How Do Podcasts Balance Free Speech With The Truth

 There are more than 200 countries in the world. By many calculations, only a third of those nations allow free speech. Speech tolerance ranges from zero in North Korea to almost infinity in the U.S., where citizens are allowed to say almost anything. 

Coupled with almost unfettered free speech, Americans have a handy communications tool called social media, where disinformation and misinformation thrive. Tribal political warfare has weaponized information as blunt force trauma to beat down political enemies. 

Don't like the narrative that damages your political cabal? Either deny the truth or make things up. In the flurry of charges and countercharges, the truth becomes ironically irrelevant.

Don't like the information coming from the January 6th Congressional Committee? Counter-narrative. It's Antifa. Or the FBI in disguise. You can always fall back on "The Deep State" or "elites." There was no violence at The Capitol that day. Just a peaceful protest where people happened to die, numerous others injured, and hundreds either convicted or have pleaded guilty and are now serving jail time.

Communications technology has accelerated the speed at which fake news spreads. Sure, high-tech serves us a powerful communications device we can carry around in the form of a smartphone, but high-tech has made lying easier, faster and more credible. Fake news has become a major trait of our generation. In the past, lies spread by word of mouth. Today, fake news spreads like COVID at a jam-packed concert.

Singapore has reacted -- or possibly overreacted -- to the fake news threat. Its government recently passed a Fake News Act, which began to be enforced over a month ago. The Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) protects civilians against fake news. Critics argue that POFMA poses a serious threat to civil liberties, and there is a massive challenge on how to go about implementing the rules.

The foot soldiers for this misinformation mob are podcasters like Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, Charlie Kirk, and Jordan Peterson. Social media has dealt with disinformation delinquents by suspending their accounts temporarily or banning them. InfoWars' Alex Jones feeds off conspiracy theories, false flag claims, and reality pretzel bending. 

It would be easy to label them as liars, prevaricators, scam artists, deceivers, and equivocators. Unfortunately, the truth is much more complicated, much to the delight of these horrible human beings.

If anyone still views fact checking websites, you will notice that all facts are not branded as true or Pants On Fire false. Frequently, there is this swampy middle ground of somewhat true or false. 

Remember the controversial Joe Rogan episode with Dr. Robert Malone, where the aggrieved doctor explained the multiple dangers of COVID vaccines? Rogan was widely assailed for not challenging any of Malone's assertions. In an episode of the Science Vs podcast several weeks later, host Wendy Zukerman and her team analyzed Malone's claims. They found disinformation devices such as cherry-picking data, making unsubstantiated claims, and drawing conclusions not supported by data. Out-and-out lying? Maybe, but perhaps the bad doctor was spinning a narrative that used just enough actual and perceived facts to have the patina of credibility. 

Look, cretins like Bannon, Giuliani, and Jones are easy. Their lives are ludicrous and completely divorced from reality. Tragically, they don't care. Because they understand something called naive realism, which is our tendency to believe our own perception of the world. 

We believe that the 2020 presidential election was rigged because we believe it is so. When "unbelievers" point out that no court or governmental law enforcement organization found fraud sufficient to alter the results of the election, facts become irrelevant because our beliefs are unbiased, and unaffected by emotions, our cultural identity or experiences. We are so sure that we don't need facts to prove it.

But it's the podcasters -- both left and right -- who cultivate the veneer of credibility that are the most dangerous. It's the Robert Malones' of the world that pose the most serious threat to the truth, because they have a degree, or expertise, that offers them the presumption of validity. 

Marble-mouthed extremists like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys will only appeal to those who blame their pitiful existence on another group. Somehow, the fact you live in your parents' basement and work part-time at 40 years old is the fault of the black family who live in a much nicer home down the block. However, it's the Fox News podcasts with people like Tucker Carlson, who are perceived to be informed and insightful, who persuade the large swaths of the viewing audience that they are either being replaced or relegated to being second-class citizens in a country they've always thought was exclusively theirs. 

