What Spotify is doing now just pisses off both sides. Pro speech people don't like this, JRE listeners don't like this, and anti Rogan people won't stop until he's 'canceled' completely.
EDIT: A lot of reflexive comments here very quickly assuming this is about removing Rogan's COVID-sensitive content, but looking at the list of removed episodes and how many guests are the subjects of serious sexual allegations, people might want to consider who they're actually defending here.
But even still, its censorship Rogan opted into to get $$$.
People threatening to leave if you let someone else talk is pretty much a good definition of being against free speech.
That's free speech. As long as no one is being coerced through violence, attempting to influence someone's opinion and convince them to associate or disassociate with someone is clearly free speech. Hell, it describes most political speech and a lot of journalism.
> That's free speech.
Yes, speaking to someone in an attempt to pressure them not to speak to someone else is indeed a form of speech. However, the things you are expressing (ie attempting to pressure them) is an active attempt to curtail someone else's speech. So you are using your speech in an attempt to curtail someone else's speech.
> As long as no one is being coerced through violence, attempting to influence someone's opinion and convince them to associate or disassociate with someone is clearly free speech.
No one claimed otherwise. It is clearly legal to do so. It is also clearly an anti free speech sort of thing to do.
No, it isn't merely a form of speech. It's free speech. It's just as free as any other kind of speech. Free speech allows for conflict with speech, and it doesn't guarantee all speech all possible platforms.
You don't get to decide that only the speech you agree with gets to be free, but speech that disagrees with that doesn't.
That's not a 'free speech issue,' that's free speech in action. Until the government is punishing someone for their speech, everyone has and is using free speech.
If you want to see actual free speech issues, look at the anti-BDS laws[1].
The US affords protections against the government infringing your speech, but not (generally) against private parties doing so.
To put it bluntly, cancel culture is anti free speech by definition.
Trying to duck consequences by crying 'cancel culture' is itself an attempt to stifle speech. When consumers protest a business, they're using speech, not 'pressure,' because in that context 'pressure' isn't a real thing. There's government action against a business, and there's plain old real world consequences.
This isn't true in the age of social media. A relatively small protest (i.e. not large enough to register on their financials) can create a disproportionate amount of bad press which can exert pressure on a company to act. Manipulating social media algorithms to surface your grievance to the top of the trending list is a kind of pressure.
I don't see how this different from a 'relatively small protest' in front of a company HQ getting into the traditional press. If your protest is enough to activate the 'hot' algorithm, so be it. That's not manipulating social media, that's just how social media works. Trying to stifle that kind of protest is the same kind of 'censorship' that's being complained about here.
Furthermore, if it's enough to cause a company to act, it's 100% because it's large enough to register on their financials in some form.
Social media makes it different. Social media turns intensity of belief into the appearance of large numbers. Networks of like-minded individuals are mobilized to present a consistent message to some entity. This gives the appearance of high motivation and a large representative sample, when in reality it is neither. Social media protests incur zero cost to participate and are non-representative. The engagement algorithms and the built-in network dynamics eliminates traditional barriers to protesting and do much of the work of creating these frequent uproars.
I used the term manipulation because the dynamic brought out through social media is fundamentally dependent on social media.
>Furthermore, if it's enough to cause a company to act, it's 100% because it's large enough to register on their financials in some form.
Being fearful of financial backlash doesn't entail that the actual real-world backlash would be significant. The fact that social media eliminates the cost to participate in these "protests" suggests that when participation has actual costs it will be greatly reduced.
Don't get me wrong, freedom cuts both ways; some hindrances to free speech are perfectly legal, and would ironically be violations of the First Amendment to prevent! But let's not pretend that these kinds of boycotts are simple discomfort or preference: they're an attempt to change what is permissible to say, because "won't somebody think of the children?"
From my perspective it is a very obvious double standard when people consider not wanting Spotify to air anti-trans rhetoric an attack on free speech, but calling the acceptance of trans people a sign of societal collapse is not a problem at all.
Is it not a form of censorship when someone tries every tactic in the book to discredit a group of people to an audience of millions?
