Arwa Mahdawi: ‘There’s a big difference between no-platforming and not promoting’

Hi Moira,

I’ll jump right into it. Radio stations have started to drop R Kelly and Michael Jackson from their playlists. I support this. It would be hard to play these guys on the radio at the moment without it sounding like you’re either endorsing or ignoring their alleged behavior.

But what I don’t support are calls for streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube to remove Kelly or Jackson’s music altogether. This isn’t because I think you should separate art from the artist – you shouldn’t. It’s because I’m vehemently against censorship and banning their music would be censorship. It’s really as simple as that.

I think what’s key here is that there’s a big difference between no-platforming and not promoting. I know that’s obvious, but it feels like this distinction isn’t stressed enough in debates about free speech. Spotify was right to remove Kelly from its featured playlists because that equals promotion. And it was right not to ban his songs altogether because that gets you into really dangerous territory: it turns the likes of Spotify into a moral arbiter and opens up a can of worms about who deserves to be banned next.

Those are my initial thoughts. Look forward to hearing yours!

Moira Donegan: ‘Removing these men’s music is the right thing to do’

Hey Arwa!

One element that heavily favors removal of these abusers’ music for me is the fact that none of the types of allegations made against Jackson in Leaving Neverland, or against Kelly in Surviving R Kelly, are new. Both have faced criminal trials over similar allegations before (though it’s worth remembering that they were both acquitted), and rumors and victim’s testimonies have overshadowed them for years.

I think what haunts me is that we have been deciding for so long to ignore the voices of these victims, deciding that we would rather prioritize our relatively trivial enjoyment of these men’s music over the much more important issue of these young people’s suffering, their claims to dignity.

I disagree with your stance that no-platforming on services like these amounts to censorship. I might just have a higher standard for what constitutes censorship here, which I view as punitive repression of speech by a government. In these cases, with these artists, on these private platforms, I don’t think there is a credible claim that these artists have a right to have their music hosted there. That seems to me more of a privilege.

When you consider that having their music on these services materially benefits these alleged abusers – that it puts money in R Kelly’s pocket – I think there’s a solid case to be made that removing these men’s music is the right thing to do.

AM: ‘Where do you draw the line?’

Great points and I certainly don’t disagree with much of what you’re saying. But it still comes back to the issue of censorship for me.

With tech companies having inordinate amounts of power, it’s clear that censorship is not an issue limited to governments any more and I don’t think we can simply dismiss the likes of YouTube and Spotify as “private platforms”.

I agree that artists like R Kelly don’t have a right to have their music on streaming platforms. But I think they do have a right to put their music on the internet. And if you want Spotify to ban R Kelly then wouldn’t you want a web hosting company to ban him from having a website where he uploaded his music? Where do you draw the line?

That said, if R Kelly’s music wasn’t already on Spotify I’d be fine with them exercising their discretion and choosing not to have him on the platform. That feels different to me.

The financial issue you raise is definitely important. But I imagine there may be more civil suits against Kelly, so you could argue that that money is likely to be redistributed to the victims.

MD: ‘Removing their music might not be much of a loss’

I like your idea that revenues from R Kelly’s music might be redistributed to the victims – if only there was a way to guarantee or enforce this. As it stands, the revenues are more likely to be used for lawyers, public relations reps, and bail – the very things that might help him escape accountability.

Your point is well taken that online platforms are where a good amount of public discussion takes place, and thus they serve some of public functions without having many of the same public responsibilities that a government entity would. That might be one argument for nationalizing social media! But as things stand now, with these platforms being private, I think my point that these men do not have any entitlement to have their music be published there still stands.

In terms of your “slippery slope” concern, I empathize. I agree that platforms like Spotify and Apple Music are ill-equipped to act as nuanced and fair arbiters of morality. But I also think we need to take into account the specific nature of these men’s alleged crimes: the sexual molestation and abuse of minors.

Child sex abuse is a different kind of moral violation. It’s in a class of its own, superfluously evil, arguably the worst thing that someone can possibly do. If we’re worried about a slippery slope scenario in which this precedent will lead to other artists having their art removed for different moral violations, I’m not sure that concern is well founded. I think that removing these men’s music still sets the bar for removal very high. God willing, few other artists will meet it.

Given the gravity of sexual abuse of children, I also want to bring up another reason for removing this music, which is that in the context of their actions, I think that these men’s music now fails as music. I can’t enjoy Billie Jean the way I used to; it no longer brings me the same kind of pleasure. It feels tainted, the music morally compromised and my experience as a listener reduced largely to the shame of complicity. One other thing to consider is that removing their music might not be much of a loss.

AM: ‘It’s disingenuous to pretend there isn’t a slippery slope’

About the financial aspect: I reckon it’s worth remembering that streaming services aren’t exactly a major money-maker for artists. (It would apparently take about 4 million Spotify streams for a songwriter to make minimum wage in California in a month.) So I wonder if that’s something of a red herring. That being said, I think there are ways you could deal with the revenue question that don’t involve banning. For example, profits from US sales of Mein Kampf go to Holocaust survivors.

Of course, child sexual abuse is evil. However, it’s disingenuous to pretend there isn’t a slippery slope here. There are, unfortunately, many musicians who had sex with underage fans. David Bowie slept with a minor! There is a case for removing half the songs on Spotify, to be honest.

It’s also really difficult to say people deserve to banned for child sexual abuse but not something else. Remember that Spotify also removed music from XXXTentacion from its playlists (which, again, I agree was the right thing to do – but I’d have been uncomfortable with them banning him altogether). XXXTentacion allegedly beat his pregnant girlfriend so badly she lost some of her vision. Many would argue that he deserves to be banned for that. It’s impossible to say where you draw the line about who deserves to be banned and who doesn’t.

I’m not saying we should all just shrug our shoulders and continue listening to these artists. I think that we should keep discussing what they did and, as we do, people will stop listening to them on their own. It will become socially unacceptable to put on Michael Jackson at a party. There is no need for bans – and all the complexities these entail – when they can just organically fade into obscurity.

MD: ‘How much money are you willing to pay a child molester?’

I see your reasoning when you say that his streaming revenues might not amount to much, in the scheme of things. But I also think that there are few more clear, if tacit, endorsements of this kind of behavior than continuing to give its perpetrators material support. The moral question might become, how much money are you willing to pay a child molester? For me, the answer is none.

In terms of a slippery slope, I’m not sure I would dislike a world where credibly accused child molesters like R Kelly and Michael Jackson can’t find a big commercial avenue to stream their music. That seems like one form of justice, to me. You point to men accused of other offenses, and I think the risk of purging all music is exaggerated in your account. But we also have to imagine the music, and other talents, of abused people, which we have already lost by allowing predatory men to hurt them with impunity. A world where we do not allow men to abuse and go on to have conventionally successful careers is also a world where fewer people will be abused, where fewer people will suffer the traumas and discouragements that diminish their talents and delay their dreams. What sort of art might we have then?

We must, collectively, draw the line somewhere, between what we are willing to tolerate and what we cannot abide. We have already been doing this with men like R Kelly: We have been deciding to draw the line wherever R Kelly puts it, deciding to sacrifice his victims’ dignity to our own desire to look away. We can’t do this any longer. The fact is that their music is largely what allowed these men to abuse children, and now its presence on these streaming platforms is one more signal that we still do not care about those victims.