The Matt Walsh Show - August 02, 2025


The Attack On Freedom Of Speech Is Real ｜ Proof For Your Liberal Friend


Episode Stats


Length

23 minutes

Words per minute

173.23048

Word count

4,035

Sentence count

261

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

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

The Supreme Court is weighing in on a case regarding the role of the First Amendment in the Internet age. Will the government be allowed to use social media platforms as censorship proxies to block speech that they don t like? And what role does the government have to play in that role?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 The vast majority of people can agree that disinformation about, let's say, the pandemic is unhealthy.
00:00:07.840 The government actually has a duty to protect the citizens of this country.
00:00:12.420 NPR has this in a major case testing the role of First Amendment in the Internet age.
00:00:16.580 The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday hears arguments focused on the federal government's ability to combat what it sees as false, misleading or dangerous information online.
00:00:25.000 Last September, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the most conservative federal appeals court in the U.S., issued a broad ruling that barred key government officials from contacts with social media companies.
00:00:35.040 Among the personnel targeted in the order were officials of the White House, the Centers for Disease Control Prevention, the Office of the Surgeon General, the FBI, and an important cybersecurity agency.
00:00:43.860 The appeals court said that individuals at those agencies likely violated the First Amendment by seeking to coerce social media platforms into moderating or changing their content about COVID-19, foreign interference in elections, and even Hunter Biden's laptop.
00:00:57.000 The Supreme Court has put that ruling on hold while it examines the tricky issues in the case.
00:01:00.880 The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are two states, Missouri and Louisiana, and five individuals, including vaccine opponents, who either were banned from some Internet platforms at the height of COVID-19, or whose posts, they say, were not prominently featured on social media sites, such as Facebook, YouTube, and X, formerly known as Twitter.
00:01:17.660 Not prominently featured, otherwise known as, you know, the algorithm was suppressing, the content was being suppressed by the algorithms.
00:01:27.980 The Biden administration notes that under established First Amendment precedent, the government itself is entitled to express its views and to try to persuade others.
00:01:34.540 As the government says in its brief, quote, essential dimension of presidential power is the use of the office bully pulpit to seek to persuade Americans and American companies to act in a way that would advance the public interest.
00:01:45.300 Now, first of all, despite what the Biden administration is claiming, you know, nobody is saying the government itself can't try to persuade people of its own position.
00:01:54.460 So if they want to put out a PSA or whatever about the dangers of, quote, unquote, misinformation, they can do that.
00:02:01.980 No one is saying they can't.
00:02:03.260 I haven't heard anyone say that.
00:02:04.200 But the thing about a PSA or an argument presented in any other form is that we are free to disagree with it or ignore it entirely.
00:02:12.440 Which is why the Biden administration is not satisfied to express its view and try to persuade others.
00:02:18.520 That's not what this is about at all.
00:02:20.300 Again, if that's all they wanted to do, then this would not be an issue and wouldn't be at the Supreme Court.
00:02:25.060 Because no one is no one is like suggesting that that President Biden can't come out and say, you know, here's what I think misinformation is and I'm opposed to it and you shouldn't share it.
00:02:34.880 He can say that if he wants to say it.
00:02:36.320 And again, we are perfectly free to just ignore it, what are you saying, completely, which is what I would do.
00:02:44.680 But instead, of course, the Biden administration wants to use social media platforms as censorship proxies to shut down the speech that they don't like and ban and deplatform the purveyors of what they claim is, quote, unquote, misinformation.
00:02:59.680 And that's the problem.
00:03:01.380 You know, their way of persuading the public is by ensuring that the public only hears their side of the story.
00:03:06.920 That's the persuasion technique that they want to use, which is a blatant violation of the First Amendment.
