Juno News - January 15, 2024


Jonathan Greenblatt says censorship not the answer to ＂hate speech＂


Episode Stats


Length

1 minute

Words per minute

189.56044

Word count

322

Sentence count

17


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Jonathan Greenblatt from the Anti-Defamation League joins me to talk about hate speech on social media and the need for governments to regulate hate speech online. We talk about what governments should do about online hate speech and how they should deal with it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 I'm here with Jonathan Greenblatt from the Anti-Defamation League.
00:00:04.140 In Canada and countries around the world, we hear about how online hate is one of the big menaces to society here,
00:00:09.800 but obviously, especially in an American context, First Amendment protections, constitutional freedoms.
00:00:14.660 So how should governments approach this, in your view?
00:00:17.780 I think government should approach social media like all traditional media.
00:00:21.360 So if in your mainstream media you have laws about libel, or you have regulations about slander or misinformation,
00:00:27.980 they should be applied equally and enforced regularly with respect to social media.
00:00:31.980 So it's actually shouldn't be considered very differently.
00:00:34.240 If a government is going to regulate hate speech, how should they define what that is?
00:00:38.900 I don't know that you can regulate hate speech, but you should make the companies liable for publishing liable.
00:00:43.980 It doesn't matter whether it's Facebook or the CBC.
00:00:48.260 So if the CBC is responsible for making sure that lies and whatnot isn't published or isn't broadcast,
00:00:56.420 the same thing should apply to Facebook in Canada.
00:00:58.760 The same thing should apply to every other social media in Canada.
00:01:01.720 You've obviously had a bit of a spat recently with Elon Musk and Twitter.
00:01:04.940 Is your view that this is just a market-based solution that needs to happen here?
00:01:09.040 Individuals can boycott them and that's that?
00:01:11.780 Well, I think individuals need to make their own decisions about what media they choose to use.
00:01:16.140 Brands need to make their own decisions about what media they choose to advertise.
00:01:19.600 But ultimately, governments need to make the decision about how they think the media supports the open society that they want.
00:01:28.160 Again, just so we're clear, I don't believe that you can censor hate speech.
00:01:31.480 I think hate speech is the price of free speech.
00:01:33.740 The trick is that the private companies have a responsibility as actors in the marketplace to behave responsibly.
00:01:40.920 And that often doesn't happen.