where are you i need freedom, too ♪ >> this saturday, we are bringing you an enco presidential debate between ohio senatoancend minnesota gorn tim walz. you can watch the debate in full on c-span, our free mobile app c-span now, or online at c-span.org. >> the house will be in order. >> this year, c-span celebrates 45 years of covering congress like no other. since 1979, we have been your primary source for capitol hill, providing balanced, unfiltered coverage of government, taking you to where the policies are debated and decided, all with the support of america's cable companies. c-span -- 45 years and counting,

powered by cable. >> listening to programs on c-span through c-span radio is easy. tell your smart speaker, play c-span radio, and listen to "washington journal" daily at 7:00 eastern. weekdays, catch "washington today." listen to c-span any time. just tell your smart speaker, play c-span radio. c-span, powered by cable. joining us now is matt taibbi, investigator reporter, here to talk about free speech in america. i want to start with an event that you were at here recently in washington called rescue the republic. in your remarks you said that you were invited to talk about the risks to the first amendment, but to spare the suspense, that battle is lost, state censorship is a fact in most of the west. explain.

>> earlier this year the european union instituted the digital services act, requiring all platforms to submit to the judgments of state appointed censors called trusted flaggers. this is the model that most western states around the world want to introduce. australia has introduced a similar law called the a cma. the candidate has a series of laws, some that have already been passed, some that are on the way, like a log called the online arms act that could involve prior restraint. there could be people put in jail for even the potential to commit hate speech crimes. in the united states, i worked on a story called the twitter files, which revealed basically that there is a very organized system of communication between enforcement agencies like the fbi and dhs, office of the

director of national intelligence, and platforms like twitter, facebook, and google. they are doing essentially the same thing as the european law, sort of asking the platforms to take things down. if done informally, the only difference is we haven't had a law passed in the united states. i think we are headed in the direction of a kind of regulated form of speech and away from the american tradition of the first amendment. host: why not try to address misinformation and propaganda from foreign countries like russia and iran, trying to interfere in our elections? why not have these agencies speaking to these platforms to say that needs to be taken down because it is interfering with democracy? caller: two big -- guest: two big reasons, the state, number one, should absolutely exercise the right to address the bully pulpit and address the public

and say look, the stuff from overseas is incorrect, you should trust us, this is the white house, the dhs, whatever. but they cannot or shouldn't do is secretly address these platforms over which they have a significant amount of leverage through laws like section 230, which provides significant subsidies to these companies, and say that we would like you to take things down. that is not always just for an or interference, it's often true information. the first amendment was designed specifically to prevent a situation where the government precludes true information coming up from the public. we saw that in covid. we had journalists who were banned for saying things like the virus, the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission or infection, which was absolutely

true. we cannot have that situation. also, i would say it's totally un-american for the government to be deciding what we can and cannot handle. the first amendment assumes we are all grown-ups and that we can handle different kinds of speech. no one believes that they are susceptible to foreign disinformation. they all think that someone else will be manipulated and the problem of instituting those laws is you are giving someone the power to decide what is true in what is not and that is extremely dangerous. having lived in several countries, i know that that is a precursor to the elimination of a lot of civil liberties. host: do you think that x, formerly twitter, facebook, instagram, should be held accountable for what is posted on their site? caller: by a government agency? no. look, i'm a journalist and i was

raised in the system where we had a litigation based system for regulating speech. if you lie about somebody and it is damaging to them, you go to court and they sue you. they have to prove the damage and they have to prove the lie. that was a very effective system that worked for a long time. it probably has to be adjusted a bit for the digital age, but we certainly cannot have a situation where there is a government truth squad deciding what is correct and what is not. first, that gives the state too much power. secondly, they are almost always incorrect about whole ranges of things. the system we previously had worked better and this thing is very dangerous that we are flirting with, now. host: "the wall street journal" called rescue the republic a testament to the axis of weird assembling to support the trump candidacy, across partisan

friends united by little more than conspiratorial contrarian is him." how do contrarian is him -- contrarianism." how do you respond? guest: i didn't say anything about trump and my speech. this is increasingly applied online, guilt through association. they didn't criticize me specifically, they wanted to say that anything i said was conspiratorial -- conspiratorial and i'm a journalist, i have been working for 35 years. i don't misuse facts. if they want to criticize something i said, they are welcome to go ahead. if they want to criticize me because i shared a stage with some other people, i reject that. i am totally comfortable that there are people's country with whom i don't exactly share a point of view, that is the whole point. we don't have to impose a point

of view on everybody. host: you addressed it a little bit there, but how do you respond that by being there, you are showing that you are on one side or the other. pro-trump side. would you care to explain your politics, or do you think you don't need to? guest: i don't think i need to. my speech was about the first amendment and risks to free speech. i've been very outspoken that the current administration has demonstrated an astonishing lack of understanding and sympathy for free speech values. walz in the debate saying that hate speech is not constitutionally protected. he brought up fire in a crowded theater and it says it is a supreme court test. he is misquoting a 1919 supreme court case, one of the cardinal mistakes that first year law students make. we have had john kerry just last

