Quite a few of the people involved already have a 'platform' writing for major national or international publications[1], or regularly featuring on TV. So yes it does give them something else to moan about in their regular newspaper column, but I'm not sure it makes all that much difference to how much attention they get. The media is already pretty much saturated with people like Germain Greer, and they are all very adept at generating controversy to promote themselves without outside help - that's how they got where they are today.
That's the irony of this really - it's a bunch of people with the biggest megaphone imaginable complaining that they have been silenced because people didn't want to come to/host their utterly insignificant student debate. The fact that such an insignificant thing has become a major story is evidence of just how loud their voices are, sadly.
[1] there are other people being 'no platformed' as well, but I'm not sure the government/Daily Mail is really suggesting they want to force universities to host Abu Hamza al-Masri or face fines