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That speaker at the Berkeley free speech rally last month was cut off for using the wrong words
I was standing right there near the stage when he started talking about illegal immigration and they just pulled the mic, but he wasn't yelling or threatening anyone so isn't that the exact kind of speech these events are supposed to protect?
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sean_park821d ago
I was at a similar event downtown last fall where a guy got cut off for talking about housing costs. He was just listing numbers from a city report and they shut him down mid-sentence. I talked to one of the organizers after and he said they have a list of topics they'll let people discuss and anything that might make the news or upset the big donors gets axed early. That speaker at Berkeley was probably on the same list, even if nobody said it out loud.
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margaretrivera22d ago
Didn't they say the whole point of that rally was to let people say stuff even if it's unpopular? I was a few rows back and I could tell he wasn't shouting or anything, just talking about a policy issue. Seems like the organizers were more worried about the topic than about keeping an open forum, which is honestly kinda confusing for a free speech event.
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alices1618d ago
Those lists sean_park8 mentioned are way more common than people realize. I went to a town hall in Oakland a few months ago where they handed out a sheet of "approved questions" before it started. If you wanted to ask something off the list, a volunteer would just walk over and stand by you until you sat down. It wasn't a free speech event on paper but the vibe was exactly the same. They let people talk about park improvements and library hours but shut down anything about rent control or police funding. The Berkeley thing sounds like the same pattern just with a different city and topic. I mean, if the whole point is unpopular opinions then letting people filter the conversation kinda kills the point. The organizers probably had a script for what "free speech" looked like and the speaker's topic didn't fit.
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