Deja Vu All Over Again
The story of the day is the continuing saga of Joe Rogan and the cheap calls of censorship on the other side. Yogi Berra originally coined the phrase Deja vu all over again. He was good for the zany one-liner. Right wing media and other social media commenters are caught in a loop.
The online dictionary defines censorship as the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, or news that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security. I’ve said this a few times in these parts, but the first amendment guarantees no one access to a platform. So, people lobbying Spotify or applying pressure to Spotify has no bearing on whether Congress passes a law to ban Joe Rogan’s speech.
Now, the social media warriors have unleashed the hounds of war on Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. That’s their right. As you might suspect, they have played on the fact that Young’s audience trends on the older side of the ledger. Some of them are quite humorous, so I’ve reluctantly tipped my cap to some of their attempts of humor. Again, it is an example of people exercising their free speech to counteract others exercising their free speech.
Spotify chose to pull episodes of Rogan’s podcast. It started off with 70 and then it was pushed to 110 as the article above suggests. By the time you read this it could be more. These episodes were pulled based on liberal use of the “n” word during those episodes. There could become a point where his place is just too toxic to keep around.
Again, I will keep repeating myself until people get it through their thick skulls. You do not have a right to a platform. No really, you do not have a right to a platform. You can say what you want to say. You can record it so other people can hear it. Spotify and other platforms have the right to say no. Of course, this wouldn’t be so maddening if many of the same people that were up in arms about Joe Rogan were also not the ones in favor of banning books from school libraries across the country. The irony is palpable. Some day someone needs to explain the difference to me.
In this instance, a student in Grandbury ISD said it far better than I could. She told the school board that no government has ever banned books from public consumption and ever been seen in history as the good guys. At first blush, it would appear that banning a book from a school library and pressuring a platform to drop a podcast are the same thing. If you squint hard enough and close one eye it is exactly the same thing.
Except that isn’t reality. Rogan’s podcasts have been available on a number of different platforms. So, if Spotify were to drop Rogan you could easily see another platform adding him. People that want to find Rogan on their virtual radio dial will find him. No amount of snark, feaux outrage, or false equivalencies will ever change that fact. You do not have the right to a platform. School libraries aren’t really platforms. They aren’t making money off of your kid. They are there for their enrichment and therein lies the difference.
We live in a world of shoulds. It has been common for a people to mix up their coulds and their shoulds. Can Spotify pull Joe Rogan’s podcasts? Of course they can. Can your local school library decide not to carry certain books? That one is a little harder, but the answer is yes. The question is whether they should do those things. That’s the only question that matters.
Yet if Democrats similarly claimed “Censorship!” for not having dedicated programs hosted by them on Faux “News”, they would be up in arms about “free enterprise” and gov’t intrusion on the airways.
1I was talking to a librarian here in Westfield, IN yesterday about any attempts to get books banned at the public library. She said that every so often, someone will come in, hone in on a book that they “heard” about and then go “aha, you do have it” and demand it be removed.
I am an avid reader. Some would say voracious. I love books. I own books and I get books to read from my local public library. I have even donated money to the local library because I think they are a much needed institution. So, it angers me to no end when people try to get a book removed because they themselves are uncomfortable with either the subject matter, the words chosen in the book or whatever made up reason.
STOP BANNING BOOKS!
2The social media platforms have done wimpy job of curtailing the spread of false, even deadly disinformation. It does not take many attention-seeking malicious characters to gain lots of eyeballs on social media. For example, “Just 12 People Are Behind Most Vaccine Hoaxes On Social Media, Research Shows”
https://n.pr/3gucH41
The writer Roxane Gay had a piece in the NYTimes that pointed out the distinction between censorship and curation, writing: “I would never support censorship. And because I am a writer, I know that language matters. There’s a difference between censorship and curation. When we are not free to express ourselves, when we can be thrown in jail or even lose our lives for speaking freely, that is censorship. When we say, as a society, that bigotry and misinformation are unacceptable, and that people who espouse those ideas don’t deserve access to significant platforms, that’s curation. We are expressing our taste and moral discernment, and saying what we find acceptable and what we do not.”
https://nyti.ms/3slhslB
So Spotify is free to curate people like Rogan off their platform.
Bottom line: the societal “glue” that holds us all together is worth defending. Otherwise were are seemingly stuck in a Tower of Babel spiral where one very vocal, loud social media megaphoned faction is increasingly inclined to use violence to achieve dominance.
3Typo on 2 last paragraph: “Otherwise we are”
More coffee needed… 🙂
4Remember when the only thing the right hated about libraries was Drag Queen Story Hour?
Good times.
5Not only a platform, but approximately 100 million bucks to spew his crap. Is this a great country, or what!!!!
6You don’t have to watch Rogan or Spotify.
You shouldn’t prevent others from doing so.
Mind your own damn business.
I like Posey Parker.
7I like when someone using their free speech on a private platform gets called out for spewing dangerous disinformation. I like when they are called out by the likes of Neil Young with their dollars. I like when there are consequences for said dangerous misinformation. As for Rogan’s use of the “N word” being called out, I like that too. I don’t have to listen to Rogan (and don’t) and am minding my own business. Hope he loses some listeners, but doubt it.
8I also love the CSNY album Deja Vu. That I will and do listen to.
I’m flattered that anyone thinks I have that sort of power. Honestly, consumers are simply choosing not to support a company that supports that kind of speech. The company gets to decide whether they get more out of keeping him than they lose keeping him. It’s the way the marketplace of ideas works. Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything. Again, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what censorship is.
9Right on Nick. Exactly.
10This little cartoon says it all for me: https://xkcd.com/1357/
It’s a safe, fun site.
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