> tries every tactic in the book to discredit a group of people
At the risk of taking the bait: this is clear evidence you've never listened to the show. If you want to take issue with his specific opinions on trans women in fighting sports, or specific choices of guests, fair enough; but the "guilt by association" and "indictment by meme" is exactly why we all benefit from free and open discourse, including being tolerant and charitable to opposing views. Witness the "cancellations" of trans-ally voices like ContraPoints or Lindsay Ellis (the latter of whom was so traumatized that she quit YouTube permanently).
If you want to draw a line somewhere, and withdraw your participation by boycott, or even ostracize other participants, that's your right; but don't pretend you're not attempting to influence societal discourse, and prevent third-party conversations and associations.
To your example, if the party had say 50k people at it, correct. I really wouldn't care what one person was saying.
That aside, I don't recall Rogan attacking anyone directly.
Say Bob and Sue are at the party talking about some topic you don't approve of. They aren't talking to you, just each other. You request that the host remove them. The host refuses. So you attempt to get other people to very vocally leave the place in order to pressure the host to kick Bob and Sue out.
Such actions are clearly anti free speech.
So...exercising your free speech to convince other people to exercise their free speech? Sounds like lots of free speech to me.
It's up to the host whose presence they value more. They can always decide you're an irritating busybody and no one wants your negativity killing the vibe.
Is the capital G government intervening with discourse? If not then there are no first amendment violations.
There are ways in which I can legally attempt to suppress the speech of others, for example I could threaten to evict guests from my home if they bring up certain topics. That is clearly an action which goes against the principles of freedom of speech but it is not a violation of any of the protections provided by the US government.
Whether such an action on my part is morally justified will be highly context dependent. For example, perhaps I don't want certain topics discussed in front of my children in my own home?
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
>Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I think it is reasonable to assume that when the vast majority of Americans refer to "free speech" they are making reference to the Bill of Rights and the First amendment. Unfortunately, most people don't seem to understand that, with regards to speech, the 1st amendment is only about preventing government from curtailing speech. It doesn't say any private individual or company has to allow all speech.
Nobody is silencing JRE.
I don't get why people keep trying to turn this into a free speech issue. It's not. I stopped giving Spotify money because they're going to turn around and use it to fund thinga I disagree with. So I guess people are just arguing against capitalism?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_de_Beauvoir#Personal_li... [2] https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/4/16/reckoning-with-... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_petition_against_age_of...
Or alternatively: whose speech is more important? Rogans or Spotify's?
If companies can select who they will publish to please people they can also 'cancel' them to please people, or do artists somehow have tenure once they become controversial and divisive?
I’m “pro speech” and I love this! No governmental agency stepped in and told Spotify what to do. They have a contract with Joe Rogan, are ostensibly honoring it, and are making a decision on what speech they want to be associated with.
What else do you want them to do? Be forced by someone to make a decision they don’t want to make? That doesn’t sound like something someone who believes in free speech would want.
Would we really want to further limit what right holders are allowed to do with their property?
Yes they did.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
Government is one of those things where even the appearance of impropriety is as nad as the actual thing. That crossed the line into blatant quid-pro-quo.
I'm sorry, but no, I don't buy your assertion. Being in a position of power over someone or something and dropping a line like that is as good as an outright threat of violence, no matter how badly people don't want others to consider it as such because it makes their lives easier, and conscience lighter.
> I’m “pro speech” and I love this!
Then I don't think you're as pro speech as you seem to think you are. You clearly appear to be in favor of protections against the government curtailing your speech. However you do not appear to value the principle of free speech very highly or you would be against both people attempting to pressure Spotify and also Spotify picking and choosing content.
Yes, they clearly have a legal and moral right to do so. However, exercising that right clearly runs counter to the principles of free speech.
We can go round and round all day, but the idea that someone can’t voice their opinion against someone else and that someone can’t pick and choose what they want to promote feels very anti-pro-speech to me.
Spotify is not being compelled by any authority to remove or keep content on their platform. The only reason why Spotify hosts or removes content is because it's what they decide is best given market pressures.
Spotify sells subscriptions to content to make a profit. If something harms that why should they be forced to endure that?
I don't like the guy, but I just do what any other reasonable person does and don't listen to him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__CvmS6uw7E&t=342s
"You're a fucking idiot go online and look it up."
"Go online and look it up."
"Yeah you've learned from shit from college. When was the last time you got online and researched primates."
"Stupid"
"Stupid"
"Stupid"
…
"I have a vagina."
If active lies are being pushed, it’s a different manner.