00:03:11.880 And that's the entire issue.
00:03:12.840 And it all centers around this idea of misinformation, which is just not something that the government should be in the business of combating, at least beyond issuing PSAs if they want to and and trying to persuade people.
00:03:29.680 Well, if it's simply making arguments, that's one thing.
00:03:33.160 But beyond that, it has no role because information in this context is simply the substance of what is conveyed through methods of communication.
00:03:44.560 All of the stuff online is information.
00:03:47.300 And there's billions of bits of information flying every which way at the speed of light every second.
00:03:52.820 And some of the information reflects reality.
00:03:54.960 Some of the information reflects what someone wishes was the reality.
00:03:57.660 Some of the information is good.
00:03:59.500 Some of it is bad.
00:04:00.360 Some of it is useless.
00:04:01.420 Much of it is useless.
00:04:02.620 Much of it is distracting.
00:04:03.740 Much of it is unimportant.
00:04:06.700 This is the age we live in.
00:04:08.560 And it's almost certainly a net negative in the grand scheme of things.
00:04:12.920 All of this information, it's too much.
00:04:15.440 You know, we're exposed to far too much of it.
00:04:17.200 We can't process most of it.
00:04:20.880 And most people lack the discernment to effectively distinguish between what is real and what is fantasy.
00:04:26.080 And what is important and what isn't and so on and so on.
00:04:30.380 So, yeah, it's a, I think, a net negative.
00:04:33.180 It'd be better if, you know, we were not all surrounded by all this information all the time.
00:04:37.640 But this is the reality of the world we live in.
00:04:39.920 And even if it has its pitfalls, massive, gaping pitfalls, we cannot fill those holes in or make anything better by giving the government the power to act as a giant filter, deciding which pieces of information are good or bad.
00:04:55.200 And which pieces we should see and which we shouldn't see and all the rest of it.
00:04:58.960 So that's not how we can solve this problem.
00:05:01.260 We live in the information age regardless, which means it's an age dominated and driven by information.
00:05:07.920 To give the government that kind of power to be the filter is then to give them essentially absolute power over our lives and our minds.
00:05:17.240 And we cannot do that.
00:05:19.740 And we especially can't do it with an administration like this one.
00:05:23.600 Like, how can we give them the power to determine what counts as misinformation when we already know that they believe or at least pretend to believe many things that are wildly untrue and which do not reflect reality and which contradict the facts in an extreme way?
00:05:40.620 I mean, certainly anyone who believes that men can get pregnant, for example, is unqualified to be the judge and jury ruling over the flow of information.
00:05:48.540 But really, no one is qualified for that position.
00:05:53.100 And that's the point.
00:05:55.520 Although it's a point that not all of the justices seem to understand.
00:05:59.040 So, for example, here is Ketanji Brown Jackson revealing some very fundamental confusion about the Constitution and the government and what their exact role is.
00:06:10.980 She can't define what a woman is. 1.00
00:06:12.180 We already know that.
00:06:13.420 And now she also has revealed that she doesn't know what the Constitution is. 0.68
00:06:16.560 Let's let's although she revealed that she's revealed that many times in the past.
00:06:20.040 But this is a pretty stark example.
00:06:22.280 Let's watch.
00:06:23.620 Justice Jackson.
00:06:24.840 So my biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways in the most important time periods.
00:06:37.080 I mean, what what would you have the government do?
00:06:39.560 I've heard you say a couple of times that the government can post its own speech.
00:06:43.840 But in my hypothetical, you know, kids, this is not safe.
00:06:47.800 Don't do it is not going to get it done.
00:06:51.060 And so I guess some might say that the government actually has a duty to take steps to protect the citizens of this country.
00:07:01.160 And you seem to be suggesting that that duty cannot manifest itself in the government encouraging or even pressuring platforms to take down harmful information.
00:07:12.860 So can you help me?
00:07:14.340 Because I'm really I'm really worried about that because you've got the First Amendment operating in an environment of threatening circumstances from the government's perspective.
