Free Speech Still Lives on Live Radio
Bob Zadek guest hosting Life!Line tonight at 5 pm Pacific
In a famous censorship case dealing with the legal definition of obscenity, Justice Potter Stewart famously said, “I know it [obscenity] when I see it.”
Today, when it comes to the legal definition of censorship, many people likewise feel that they know it when they see it.
Yet many people are quick to cry censorship when their cherished views are being silenced, but say nothing when another point of view is censored. Elon Musk, a self-proclaimed “Free Speech Absolutist” says he is in favor of all speech protected by the First Amendment, yet he has already banned certain prominent musicians for their tweets – alleging “hate speech”.
As Jacob Sullum of Reason Magazine points out, Kanye’s offensive tweets were clearly protected speech under the Supreme Court’s Brandenburg test.
Misinformation, like hate speech, is another slippery term in today’s media landscape. The recently release “Twitter Files” have shown how social media companies have taken it upon themselves to moderate their content according to opaque and inconsistent guidelines – sometimes at the behest of government agents or political actors. Is this censorship?
And does it matter if the content being suppressed is true or false? We saw with Hunter Biden’s laptop how a mostly true story was suppressed as misinformation, just weeks before the 2020 election. Can a private company decide to censor such news, or does that constitute meddling in the election?
I will be taking to the radio airwaves this evening from 5-6pm PACIFIC on KFAX - 1100AM in the Bay Area, and streaming online here – to take up these questions.
Calls are welcome at (888) 367-5329.
I’ll also be hearing from Robert Mahoney – the director of special projects for the Committee to Protect Journalists – about his book, The Infodemic: How Censorship and Lies Made The World Sicker and Less Free.
Mahoney thinks the contradictions around free speech and censorship can be reconciled with reference to Isaiah Berlin’s distinction between positive and negative liberty - i.e., freedom to vs. freedom from. In some cases, Mahoney argues, censorship might be warranted to prevent the spread of dangerous misinformation. In other cases, however, governments will be tempted to take away our liberties to take control of the narrative for their own ends. It’s clear which side of the spectrum authoritarian countries like China fall under, but what about the U.S.?
Tune in LIVE this evening from 5-6pm PT/8-9pm ET.
I urge all my friends out there to listen, and join the conversation at any time.