Cancelling people does not defeat their ideas. If anything, it amplifies their message and makes martyrs of the people spreading them, as if silencing them makes them more sought after and trustworthy.

What started as a left-wing progressive campaign to cancel conservatives has become a commonplace tactic across the political spectrum, and it is leading us absolutely nowhere good.

We see it time and time again.

A public figure or speaker is given a platform, someone attempts to cancel them or ban them from entering the country, and instead of confronting their ideas, the story is no longer about what they believe or what they have said, but turns into a story about censorship, injustice, and the supposedly heroic figure who was silenced. It is the exact opposite effect of shaming and embarrassing someone for having bad ideas. Cancel culture actually makes them far more interesting than they were in the first place.

Oscar Wilde wrote, ‘There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.’

The people setting out to keep Hasan Piker out of Australia next year are doing him an enormous favour. Next January, more than 100 YouTubers, streamers and gamers will gather at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre for iSTREAM, a two-day convention where young fans can meet online creators. The organiser, Destroy All Lines, is selling it as a family event, open to children of any age with a parent and to 15-year-olds on their own, and Hasan Piker is on the lineup. This is the American streamer who said sexual violence against Israeli women on October 7 2023 ‘doesn’t change the dynamic for me even this much’ whilst holding up his fingers in a pincer grip. The same Hasan Piker who would vote for Hamas over Israel ‘every single time’ and who has told his followers that America deserved 9/11.

Unsurprisingly, the Shadow Home Affairs Minister has called on the government to refuse Piker a visa, arguing that his record should trigger the character provisions of the Migration Act. The Anti-Defamation Commission has joined in, urging Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to refuse or cancel any visa Piker may hold. It is understandable why. Piker has been refused travel to the United Kingdom over what the British government described as concerns about whether his presence would be conducive to the public good. Except within weeks, Rolling Stone published a lengthy puff-piece on him asking, ‘Why Is Everyone Scared of Hasan Piker?’ and gave him an even larger platform to explain himself and his politics.

Personally, I am not afraid of what Hasan Piker has to say. I would rather he came, and that Destroy All Lines were forced to explain to every parent why a man allegedly who dismissed the rape of Israeli women deserves to be platformed at their family-friendly event.

And this is where the whole cancel culture campaign becomes self-defeating. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry now seems to want someone cancelled, only to realise that cancelling your opponents can be the best publicity they could ask for.

Macklemore is the latest to be made a martyr and enjoy an outpouring of support and publicity. The American rapper used his opening on Ed Sheeran’s tour to call for a ‘free Palestine’ and screen footage from Gaza, and Sheeran let him do it all again the second night. Macklemore was only dropped when the stadiums refused to host him, with Gillette Stadium citing past behaviour, including a 2014 performance as what many took to be a hook-nosed Jewish caricature. His supporters made it out that he was being punished for standing up for the Palestinian cause and not because of his public record. Everything flowed from there.

Once Macklemore was cancelled, the story became about him and not about what he had done. The support acts quit in solidarity, the BDS movement called for a boycott of the remaining shows, and the media cast Macklemore as an artist punished for ‘speaking out’.

Sheeran, who knew exactly who Macklemore was when he took him on tour, was branded a coward and ended up apologising to his audience and talking about the suffering on ‘both sides’. Once the argument has been reduced to both sides, the bad ideas have already won. What should have happened is that someone countered what Macklemore had actually said and done. Turning a stadium concert into a rally against the Jewish state have nothing to do with supporting Palestinians, and it is my opinion that both deserved to be called out as wrong instead of being buried under a row about censorship and making Macklemore a martyr for a cause.

After the Bondi massacre, I understand why so many in the community want Australia to keep Hasan Piker out. But look at what banning people has already produced.

Tony Burke has refused or cancelled visas for Candace Owens, Kanye West, Hillel Fuld, Simcha Rothman, Ayelet Shaked, and Sammy Yahood. Bassem Youssef’s tour was postponed after the Executive Council of Australian Jewry asked for his visa to be refused. It is the same ‘both sides’ trap on a national scale.

The public does not hear what any of these people said, only that both sides are being banned, as though both sides were the same, and nobody is any safer for it.

The best thing we can do is expose bad ideas.

I would rather Hasan Piker said exactly what he thinks in full view, with the media reporting every word, because while a minority will cheer him on, most Australians will hear it for what it is and want nothing to do with it. Every time we ban someone for their opinions, we make them a martyr and the story becomes their so-called persecution instead of what they actually said.