00:07:25.260 And you're saying that the government can't interact with the source of those problems.
00:07:32.460 So she's worried that the First Amendment may hamstring the government. 0.99
00:07:36.940 That's what she's worried will happen.
00:07:38.620 And yes, Kattanji, it will.
00:07:41.280 I mean, it does.
00:07:42.740 It should.
00:07:43.800 That's the point.
00:07:44.800 That is literally quite literally the whole point of the First Amendment.
00:07:49.640 That's the whole point of the Bill of Rights.
00:07:50.920 It's in fact, just to hamstring the government, to limit the scope of the government's authority, to say these things are off limits.
00:07:57.940 You cannot touch these things and to prevent it from infringing on our basic human rights.
00:08:05.260 That's why the First Amendment exists. 1.00
00:08:08.480 So and this is a this is a Supreme Court justice who is not clear on that fact.
00:08:12.920 In fact, is worried.
00:08:14.180 She's very worried that she's worried that the First Amendment might do what it's supposed to do.
00:08:20.320 That's what she's worried about.
00:08:22.380 And she's a Supreme Court justice.
00:08:23.900 And but she's part, you know, she's she's really part of the whole regime, part of the whole system that that only proves why these people like if anybody was equipped to be the filter of information to decide what information people should see and shouldn't see to decide what is misinformation and what isn't.
00:08:47.840 If there's anybody equipped to do that, and I don't think anybody is, but if there was anybody, it's not these people.
00:08:52.160 Like they can't they don't know what a woman is. 1.00
00:08:55.100 They can't they don't know.
00:08:56.460 They've got Supreme Court justices that don't even know what the Constitution is or what it's supposed to do. 0.85
00:09:01.080 Just just deeply confused or at least presenting themselves as deeply confused, which really it's the same thing.
00:09:09.120 So they're deeply confused about the most basic fundamental facts.
00:09:13.900 And these are the exact same people who want to decide what counts as misinformation and and and what doesn't.
00:09:24.960 And that just cannot be allowed.
00:09:27.240 Well, picture this.
00:09:28.200 You walk over to your computer, pull up your entire browsing history, hit print and then nail those pages to your front door for every neighbor to see.
00:09:36.480 Sounds absolutely insane, right?
00:09:38.160 Well, that's essentially what's happening every single day, unless you're protecting yourself with ExpressVPN.
00:09:43.840 Here's the thing most people don't realize.
00:09:45.420 Your Internet provider can see every single Web site you've ever visited, even when you're browsing in incognito mode.
00:09:50.880 In many countries, they're actually required to keep detailed logs of your online activity for years just in case the government wants to take a look at it.
00:09:58.220 And if you're in the U.S., it gets even worse because ISPs can literally sell your personal browsing data to whoever they want.
00:10:03.440 Now, you can't stop your ISP from trying to collect this information, but you can make sure they never get it in the first place.
00:10:10.200 And that's where ExpressVPN comes in.
00:10:12.240 It encrypts all your online activity before it even reaches your Internet provider, turning their logs into complete gibberish.
00:10:17.940 Having my data kept private provides peace of mind.
00:10:20.480 I'm able to work from anywhere without worrying about getting hacked or anything like that.
00:10:23.880 Plus, it's so simple to use just one tap on any device, phone, laptop, tablet, whatever.
00:10:27.600 And, you know, your privacy is completely locked down on up to eight devices at a time.
00:10:33.960 So find out how you can get four months free by scanning the QR code on screen, clicking the link in the description box below, or by going to expressvpn.com slash WalshYT.
00:10:42.780 All right, big news to start with from The Daily Wire and also related to The Daily Wire.
00:10:48.460 It says, as the article on the homepage right now,
00:10:51.200 The Daily Wire, the Federalist, and the state of Texas joined on Tuesday in a lawsuit against the U.S. State Department,
00:10:56.120 alleging that the government agency-funded censorship technology designed to bankrupt domestic media outlets with disfavored political opinions.
00:11:03.660 The State Department is tasked with foreign relations and has no authority over domestic affairs,
00:11:08.140 yet it took a government office designed for countering foreign terrorist propaganda,
