with activists, but just keep telling their story, what they think the truth to be. That seems to me to be the right way. Tell your truth and don’t be silenced.
So I’m going to enjoy watching what happens with #farm365 and see who wins that digital fight. Somehow I suspect it will be the farmers. Long after the flood of activist aggression has ebbed, farmers will be out there showing and talking about what they do.
It can be vexing to deal with extremities of free speech, especially when you’re the target of it, but it’s the same freedom that lets you tell your truth.
