Is this an Argument from Silence?

After the Charlottesville protests, a comment I heard was "refusing to pick a side is the same as picking their side."

This feels like an Argument from Silence.

I would agree. The reason is, refusing to pick a side could be due to refusing to come to a conclusion without attempting to gather the facts first. So the line "refusing to pick a side is the same as picking their side," is a direct assault on reason. Having said that, there are some people who have already picked a side, but refuse to share their choice. This would be a lie by the person who did choose but said they didn't, but still fallacious to claim that they did pick "their" side (we can guess that, but we don't know that). The reason this is fallacious has to do with the way the claim is phrased... with implied certainty and not a probabilistic claim. Most sound bytes take this fallacious form because they are more about eliciting emotion than attempting to be reasonable.

So if your buddy (or your President) says "I refuse to say who's right and who's wrong" or something to that effect, then you should ask why. If the answer is that they want to keep their opinion private, then it is a safe assumption that their opinion is the lesser socially acceptable one. Responding, "it sounds as if you you chose X" (the lesser socially acceptable response) would be a reasonable, non-fallacious, response as well as a reasonable assumption.

The Argument from Silence is defined on Bo’s site as: “Drawing a conclusion based on the silence of the opponent, when the opponent is refusing to give evidence for any reason.”

In the example-quote you cite: "refusing to pick a side is the same as picking their side"

I question whether the predicate of this definition has been fulfilled. The Media has been woefully negligent in providing details, i.e., in defining the precise sequence of events leading to the eruption of violence between protesters and counter protesters. (After all, why let pesky facts get in the way of a sensationalist story & theme?) It follows that inability/unwillingness to pick a side (to support, or alternately, to blame) could simply be due to a dearth of evidence presented, associated with this event.

Remember, as hateful as the message the protesters (KKK, White Nationalists) may have voiced, they had an incontrovertible right under the 1ST Amendment to voice it. The U.S Supreme Court has unswervingly upheld this view in myriad decisions, impacting both Left- and Right-wing free-speech demonstrations and actions. [Aside: Many countries (e.g. Canada, much of Western Europe) do not have an equivalent of our 1st Amendment, thus ‘hate speech’, however subjectively defined, is legally proscribed.] IMOP, our 1st Amendment is a core tenet of ‘American Exceptionalism’.

The Charlottesville protesters had obtained a permit to march/protest, encompassing the expression of ‘hate-language’ banners, swastikas, etc.). The counter protesters (reportedly comprised of Antifa and other out-of-state anarchists) had no such permit, and it is axiomatic that they came prepared to violently provoke, wearing body armor, carrying clubs, etc. It is equally clear that the police (& National Guard) did an abysmal job of keeping these two sides apart, preventing violence.

Did the protesters veer from their appointed march path, aggressively seeking violent confrontation, or were they illegally attacked by counter protesters while marching non-violently, seeking to abridge their 1ST Amendment rights and disrupt their protest? Curiously, the Media has made scant attempt to answer or investigate this, nor the inexcusable inaction and inadequate preparation by the police. I would also point out the INDIVIDUAL responsible for the death of Ms. Heather Heyer, James Alex Fields Jr., has rightfully been charged with 2nd degree murder.

I have veered somewhat from my original point, i.e., that I believe the “Argument from Silence” is unlikely to apply, due to absence of relevant information; however, I felt it important to add relevant context.

I’ll close with an apropos quote: ““If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.” The author of these words is not a right-wing pundit or SC Justice, e.g., Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, et al, but Noam Chomsky, arguably the most prominent Liberal academic (MIT) of the last 50 years.