00:11:12.120 which is called the Global Engagement Center,
00:11:14.540 and unleashed it against the Americans engaged in what it claimed was disinformation,
00:11:19.500 according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas,
00:11:22.280 by the new Civil Liberties Alliance.
00:11:26.100 It was, quote,
00:11:26.600 One of the most audacious, manipulative, secretive, and gravest abuses of power and infringements of First Amendment rights
00:11:33.640 by the federal government in American history, said the suit,
00:11:36.340 which also names the Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, and five other officials as defendants.
00:11:41.060 The lawsuit asks the judge to declare the State Department's attempt to interfere with domestic speech illegal
00:11:45.380 and to permanently bar it from developing, promoting, or encouraging others to use technology
00:11:49.780 to de-amplify, shadowban, or restrict the lawful speech of the American press and Americans.
00:11:56.340 GEC was founded in 2011 as the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications
00:12:00.560 and tasked with countering propaganda of foreign terrorists like al-Qaeda.
00:12:05.080 In 2016, it was renamed but kept the same counterterrorism mission.
00:12:08.800 Congress has made it clear that none of the funds authorized for the entity
00:12:12.160 shall be used for purposes other than countering foreign propaganda.
00:12:15.380 Nevertheless, GEC turned its focus on Americans.
00:12:19.240 The complaint alleges using taxpayer funds to finance the development and promotion of censorship organizations
00:12:23.560 such as NewsGuard, which we've talked about on the show,
00:12:26.740 and the Global Disinformation Index, which regularly targets conservative media outlets
00:12:31.240 such as The Daily Wire and The Federalist with the stated goal of limiting ad revenue.
00:12:36.540 Now, there's a lot more to this.
00:12:37.760 I'm not going to read the entire thing.
00:12:38.680 It's a long article from Luke Rosiak, but you should go to The Daily Wire and read it
00:12:43.860 because it's a very important, very significant free speech case.
00:12:52.040 I don't think that this lawsuit from The Daily Wire and The Federalist and others
00:12:55.620 is going to get a ton of press, certainly not from the corporate press for obvious reasons,
00:13:00.500 but even by other conservatives, I don't think it's going to get a lot of attention
00:13:04.480 because it's not sexy, right?
00:13:07.220 It's not flashy or showy.
00:13:08.620 Instead, it is a smart and necessary and effective and substantive way to fight back against the censorship regime.
00:13:16.620 And we know that very oftentimes the smart, necessary, substantive, effective things
00:13:20.140 are the things that don't get a lot of attention.
00:13:23.060 They aren't appreciated as much.
00:13:25.780 Be that as it may, this is extremely important because this is how censorship works in the modern age.
00:13:33.580 So for the most part, you know, the government is not coming in and saying,
00:13:40.520 you're not allowed to say this, right?
00:13:43.100 We haven't had the government show up at The Daily Wire offices and say,
00:13:47.800 here are things you're not allowed to say anymore.
00:13:51.700 They haven't sent federal agents into the office to raid, you know, our offices
00:13:56.840 and cart me and Ben and Michael and Candace away in handcuffs.
00:14:00.640 They haven't done that yet.
00:14:02.560 It may come to that point.
00:14:04.080 It may well come to that point, but it hasn't happened yet.
00:14:08.380 If Joe Biden wins a second term, I would not be surprised.
00:14:12.600 In fact, I would, if Joe Biden wins a second term
00:14:16.020 and the country is run by his handlers for a second term,
00:14:20.540 I would be surprised if we didn't get to the point
00:14:23.200 where they were actually doing federal raids of, you know,
00:14:27.000 prominent conservative media outlets and putting people like me in jail.
00:14:32.800 But that's not where we are yet.
00:14:37.000 Where we are now is it's a more underhanded approach.
00:14:41.760 And the approach instead is to conspire to label us misinformation
00:14:46.660 and to use that as a pretense to make our content less accessible through algorithms
00:14:52.960 or in this case to deprive us of ad revenue,
00:14:56.260 which in the long term is supposed to have the effect of shutting down our businesses.
00:15:02.900 And, you know, that's what makes the whole thing less sort of dramatic,
00:15:06.160 less attention grabbing in certain ways.
