Web Summit withdraws invite to Marine le Pen

August 15, 2018 5:32 AM

Paddy Cosgrave, founder and CEO of Web Summit, announced today that the invitation to speak extended to Marine Le Pen, leader of the French far right party Rassemblement National will be rescinded by the Lisbon tech conference.

The decision to invite the French far right politician had caused unrest in Portugal, a country with a lengthy and recent history of fascism. [Links about the Le Pen invite controversy in Portuguese]

In a Medium post published yesterday Cosgrave had outlined both the rationale for allowing Le Pen (and other speakers who could be 'consdiered offensive') a platform and the means taken to push back against their view points.

I couldn’t disagree more with the libertarian views of Peter Thiel, who spoke previously at Web Summit. I believe many of his views are deeply destructive to society. Similarly I couldn’t disagree more with another former speaker, Nigel Farage. Farage more than any other person helped, in my view, mislead greater than 50 percent of voters in the UK to vote to leave the European Union. A highly destructive act.

But Peter Thiel and Nigel Farage articulate viewpoints, however offensive to some, that resonate with a sizeable and by many accounts growing portion of not just the western world. And I think they have a place alongside leftist trade union leaders, socialist prime ministers, anarchist hackers, big corporate lobbyists and more.

That is why we have invited them to debate their views at Forum, Web Summit’s gathering of policy-makers, politicians, tech CEOs, regulators and academics.

In total there will be more than 1,000 speakers at Web Summit 2018. As has always been the case with speakers who express what might be considered offensive viewpoints, they are explicitly not invited to speak on our centre stage, nor on our more than 20 other primary stages. They appear instead on our smallest stages at Forum.

Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, these speakers are not invited to deliver an uncontested address, but are instead invited to have their views thoroughly challenged and scrutinised by a professional journalist. Moreover they sit on a panel, surrounded by authoritative and alternative voices who will openly contest the extreme viewpoints of these speakers.

However, Cosgrave finished his piece by stating that "the interest of our hosts, Portugal, and the interest of the people of Portugal, should be placed far above those of Web Summit."

It appears that reaction overnight to his piece led him to conclude that Le Pen's presence would be disrespectful to Portugal and some Web Summit attendees.

posted by roolya_boolya (36 comments total)

The time is coming where we cannot rely on the English language media to guide us or to show us their moral compass. We are each of us going to have to do this alone. And, or, start connecting with like minded people. This is coming in our global identity system. Mainstreaming fascism has been easier than mainstreaming gender or ethnicity. Think of the core tech team in every major tech giant office.
posted by infini at 5:38 AM on August 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

How to Discuss the Far Right Without Empowering It
A lesson from Germany
posted by infini at 5:48 AM on August 15, 2018 [6 favorites]

The idea that people have some sort of a automatic right to a platform to express their views, however disagreeable, drives me nuts. Because, in most cases, these people would be at the lunatic fringe of politics if not for the oxygen of publicity the media keeps giving them, over and over.

The only reason these people's views "resonate with a sizeable and by many accounts growing portion of not just the western world" is because the media have identified these charismatic but otherwise meritless cranks and promoted them as people we should take seriously. That the same media then goes on to publish anguished think-pieces on the rise of the right is either leopard/face stupidity, or a clear sign of an agenda to shape the news cycle to provide an endless stream of stuff to get outraged about.
posted by pipeski at 6:04 AM on August 15, 2018 [32 favorites]

"We invited Nigel Farage, and he's also a racist asshole" seems like a particularly weak defense.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:08 AM on August 15, 2018 [17 favorites]

Well if they have invited Thiel in the recent past, they could invite Satan and convincingly argue that this was a step towards humanitarian moderation, relatively speaking
posted by talos at 6:34 AM on August 15, 2018 [6 favorites]

Portugal btw is one of the very few European countries that doesn't have a seriously sized far-right / fascist party, so importing and giving a tribune to a fascist from the rest of the continent is certainly an issue there
posted by talos at 6:38 AM on August 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

The only reason these people's views "resonate with a sizeable and by many accounts growing portion of not just the western world" is because the media have identified these charismatic but otherwise meritless cranks and promoted them as people we should take seriously.

