The ‘Marketplace of Ideas’ Has Never Existed
Why Ideas That Push Humanity Toward Death Deserve to Die
I fairly recently attended a meeting about Book Banning and the Right To Read Act in Rhode Island. There was a panel discussion and a white person from the crowd asked something about a “marketplace of ideas”, the exact question eludes me but I was just quietly disappointed in the crowd.
My mind was abuzz with a million thoughts on why that was such a bad and dangerous idea to subscribe to. Now I I have the opportunity to share those thoughts with you.
Doublespeak
If you're not familiar, the phrase “marketplace of ideas” sounds neutral, even noble, like a democratic arena where all perspectives compete on merit. But it’s whats called “doublespeak”. Doublespeak is deliberately deceptive or ambiguous language used to obscure, distort, or reverse the meaning of words in order to manipulate perception, maintain power, or avoid accountability. “Marketplace of ideas, assumes all ideas begin on equal footing, when in reality, systems of power shape whose ideas get heard, platformed, funded, and protected. In this so called marketplace, genocidal ideologies and liberatory philosophies are treated as equally valid “products,” while the structural violence that silences marginalized voices is conveniently ignored. It’s linguistic camouflage for the normalization of harm.
War is peace, freedom is slavery, type shit.
Debate Me Bro
The marketplace metaphor emboldens a particular archetype: the Debate Me Bro. This figure thrives on intellectual sparring, pretending it’s all just abstract play…”exploring”….”for fun”….”open minded”. But for many of us, these “debates” are not theoretical, they’re about our right to exist, to heal, to live without being criminalized. Life, liberty, and happiness, type shit. The Debate Me Bro doesn’t want mutual understanding; he wants to win. He treats discourse as a zero-sum sport, not a path to truth. And in doing so, he mirrors the logic of empire: dominate or be dominated.
Bad ideas want to kill you, not debate you
Some ideas aren’t just “bad”, they’re violent by their very nature. They aren’t sitting quietly in the marketplace waiting to be rationally refuted. They’re spreading, organizing, and recruiting. Fascism (and every shitty ism) doesn’t care if you think it’s irrational, it banks on your liberal hesitation to name evil as evil. The “marketplace of ideas” tells us that all speech is worth hearing out. But history shows us: some speech lays the groundwork for genocide. Bad ideas aren’t interested in dialogue, they’re interested in power. From a game theory perspective, they’re invested in acting innocent until the very second they have enough public support through propaganda and doublespeak to no longer have to pretend.
The Tolerance of Intolerance
Karl Popper warned of this paradox: unlimited tolerance leads to the disappearance of tolerance. But the marketplace logic doesn’t understand thresholds or boundaries. It celebrates the inclusion of fascists in the name of “open discourse,” even when their inclusion threatens the safety and participation of everyone else. When intolerance is tolerated, it metastasizes. And too often, it is those most vulnerable who are asked to be endlessly tolerant, while their oppressors enjoy infinite second chances.
F(r)ee Speech
In practice, “free speech” is rarely free. It costs marginalized people safety, time, energy, and often their lives. Meanwhile, those with the most money and power enjoy the loudest megaphones. Algorithms elevate conspiracy theories, white supremacist dog whistles, and reactionary ideologies not because they’re true, but because they’re profitable. That’s not free speech, it’s fee speech, and the cost is paid in bodies. You have the right to say what you want ti say but you don't have the right to be heard or provided and audience or platform. Also, hate speech is not protected speech. You can technically say anything from an autonomy perspective but you won’t be shielded from consequences or people's reactions to what you say.