00:15:07.680 Because, you know, it's one thing if we came to you and we said,
00:15:11.460 the government is telling us we're not allowed to say this thing.
00:15:16.500 Everyone knows that's a big deal.
00:15:18.760 But it's different when we say the government is trying to label our content misinformation
00:15:22.060 and make it less accessible through social media algorithms
00:15:24.940 and deprive us of ad revenue indirectly.
00:15:28.500 Like when you say that, people's eyes start to gloss over a little bit.
00:15:33.420 But they shouldn't because it is effectively the same thing.
00:15:39.120 They know they can't come in directly.
00:15:42.400 And point guns at us and say, stop saying that.
00:15:45.860 Again, maybe eventually it'll come to that.
00:15:48.600 Right now they can't get away with it.
00:15:50.640 And so they're not doing that.
00:15:51.740 And they found other ways to do it.
00:15:53.760 And they're using counterterrorism agencies.
00:15:56.500 And they're using all these different, you know, agencies and programs
00:15:59.940 that were set up for other, allegedly for other purposes.
00:16:03.180 And they're doing it all under the guise of, quote unquote, misinformation.
00:16:07.980 And who decides what counts as misinformation?
00:16:10.420 Well, of course, they do.
00:16:11.760 The ruling regime does.
00:16:14.140 The people who believe that men can have babies and women have penises.
00:16:17.560 These are the ones who are deciding what is misinformation.
00:16:19.720 Which, by the way, even if we could trust their judgment on what qualifies as misinformation,
00:16:29.980 which we can't, even if we could, I would still say this is all totally wrong.
00:16:34.820 Because it's just not the government's job to counter misinformation.
00:16:39.220 It's not the government's job to declare what sort of information you should have access to
00:16:45.500 as an allegedly free citizen of an allegedly free country.
00:16:50.300 But it's made all the worse by the fact that, as we know, when they say misinformation,
00:16:57.040 they simply mean information that they would prefer you not see.
00:17:02.880 Whatever their reasons may be for that.
00:17:05.800 And 99 times out of 100, the reason they don't want you to see it is not because it's wrong,
00:17:10.160 but because, in fact, it's right.
00:17:11.800 All right, number one, Brian Stelter on CNN defended efforts to shut down conservative content,
00:17:21.420 efforts being made even by CNN, using a pithy little phrase that you can tell he's very proud of,
00:17:26.780 where he says it's about freedom of reach, not freedom of speech.
00:17:30.480 I want to play this for you because it may surprise you to learn I actually agree with
00:17:35.580 some of what he's saying, and I'll explain why, but let's listen first.
00:17:39.260 But while some cry cancel culture, let me suggest a different way to think about this.
00:17:44.240 A harm reduction model.
00:17:48.320 Most people want clean air and blue skies and accurate news and rational views.
00:17:53.940 And then in that healthy environment that looks beautiful,
00:17:56.980 then we can have great fights about taxes and regulation and health care and all the rest.
00:18:01.740 The vast majority of people can agree that disinformation about, let's say, the pandemic is unhealthy.
00:18:07.540 It's harmful.
00:18:08.300 So how can that harm be reduced?
00:18:11.220 Well, big tech platforms say they are removing lies about vaccines and stamping out stop-to-steal BS
00:18:16.540 and QAnon cult content.
00:18:19.480 Now, do these private companies have too much power?
00:18:21.280 Sure.
00:18:21.620 Many people would say yes, of course they do.
00:18:23.820 But reducing a liar's reach is not the same as censoring freedom of speech.
00:18:29.000 Freedom of speech is different than freedom of reach.
00:18:32.420 And algorithmic reach is part of the problem.
00:18:34.640 The only thing I agree with him there on is that it's not about freedom of speech.
00:18:42.080 Or at least we shouldn't be framing it that way.
00:18:45.880 I am increasingly convinced that it's a mistake to frame all of this stuff.
00:18:51.400 We always try to bring everything down with the way debates work in our country now.
00:18:58.000 Everything always comes down to freedom of speech, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.
00:19:02.800 We always try to boil it down to that.
00:19:04.480 But I think that's a mistake.
00:19:10.620 Partly because freedom of speech as a concept is so vague, nobody really knows what it means.
00:19:16.300 There's no agreement.
00:19:17.320 When you go around and say, oh, this is freedom of speech, and you say that, you know, if you're in a room of people