This is what stood out to me too; if the fact that racist/fascist/nationalist/xenophobic/bigoted views are resonating with an increasing number of people seems to you like a reason to give those ideas MORE airtime, I seriously do not know what to say to you.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 6:41 AM on August 15, 2018 [7 favorites]

Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, these speakers are not invited to deliver an uncontested address, but are instead invited to have their views thoroughly challenged and scrutinised by a professional journalist.

This is an object lesson in how journalists get played. They have no interest in a debate, and nothing will cause them to change their views. All they are doing is using the legitimacy of your platform to give credibility to their own position. That's it. The debate part is irrelevant. You're being used.
posted by mhoye at 7:00 AM on August 15, 2018 [19 favorites]

I don't think that Atlantic article (How to Discuss the Far Right Without Empowering It) is terrible, but I think people can and should take a much harsher line than it recommends.
It seems to boil down to
"an interview in which a journalist presented a far-right leader with actual policy questions that resembled what he would ask leaders in any other political party."
as the perfect model.
I'm not sure that's the most we can be doing.
Something more along the lines of protesting their events, no-platforming them wherever possible and organised workers refusing to allow their companies to interact with them appeals to me a lot more.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 7:19 AM on August 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

There are people whose opinions are controversial and divisive, and there are people whose public statements and actions are deliberately designed to cause harm.

Determining which is which is left as an exercise for each network and event governing body. However, do keep in mind that if you are giving those who are deliberately and openly causing harm the time of day, you are contributing to that harm in measurable ways.
posted by delfin at 7:22 AM on August 15, 2018 [8 favorites]

There's something I can't entirely grasp about the mindset in that Medium post. If you truly believe that some views are deeply destructive to society, shouldn't your duty be to limit that destruction by not giving these views a platform? Once you acknowledge that Thiel, LePen, Farage, etc. are actively harmful to the rest of the world and that their views are utterly corrosive to most people exposed to them, how can you turn around and say "Ah, well, it's only society"? Does he think society is like fingernails and we'll just grow a new one if the one we have gets too damaged?
posted by Copronymus at 7:32 AM on August 15, 2018 [10 favorites]

In total there will be more than 1,000 speakers at Web Summit 2018. As has always been the case with speakers who express what might be considered offensive viewpoints, they are explicitly not invited to speak on our centre stage, nor on our more than 20 other primary stages. They appear instead on our smallest stages at Forum.

As far as I can tell, this seems to be directly translatable to "we don't like these people but we like the money of people who like these people". Look, either your speakers are relevant--all of them are relevant, even if some of them are more niche and therefore warrant smaller venues--or your event is just a cash-grab. All the measures they're going to in order to keep this from being harmful aren't strictly irrational... if you assume that for some reason a given speaker literally must be invited.

There are some people who have so much influence over tech that I can at least see the argument that this is the case. Thiel is awful, but he's in the tech world either way. This event didn't create his influence over the tech industry; as long as he's already there, giving other people an opportunity to argue with him directly might be beneficial. (Though I'm not sure about that unless they're lining up speakers to go with him who are extremely prepared.) Le Pen and Farage, though, have political influence, but I don't see what the argument is that they need to be given a tech industry platform, aside from keeping their supporters happy.
posted by Sequence at 7:40 AM on August 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

Does he think society is like fingernails and we'll just grow a new one if the one we have gets too damaged?

The tech industry just might actually think so. Given screen time and hyper reality, how many have a strong logical mooring in meatspace reality left?
posted by infini at 7:42 AM on August 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

talos: Portugal btw is one of the very few European countries that doesn't have a seriously sized far-right / fascist party, so importing and giving a tribune to a fascist from the rest of the continent is certainly an issue there

Portugal was under a fascist dictatorship from 1933 to 1974 so they know a bit about fascists like the Le Pens too.
posted by sukeban at 9:07 AM on August 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

Web Summit still exists?
posted by adamgreenfield at 9:09 AM on August 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

(And now after sending I see that the point was already made in the writeup, so I'm really sorry for the comment above)
posted by sukeban at 9:09 AM on August 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

There are people whose opinions are controversial and divisive, and there are people whose public statements and actions are deliberately designed to cause harm.

