The Tribune

By MALCOLM STRACHAN

We are living in strange times. Not my words, but those of Jimmy Kimmel – talking to a friend after his show was pulled by ABC in a row that leaves many wondering where freedom of speech can be found these days.

Here in The Bahamas, we are on the outside looking in on this particular fight, but we should not think for a moment that this kind of political row might not find its way to our shores someday.

So where did this all start? Well, you can go back years for what seems like the weaponisation of social media – you’ll have seen it plenty of times, someone says something deemed to be stupid or unreasonable, and there is a pile-on with people calling for that person to apologise, perhaps be fired, maybe even never work again. And not to sound like I’m sitting on a fence, but this really is one of those situations where “both sides” have done this.

This particular sequence of events began with the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist who particularly made his name with a podcast and who often held a debate called Prove Me Wrong where he would sit with people of opposing viewpoints. Supposedly, it was to give them a chance to, as the title said, prove him wrong, though in practice it gave him a platform to assert his own views on those issues.

Over the years, he said a bunch of things that were offensive, such as speculating about whether black pilots were qualified or suggesting the newly-engaged Taylor Swift needs to submit to her husband and reject feminism. None of the things he said gave any justification to a killer picking up a rifle and shooting Kirk from a rooftop during an appearance at Utah Valley University. None of the things he said could ever justify that. Even a quote that went around after his death - in which he said that “I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights” – did not mean there was any reason for someone to kill him.

After the assassination came the reaction. Social media being what it is, a bunch of people said some dumb things, some hurtful things – and the backlash was not long in coming. The US Vice-President, JD Vance, was the guest host for an episode of Kirk’s show, and called for people celebrating the death to be held to account. He said: “Call them out, and hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility.”

A number of people were suspended or sacked for social media posts, including pilots, medics, teachers, a journalist, a Secret Service employee, and more.

A Florida congressman said he would “demand their firing, defunding and licence revocation” for people celebrating the death, while a South Carolina congresswoman called out “cut off every dime to any school or university” that refuses to retaliate against employees making insensitive posts about Kirk.

Amid all this there has been speculation about the motivation of the shooter. A suspect is in custody.

Into the aftermath of that stepped Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel’s show – like a bunch of other late-night shows – has always taken a look at what’s going on in the country, packaged with a punchline on top. The words that he said were these: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

He then went on to show a segment of President Donald Trump being asked how he was feeling after the assassination in which Trump responded by talking about the ballroom being built at the White House. Kimmel said Trump was in the fourth stage of grieving – construction – and added: “This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he calls a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.”

Are those words really strong enough to demand his show be removed? Are they really the kind of thing that should lead to a network suspending a host?

We don’t have the first amendment in The Bahamas, we have our own protections – but it prevents the government from “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” among its measures.

So when the Federal Communications Chair, Brendan Carr, weighed in and suggested Kimmel should be suspended, there were obvious concerns about the constitutionality of such a move. He even went on to say “we can do this the easy way or the hard way” which sounds like a line from a gangster movie. Nice network you have here, shame if something happened to it.

So why do we care? All of this is happening over there, right? It is the playbook we should care about. Look at JD Vance, for example. Earlier this year, he spoke in Munich, saying: “Under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree.”

That’s a long way from saying call up people’s employers.

Such efforts to control what people are saying places a chill on public debate – and Vance is far from the only person to have gone from shouting about the need for free speech to calling for consequences for those who actually used it.

On the other hand, look elsewhere and you will see the dangers of restricting speech – such as the arrests in the UK of people carrying signs saying “Palestine Action” because someone has deemed that a terrorist act. Words on a placard.

There are things we should be wary of here at home. There are restrictions here, certainly. If I call someone a liar and can’t prove it, they can sue me.

But we should not allow ourselves to be drawn into this world where people shout for free speech one minute then try to get people fired the next, especially from jobs in the private sector.

It feels too much like demanding free speech for what one side wants you to hear – and no speech for those who disagree.

And one person who would have agreed for the need for open discussion was Charlie Kirk. He said: “When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence. That’s when civil war happens, because you start to think the other side is so evil, and they lose their humanity.”

Maybe, just maybe, we should listen to him this time.