Unfortunately, Pontin’s formulation of the rule contains two serious errors that stem from his willingness to accept both “physical and commercial injury.” Physical harm certainly sets out a valid prima facie case that is subject to defenses that relate to consent and self-defense. That dynamic will not work in a private setting where the organizer of the group has strong incentives to prevent any systematic move to extremes. Work yourself into a white heat, and the world must yield to your outrage. The angrier you get, the greater your rights.

Why then the difference? The simplest explanation is that any effort to transport the harm principle to larger social settings gives everyone a huge incentive to become truly offended at the speech of others so that they can now have a lever to suppress their ideas. Private ordering has advantages that public ordering cannot match. That difference matters, because when voluntary institutions put speech codes into place for their members, they are responding to a real harm that by consent can be controlled within a limited forum, even if the state cannot dictate that same relationship among strangers. The claim, therefore, behind the offense principle is one of universal privilege to hurt the feelings of others, and not a factual claim that there is no harm at all.

Essentially, the comprehensive judgment is that we all are better off when we have to suffer the slings and arrows of this sort of abuse than we are when these attacks are subject to extensive legal control that runs the serious risk of state censorship.

Mill harm principle