The heart of the problem is that hatred and bigotry are treated as synonyms for "controversial", so we get this weasel worded argument full of euphemisms that avoids the point of why you don't give hate a platform.

This is why I just consider it a bad faith argument - if someone wants to argue that hatred is the price of free speech, but can't be honest about it, they can kindly go fuck off.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:09 AM on August 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

In total there will be more than 1,000 speakers at Web Summit 2018.

As someone who does a fair amount of public speaking, having given a talk somewhere on Earth just about twice a month every month of the past dozen years, I can tell you without any further qualification necessary that events of this type are invariably low-quality to begin with. The speakers are there strictly as a fig leaf for the trade show and "networking opportunities" attached to the event, and nobody expects anything substantive from them.

To my mind, this makes it more and not less offensive that odious individuals like Thiel, Farage and Le Pen are offered a platform. It means they are there for their earned-media value, simply because of the fact that the outrage attending their invitation generates awareness and buzz that did not exist before and could not be generated organically. There is no conceivable justification for their inclusion, none.
posted by adamgreenfield at 9:18 AM on August 15, 2018 [6 favorites]

sukeban, the extra links were nice, even though the main point was already mentioned!
posted by eviemath at 9:33 AM on August 15, 2018

People should embrace the idea of listening to different views. You don't have to agree with different views, but you should listen to different views.
posted by lstanley at 9:46 AM on August 15, 2018

People should embrace the idea of listening to different views. You don't have to agree with different views, but you should listen to different views.

I don't have a problem listening to different views.

I have a serious problem listening to hate and bigotry.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:47 AM on August 15, 2018 [16 favorites]

People should embrace the idea of listening to different views. You don't have to agree with different views, but you should listen to different views.

When will schools starting teaching Flat Earth Theory, damnit.
posted by kmz at 9:51 AM on August 15, 2018 [8 favorites]

Why should I listen to the people advocating views that I should be killed or enslaved due to my skin color or sexual orientation ?

Seriously, explain to us why we should listen to them and what is to be gained.
posted by rtha at 10:03 AM on August 15, 2018 [13 favorites]

People should embrace the idea of listening to different views. You don't have to agree with different views, but you should listen to different views.

Beyond the points NoxAeternum, kmz and rtha have made, you're assuming that Web Summit constitutes a meaningful extension of the public sphere, a Habermasian venue in which great issues of the day are raised, debated and responded to by an audience prepared and equipped to investigate such controversies.

Clearly, though, it is nothing of the sort. Nobody asked it to function in this way, nobody expects it to function in this way, it's not designed to function in this way and it does not function in this way. So even to the degree that we accept that such unreconstructed late-Enlightenment marketplace-of-ideas liberalism has a home — which is itself not an uncontroversial position — it sure as hell isn't here.
posted by adamgreenfield at 10:06 AM on August 15, 2018 [8 favorites]

There aren't enough hours in my life for me to waste them indiscriminately listening to the "different views" of people with backwards or bigoted ideas. Once someone has demonstrated that they're proudly racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-reproductive choice, immune to (well-supported) scientific evidence, etc etc, why should I lend them my ear when there are so many other people out there who don't have opinions so cruel, dehumanizing, and flawed?
posted by Secret Sparrow at 10:10 AM on August 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

People should embrace the idea of listening to different views. You don't have to agree with different views, but you should listen to different views.

Sure, fine. But not all "different" views need to be given equal weight or consideration - kmz's comment above about Flat Earth theories makes this point succinctly - and people, organizations, societies, and cultures can draw lines and boundaries about which different views deserve serious consideration (and which don't) without violating any kind of natural laws of free speech or open exchange of ideas or sliding down some kind of slippery slope into missing out on valuable ideas because they don't allow consideration of "different" views.