Right Wing Social Media Platforms
Right-wing media platforms exploit this marketplace metaphor to launder bigotry. They paint themselves as champions of “free thought,” even as they curate echo chambers, ban dissent, and radicalize users through fear-mongering. These platforms thrive not on honest exchange, but on rage engagement, outrage, moral panic, and sensationalism. Buzzfeed (yes, I know), calls this profitable phenomenon “SNARF”, which stands for Stakes/Novelty/Anger/Retention/Fear. They pretend to be agoras of open dialogue, but they are algorithmic weapons factories, with a clear political agenda. Their goal is to manipulate and distort your perception of reality (for the worse). This is how we get stuff like the guy who stormed that pizza place because of what he heard about PizzaGate. I've never been on TruthSocial but i’ve spent time on Gab and right wing Christian conservative trad Twitter in the past just observing things (there was a once upon a time when I too fell for the marketplace of ideas trap), and as you may have guessed they are full of SNARF. To be clear, every mainstream social media platform optimizes for SNARF but Twitter (not calling it X) did so big time especially with the ability to quote dunk on people, it was an absolute cesspool of SNARF, racism, and a depressing atmosphere on Twitter (especially that side of it). Gab marketed itself as a non partisan free speech platform which was BS because applying the ethic of free speech (which for Gab includes racism and every ism, possibly even hate speech) is right wing and naturally attracts right wingers even if it’s pretending to be a neutral platform…it’s really just doublespeak. These platforms and the propaganda and misinformation they produce and spread has the power to manipulate an entire election.
Why assume humanity can discern good ideas given its track record?
The Enlightenment fantasy that truth will always rise to the top if just given enough oxygen ignores both history and psychology. Humans are not rational agents sifting through ideas with calm objectivity. We are deeply shaped by bias, fear, and propaganda. Slavery, genocide, apartheid, and eugenics were all once “popular ideas”, often backed by the science of the time. The assumption that society will naturally select good ideas over bad ones is not only naïve, it’s historically illiterate.
Podcast Bros and Joe Rogan
Figures like Joe Rogan embody this ideological trap. They platform fascists, loons, scammers, and pseudoscientists in the name of “just asking questions,” ignoring the real-world consequences of legitimizing harmful views. Podcast bros often hide behind neutrality, but their platforms shape discourse, shift Overton windows, and shift entire presidential elections. Giving airtime to hate is not impartiality, it’s complicity.
The responsibility of a platform owner
If you own a platform, you are not a passive bystander. You are a gatekeeper. Whether you’re a tech CEO, librarian, publisher, or podcast host, your choices determine what ideas are amplified and which communities are protected or exposed. Hiding behind the myth of the neutral marketplace is cowardice. Real freedom of expression requires discernment, not abdication.
Propaganda and Perception
When platforms don’t intervene, propaganda wins by default. Repetition breeds belief, and virality trumps truth. The “marketplace” becomes a casino rigged in favor of spectacle, fear, and control. It’s not an open agora, it’s a hall of mirrors designed by the highest bidder. And if we don’t actively intervene, perception becomes reality, and reality becomes tyranny.
Dignity and humanity: Not all ideas are equal
The marketplace metaphor assumes that all ideas deserve equal airtime. But that assumption erases one of the most basic truths of liberation work: not all ideas are equal. Some ideas uplift dignity, deepen our humanity, and expand the circle of care. Others degrade, dehumanize, and desecrate.
Equating an idea rooted in ancestral wisdom, mutual aid, or liberation with an idea rooted in domination, erasure, or hate is not intellectual fairness, it’s ontological violence. It’s the spiritual equivalent of putting a loaf of bread and a noose on the same shelf and asking people to “decide for themselves.”
This false equivalence treats genocidal logic as if it’s just a provocative opinion. It invites people to ponder whether trans folks are “really” valid, whether enslaved people benefited from slavery, whether migrants are human enough to deserve safety. These are not debates. These are violations.
Ideas are not just thoughts, they’re vehicles of power. They encode values, justify systems, and shape the future. When we pretend they’re all equally valid, we abandon our responsibility to discern what kind of world we are building.
If an idea requires the suppression of someone else’s existence to make its case, it is not just an idea, it is a weapon. And the people deploying it are not thinkers. They are agents of dehumanization.
Let’s stop pretending that the value of an idea can be separated from the harm it causes. If we care about dignity, we must care about discernment. If we care about humanity, we must care about which ideas help it thrive, and which ones want it destroyed.