Is replacement theory by the Democrat Party a "tin-foil hat" falsehood? Yes. But it makes sense to millions of white voters. What Carlson and other podcasters accomplish isn't to spew lies. No, they're above that. 

What they do on these podcasts is to viciously tie together seemingly unconnected events, trends, and currents to convince listeners that the Trojan Horse has been pulled inside the "Gates" of their nation. Danger is at the border, or sanctuary cities, or legions of black looters coming for your big-screen TVs and infinity pools in your gated, white-only community.

For these podcast listeners, it's frightening truth. No matter that the disparate facts to assemble this Babylon of deceit and Barnum-style flimflammery often collapse into a dumpster fire of deceit. 

For many, abandoning the truth is a feature, not a bug. Consider how avid Trump supporters are not only unaffected by his constant lies, but also they support his avoidance of the facts as a way of "owning the libs."

When Trump met NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg in 2019, he told the NATO top chief that his father, Fred, was born in Germany. In fact, he was born in New York City. When the media pointed out his perjury, his supporters dismissed it as his "way of thumbing his nose at the media."  The message was clear. "It's okay if he speaks falsehoods for our side." 

Of course, when Trump spent years claiming that former President Obama was born in Kenya, his supporters avidly embraced that lie, even when it was proven false. 

For those of us who love podcasting, what can we do? I've written several articles about the harm that certain serial plagiarizers in the true-crime podcast genre have caused. In that case, I've advocated condemnation of those plagiarizers by the podcasting community. 

Can podcasting do anything at all about podcasters who evade the truth, promulgate fantasy visions of our world, incite violence against fabricated enemies, instill fear in the population, and stoke the embers of simmering racism?

First, we need podcasters to speak up and condemn the podcasts that subvert truth, celebrate misinformation and inject disinformation in the body politic. It was encouraging that Joe Rogan was condemned for his Malone and Alex Jones episodes. That doesn't mean that Joe Rogan should be banned from podcasting. Many of his shows have guests that bring expertise and objectivity to the discussion. Rogan should be applauded for those shows and denounced for the others. Silencing him does listeners and Rogan a disservice. 

Second, podcasting networks and studios -- Acast, Amazon, Apple, Cumulus Media, iHeart, Vox and others -- should form a coalition to establish sensible guardrails for responsible journalism and reporting. Those who disregard their public responsibility, should be condemned by this newly formed regulatory body. 

Third, podcasts should carry warnings that distinguish between fact and opinion podcasts. Let me give you a TV corollary. When Trump's ex-mistress Karen McDougal sued Tucker Carlson for  defamation, the ex-model lost her case because the judge ruled in 2020 that "given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer arrives with an appropriate amount of skepticism." 

In other words, Carlson's viewers shouldn't believe everything -- or anything --  they hear from him. Unfortunately, for our society, Fox News viewers digest delectable bits of spurious information with a self-righteousness that Fox News would not lie, when, in fact, they do, disguising such dissembling as commentary, political hyperbole, or entertainment-based exaggeration. In fact, the name "Fox News" is a deception because much of the network is under the entertainment umbrella precisely because that grouping insulates them from litigation.

Fourth, podcast feed apps should re-classify podcasts that exist only to supersize misinformation, propaganda, and disinformation, from the NEWS  genre to an OPINION genre. 

Finally, podcasters need to stand up and condemn podcasts such as Infowars and others like the contemptible Jones, who is now getting his comeuppance for his heinous torture of Sandy Hook parents. 

The United States isn't Singapore. A fake news legislation isn't needed, isn't practical, and only inflames the divisiveness that feeds these malefactors. This country has a long and distinguished history of protecting free speech rights. Can we live with these charlatans who question the Holocaust, and concoct conspiracy theories when the facts are inimical to their cause? Do we suffer white supremacists misogynists, and homophobes? 

In a democracy, we have to, but we can deny them what they so desperately desire -- credibility, attention and legitimacy. 

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that."

Podcasting needs more courageous people like Wendy Zukerman of Science Vs or Brene Brown of Unlocking Us.  Podcasting cannot stand by and be "99% invisible" as its good name gets dragged through the mud.