All of which even before the fact that Le Pen is a major well-known political figure and the "different" views she espouses are essentially in charge of the current United States government - her views are not exactly missing a public forum or mouthpiece. Dumping her from a tech conference is a long way from stifling examination or discussion of her positions.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:15 AM on August 15, 2018 [7 favorites]

Let's not be unfair to Ms. Le Pen: although she is surely far right in France, she is well to the left of the US Republican Party on practically every issue, including one could say migration.
posted by talos at 11:04 AM on August 15, 2018

Reuters Factbox: Le Pen's presidential election policies:

"- denying free access to basic healthcare to illegal migrants."

" Reject international trade treaties."

"* Reserve certain rights now available to all residents, including free education, to French citizens only, which would be put to voters via referendum."

"* Hire 15,000 police, build jails to make room for another 40,000 inmates."

"* Leave NATO’s integrated military command, boost defense spending."

"* Make it impossible for illegal migrants to legalize their stay in France."

"* Make it much harder to become a French citizen. Being born in France would not confer right to citizenship anymore."


These don't sound "well to the left of the US Republican Party" to me. Including migration. Let's not give Ms. Le Pen too much credit for throwing out the open anti-semites in the party and otherwise softening the party's image and policies to account for the fact that France is essentially starting from a more "liberal" set of policies than the US. That was a PR move as much as anything.
posted by soundguy99 at 12:11 PM on August 15, 2018 [6 favorites]

The tech industry just might actually think so. Given screen time and hyper reality, how many have a strong logical mooring in meatspace reality left?

We post on a website, dear.
posted by Apocryphon at 12:16 PM on August 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Soundguy99: I'm not saying that Le Pen is not far-right. She is. I am saying that the Republicans are to the right of pretty much everyone in Europe that has half a chance of leading a government, with the exception perhaps of people like Orban in Hungary and Salvini in Italy (though the latter is constrained by his allies). Le Pen was outflanked on rabid anti-immigrationism by the Gaulist candidate. The list you mention however is indicative of the wider problem of the far right agendas being endorsed by the mainstream center-right (and not only center-right) parties.

* "- denying free access to basic healthcare to illegal migrants.": This was the policy of Spain under the ("center-right") Rajoy administration, now thankfully restored. But also the law AFAIK in many countries in the EU (excepting emergency services). In the US the Republicans were after the meager provisions of ACA and Emergency Medicaid for illegal immigrants. Correct me if I'm wrong but there is no free access to basic healthcare for a majority of American citizens anyway.
- Free education for illegal immigrants (whatever she says she can't constitutionally deny it for legal immigrants - and she back-pedaled on this during the campaign). Republicans
- Hire 15,000 police, build jails... This was pretty much on Macron's list as well: "Build 15,000 extra prison places, hire 10,000 police, raise defense budget to 2 percent of GDP, from just under 1.8 percent in 2016". I need not point out the Republican take on this: more jails, more inmates, private prisons, literally a gulag system for the poor.
- [Rejecting international trade treaties and being against NATO are by themselves good ideas IMHO, but I doubt she'd keep those promises, and I don't know where she would go with them of she did]

So as far as the content of what Le Pen says on immigration and the nation-state, the organizers of the Web Summit could have invited the "respectable" Fracois Fillon or your average post-Tea Party Republican and hear the same ideas presented by a more legitimate, less stigmatized (but equally far-right) spokesperson.
My real fear with Le Pen is not what she says before elections, but the dark forces that would have access to government in the (unlikely) event she'd win the presidency. The leaders of such parties as the FN are vehicles of and hostages to their cadres and the political currents that shaped them. This would be tremendously dangerous.
posted by talos at 4:11 PM on August 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

"People should embrace the idea of listening to different views. You don't have to agree with different views, but you should listen to different views."

We need a corollary to the old "keep an open mind - but not so open that your brains fall out" saying for that sort of statement…
posted by Pinback at 8:15 PM on August 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

They were dead to me when they hosted Farage. Look at how edgy we are, giving some of the money you spent on tickets to fascists!
posted by BinaryApe at 10:10 PM on August 15, 2018

My wife is from Portugal and when she found out Le Pen was invited to speak in Portugal she was extremely angry and upset. She was ready to hop on a flight and go down and join mass protests. My wife is not generally the mass-protest type. Perhaps some additional context helps:

Portugal only emerged from a fascist dictatorship in 1974. That is not too long ago and much of the older generation alive today, lived it. It still takes the form of a national trauma. Older in-laws I see are still timid when approaching civil servants, perhaps still with an unshakable fear or anxiety that if they cross some invisible line, they and their family will suffer harm.

