Do You Have the Right to Be Heard?

Ep.5 – Do You Have the Right to Be Heard?

Tim and Kyle talk about the light and fluffy topic of free speech rights, banning content, shutting down extremists, and deplatforming.

Episode at a Glance:

• You have a right to free speech, but you don’t have a right to be heard

What did we learn?

• Podcasting is one of the last mediums for truly free speech
• Hate speech is hard to define
• When you start deplatforming content based on what you find disagreeable, where does it stop? And who decides what is disagreeable?
• If your hosting podcasts you need to be upfront about your Terms of Service.
• To keep it fair, if you start banning content on the so-called “Alt-Right”, then you have to start banning content on the so-called “Alt-Left” too. But who decides? No one knows.
• The solution to hate speech in podcasting is MORE SPEECH, not less
• Nobody is listening to these garbage podcasts anyway, so don’t keep giving them more attention.

Additional Reading:

• Podcasts help extremists get their message out
• When Digital Platforms Become Censors
• The untenable tension between freedom of speech and freedom of association

Industry Predictions:

• See all of our Podcast Industry predictions for 2019!

Industry Quotes:

• We have to uphold a free press and freedom of speech — because, in the end, lies and misinformation are no match for the truth.
  — Barack Obama
• There is nothing I can say in this podcast […] that would infringe upon someone else’s freedom […].
  — Sam Harris
• Countries that censor news and information must recognize that from an economic standpoint, there is no distinction between censoring political speech and commercial speech.
  — Hillary Clinton
• There’s no fine line between “free speech” and “hate speech”: Free speech is hate speech; it’s for the speech you hate – and for all your speech that the other guy hates. If you don’t have free speech, then you can’t have an honest discussion.
  — Mark Steyn

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