Brené with Ben Wizner on Free Speech, Misinformation, and the Case for Nuance

Unlocking Us with Brené Brown

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, Education, Relationships, Self-improvement

4.6 • 24.5K Ratings

🗓️ 9 February 2022

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I was looking for some certainty around the tough issues of censorship and misinformation — legal definitions, rules, and clear lines — so I called Ben Wizner, a lawyer with the ACLU and the director of its Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. I’d hoped we’d have a Free Speech 101–type conversation, with tidy resolutions and a clear path forward. But what I suspected, and Ben confirmed, is that the law gives us very few answers to the hardest questions that we have. So in this episode, the two of us grapple with issues of balance and boundaries, unpacking the harms that speech can cause and the harms that censorship can cause. I’m glad that we had over an hour to talk, because as tempting as it is to approach issues like this with firm certainty or with 140 characters, it’s much more important to unpack the nuances and unlock the opportunity for growth and learning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everyone. I'm Bernay Brown and this is unlocking us.
0:07.0	I'm glad to be back. It has been as many of you know a very very tough couple of weeks. What has been two weeks or three
0:14.3	week spirit? Two weeks. It's been long and it's been hard and the world is not
0:20.7	built. I'm learning for pausing and learning more and researching. I've
0:26.9	learned that. What else have I learned? I've learned that bots that have
0:32.4	cartoon avatars that are eagles are really mean AF.
0:38.4	I can just tell y'all that right now.
0:40.5	I've learned that this community is incredible and even when we don't agree, which there
0:44.7	are a ton of you that didn't agree with me taking a pause as I dug into what was happening
0:49.9	at Spotify to better understand.
0:52.1	You asked me tough questions, held me accountable, but
0:55.8	did so with respect and curiosity, and I really appreciate that. I'm tired.
1:02.3	I'm tired I don't know getting back up on my feet a little bit you know the worst thing
1:10.9	about this whole shit show
1:12.5	is I would do it again the exact same way.
1:15.3	Like I didn't know enough
1:20.0	to tell you even why I was pausing
1:22.4	because I didn't know what I was going to have to go look at and
1:25.9	I wasn't sure what I was even allowed to say to be honest with you and it's been hard.
1:31.6	But I'm glad to be back. I'm coming back, interestingly, with Ben Wisner. He has been
1:40.9	an attorney at the ACLU since 2001 and since 2012 he has been the director of its
1:48.2	speech privacy and technology project. In two decades at the ACLU, he has litigated numerous cases involving freedom of expression,
	...

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