The good news is that Portugal today is one of the most liberal, left-wing countries in the Western hemisphere. They've decriminalised drugs, have outstanding social services, second-highest pensions in Europe, embrace LGBT rights and, in general, have been successfully building an open society. I am a fan of the current prime minister, Antonio Costa, who is also secretary-general of the Socialist party, and whose goal is to reverse austerity and have his country prosper.

Freedom and tolerance are valued highly. There is also this understanding that such things are fragile and there will always be others who want to destroy this - even a tiny number of outliers who long for the numb security of the dictatorship.

So, in general, everything is tolerated except one thing - intolerance, or those who would seek to destroy or undermine this society. When this incident blew up on Portuguese twitter there was the usual crowd of misfits crying 'free speech!' and 'censorship!' but many Portuguese had ready responses to this:

In order to save free speech, you have to acknowledge its limits. EVERY political philosopher has acknowledged this. Many people there subscribe naturally to the Popperian view: that a tolerant society must not tolerate intolerance. The intolerants are happy to take your platform but they are not there to debate, they are there to destroy the entire system itself. Ultimately, their platform is that you should not have a platform if they were in charge.

Commentators on Twitter have been pointing out how this paradox of tolerance (resolvable, so not really a paradox) was known even by Voltaire.

The most extreme free speech view you get is, arguably, from John Stuart Mill who says "...there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered." and yet even Mill famously also espoused his harm principle: "..the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others"

What does 'harm to others' mean? How can words cause harm? For example, by inciting violence, by defamation or libel. Modern philosophers are now pointing out how this absolutely includes hate speech.

Of course nobody is even 'censoring' Le Pen here to begin with. She is not being offered a platform at a tech conference. The problem here is actually a tech conference organizer imposing his extreme Stuart Mill model of free speech on a Popperian society which is fiercely protective of itself. A huge cultural faux-pas. Like hosting a conference in a post-Soviet state and inviting Putin to offer his 'viewpoint' In Portugal, fascism is not considered a 'viewpoint', it is an infection you keep at bay.

Finally, where is extreme-Mill free speech at today? It is the political philosophy which I think underpins the current events in the US and the UK. In the latter it has given rise to a gutter press that attacks the weakest in society and when called to account yells out that their freedom must not be curtailed. In both countries it has led to propaganda wars and 'fake news.'

If anything now is the time to listen to countries with a recent history with fascism, like Portugal, like Germany and understand that if you allow fascists in the back door, they will burn down your house.
posted by vacapinta at 2:21 AM on August 16, 2018 [27 favorites]

Hear hear, vacapinta, and thanks for the link to the Waldron piece, which I hadn't seen before.
posted by adamgreenfield at 7:43 AM on August 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Finally, where is extreme-Mill free speech at today? It is the political philosophy which I think underpins the current events in the US and the UK. In the latter it has given rise to a gutter press that attacks the weakest in society and when called to account yells out that their freedom must not be curtailed. In both countries it has led to propaganda wars and 'fake news.'

This. Very well put, Vacapinta. I would elevate this comment to "Ask vs Guess" referenceable level. Because of the way you've framed it, it is now clear that y'all arguing for curbing of hate speech and fascists getting NYT interviews are trying hard to impose your Popperian logic in a society that upholds the extreme-Mill free speech as the idealized aim of society. That itself is pulling it apart.

*asplodes*
posted by infini at 12:14 PM on August 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

'Paddy Cosgrave was wrong to invite Le Pen - and wrong to use Northern Ireland in his justification'
David McCann, an expert on the politics of peace, can not equate Marine Le Pen with the stakeholders of Northern Ireland.
posted by roolya_boolya at 1:02 PM on August 16, 2018 [1 favorite]