00:19:21.340 and you're talking to 20 different people and you say freedom of speech,
00:19:25.000 all 20 of them will have 20 different ideas of what freedom of speech even means.
00:19:28.100 It's just, it's not a helpful way of framing your argument.
00:19:35.640 So when it comes to conservatives being kicked off big tech platforms,
00:19:42.180 canceled, censored, whatever phrase you want to use,
00:19:45.820 I obviously am 100% against it.
00:19:47.860 And I'm in favor of forcing these, some transparency with these big tech companies,
00:19:55.760 preventing them through government force from censoring in the way that they are.
00:20:04.680 But I don't think we frame it as freedom of speech.
00:20:08.040 I think this is an issue of ethics.
00:20:11.680 This is an issue of transparency, of consistency.
00:20:17.860 Of power.
00:20:19.860 You know, how much power should these companies actually have?
00:20:23.540 I think that's the way, that's the way we should frame this.
00:20:28.520 That should be good enough.
00:20:31.020 Is it ethical for these companies to be doing this, that have so much power
00:20:34.580 to control the national dialogue and decide who can be heard and who can't?
00:20:40.100 Is it ethical?
00:20:41.200 Is it right?
00:20:41.800 For them, while not even admitting, by the way, what they're doing,
00:20:46.800 not being transparent about it.
00:20:49.960 Is it ethical for them to, you know, kick conservatives off,
00:20:52.620 apply a standard to certain political ideologies that they don't apply to others?
00:20:56.760 No, it's not ethical.
00:20:57.560 It's not right.
00:20:58.520 They shouldn't have that power.
00:21:00.520 And I think I can make that argument without saying anything about freedom of speech.
00:21:03.740 It's just not right and it's not ethical.
00:21:08.940 And I'll use Stelter's phrase there.
00:21:11.800 It's harm.
00:21:12.460 Harm reduction.
00:21:14.160 Well, he wants to reduce harm by reducing the visibility of conservatives.
00:21:19.560 That's his idea of reducing harm.
00:21:22.260 Because he's worried that people are harmed by opposing ideas.
00:21:25.600 He only wants people to hear his ideas and the ideas of people he agrees with.
00:21:28.780 And if you hear any other ideas, then you're being harmed.
00:21:32.100 So he's trying to, you know, he's trying to protect you very nicely
00:21:37.040 by making sure you don't hear any other ideas that might be confusing and scary to you.
00:21:42.420 I have a different idea of harm reduction.
00:21:44.980 How do we reduce the harm being done by big tech companies with all the power they wield
00:21:51.320 to manipulate the public discussion and debate?
00:21:58.780 How do we reduce that harm?
00:22:02.280 I think we could do all of this without muddying the waters by making an argument about free speech.
00:22:09.080 Because once you do that, then first we have to discuss about what free speech even means
00:22:13.220 and who does it apply to and does it only apply where the government is concerned?
00:22:18.020 I mean, as long as the government itself as a governmental body is not preventing people from saying things,
00:22:24.480 is it the case that free speech is irrelevant to that?
00:22:26.620 You know, we could put all that to the side
00:22:29.280 and just establish that the big tech companies are doing great harm to the country.
00:22:37.700 They're exercising a level of power that they should not have.
00:22:41.800 They're not being transparent.
00:22:43.900 And they're being unethical.
00:22:47.100 It's a pretty good case you can make just based on that.
00:22:49.700 Great job.
00:22:50.300 They're not being simplified.
00:22:57.000 Good job.
00:23:01.600 Take care.
00:23:02.900 Get some advice in my manuse.
00:23:04.240 Good job.
00:23:04.980 I'm sorry.
00:23:05.520 Take care.
00:23:06.120 Take care.
00:23:06.420 I'm sorry.
00:23:07.040 I need to find the job.
00:23:07.200 I'll have to notice you.
00:23:08.240 I can take care.
00:23:08.360 Take care.
00:23:08.640 Then what do you think the job?
00:23:09.420 Thanks.
00:23:09.920 Thank you.
00:23:10.440 I don't have to introduce yourself.
00:23:10.700 I can take care.
00:23:11.600 I love to introduce yourself.
00:23:12.100 You kind of love to introduce yourself.
00:23:12.800 There's also my Tea Mike.
00:23:13.640 I love to introduce yourself.
00:23:14.460 I hope you can be viens of telling yourself,
00:23:15.500 but there's interesting to lessons, like you we can build it.
00:23:16.080 Well, we can't do that, but I can trade with that
00:23:16.760 Oh, so I can take it.