• In the United States, free speech is not a right granted by the government but is considered an unalienable right of a human being
• But free speech is viewed differently in the European Union; for example, the French view free speech as needing to strike a balance between the individual and the community 
• It was revealed during the “Twitter Files” controversy that American lobbyists wanted to push America more towards the European model of policing speech online
• The state has figured out how to turn the Internet into an instrument of social control 
• Counter-terrorism to Counter-populism: Many of the government agencies that once focused on stopping terrorist groups have shifted their focus inward domestically to monitor and censor American citizens 
• The state uses “misinformation” as a pretext for guiding messaging
• The gradual drift towards authoritarianism: People come to worship authority when the state “saves” them from every “emergency”
• Be wary of Language Inflation: A phenomenon in which extreme language is used to describe something that does not warrant the use of extreme language 
• There is a natural political bias in government-sponsored censorship; the people who fill government censorship positions tend to come from left-leaning universities 

In the past few weeks, there’s been an increasing number of threats to freedom of speech around the world.

In France, authorities arrested Telegram CEO Pavel Durov for failing to adequately moderate content and prevent criminal activity on his platform. 

In the UK, since the outbreak of anti-immigration riots, police have arrested individuals merely for posting comments online. The Labour-led government has suggested expanding measures to remove “legal but harmful” content. 

In Brazil, President Lula’s administration has proposed new regulations requiring social media companies to monitor and remove “harmful content,” and a Brazilian Supreme Court justice just banned X altogether in the country. The ruling came after the platform missed a deadline to name a new legal representative there.

From Hungary to Pakistan, the right to speak your mind, particularly on the internet, is more precarious than ever. 

Even in the United States, with our free speech rights enshrined in the Constitution, polls suggest an entire generation has grown up thinking it should be illegal to say something inaccurate or hateful. Democratic VP nominee Tim Walz said as much: “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.”

So how did we get here? And, where is this all going? 

Today, Michael sits down with the intrepid journalist Matt Taibbi, who knows this issue inside out. When The Free Press launched, he reported the Twitter Files with Bari Weiss, and together they exposed how government agencies had pressured Twitter to censor undesirable information, including skepticism of Covid lockdowns and opposition to Covid-related public school closures. 

In this conversation, Matt and Michael talk about what’s happening in Europe, Brazil, and here in the U.S. They discuss the factors that precipitated the so-called “misinformation wars,” from 9/11 to Brexit and Trump’s election, that convinced elites of the need to enforce restrictions on speech. And they talk about why these efforts are doomed to backfire. 

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