week in a meeting with the world economic forum saying that the force -- the first amendment was a major block by efforts to leaders to hammer disinformation out of existence and it is hard to build concession -- consensus and democracies do not move fast enough. if you think the bill of rights is an impediment to leadership you have a misguided view. that is all i am saying. host: explain a little bit more why you called the misquote, yelling fire in a public hitter? guest: yelling fire in a public theater is a dictum. oliver wendell holmes in that case brought it up as an example as an argument to uphold the conviction of socialist antiwar activists who were distributing leaflets that inform people of their rights and did not incite

people. they said the -- that you have the right to petition for redress of grievances. he was comparing the distribution of leaflets that were peaceful and not inciting and today would clearly be considered legal speech to shouting fire in a crowded theater which led to the creation of the clear and present danger to standard which led to the worst abuses of power in our country in the 20th century. it was repealed in 1969. so shouting thought -- fire in a crowded theater was never law. and it was only what they call a nonbinding argument that was part of a 1919 case overturned in 1969 in brandenburg v. ohio. that has never been part of speech law. host: bob in tyler, texas. republican. caller: i have another supreme

court project. wednesday morning i was at the texas supreme court attending a state commission on judicial conduct. and then the head of the committee, a justice steele said that nobody could record. i was there to present texas law 551.023 where any public mirroring including court hearings are open to recording, and video recording. and any time the speech you want to say. if you could look on youtube. and the the judge saying that and a few tatian's to his oath of office. he is suppressing our speech when we have a lot to keep it open and public places. guest: i will definitely take a

look. that sounds interesting. host: eddie in wichita, kansas. democratic caller. caller: good morning. the best way for me to ask my question is to refer back to the previous episode. i think she was the first lady who called in and she had numerous debunked conspiracies that she was sharing. and you checked her. and you fact-check her in real time. do you hear me now? host: we are listening. yes. caller: ok. i guess my question is going to be in the form of a statement. in the previous episode there was a lady that called in and you fact-check her in real time and basically on air debunked some misinformation. so i guess my question would be are there -- host: we got your question. you have your television on and

you have to me of that. eddie is saying can you fact-check in real time online on these platforms? guest: no. and this whole new industry of fact checking is suspicious. we used to call what we did in journalism fact checking. we would never put things out that we could be sued or that were missed informative. and this whole new industry of ngo's that do fact checking or organizations like poynter or poltifact, sometimes you have to look at nine doubt who is funding the organizations. they often have deeply politicized biases worked into them. it is not that they will erroneous and how they fact-check certain information,

they will overlook misinformation on the others, right? and that is what you have to be careful of. they end up with a highly slanted view. there is a problem with how the plat forms were. i saw this in the twitter files sometimes they will not amplify content instead of correcting it and you get this idea that some people are -- some ideas are more popular than others as they get toggled up and down and i think that is dangerous. i prefer the open marketplace of ideas where people can see what is popular and is not. host: how would you know that these companies are not doing it? they are privately owned. guest: for instance, the washington examiner and i did some of this reporting as well,

found out that the global engagement center was funding a group called the global disinformation index which is a u.k. based industry that scores media organizations according to risk and safety which means some of them are up ranked by advertisers ends up being down rank. i am politically liberal but the top 10 agencies that they decided were too sensational were all conservative groups or libertarians like these in. and the top 10 for trustworthiness were the " atlantic" and npr. as a result you have the state pick financial winners in the media business by causing some of these organizations to be down ranked for advertisers. i do not think they work that way. advertisers should be more interested in who is popular and who is reaching audiences as

opposed to the judgment of some state-sponsored organization based overseas is saying about these groups. host: explain how you think it should work. guest: i think we should have media organizations that you can trust. if you get things wrong audiences will depart. why do we think mainstream media outlets are losing audience at a big rate and why do we think there going to plaisance like joe rogan's or russell brandt's podcast. because nobody believes what they see in mainstream press. they do not believe that those organizations are reporting on the level. and there is a good reason. these organize nations dating all the way back to the wmd episode have continually made mistakes and not owned up to them. in order to do better, all they have to do is perform better. and when they make mistakes,

admit it and rebuild trust. there is no way around it. you cannot do the algorithmic thing that declares who is more trustworthy. trust is organic between people. and you cannot mechanize it. i think it is a mistake to think that you can. again, it gives someone power that does not deserve it. host: lewis in new jersey. independent. caller: hello. how are you doing? the question i have is how jimmy is still on when he is so far ahead of the curve with russiagate, covid and many other things? how come he has not been canceled? is it the money he brings in? guest: not only that, people who have interviewed jimmy have been

throttled or removed from platforms. caller: he has too. guest: i have as well. in his case, one of the things that caused them to be deranked on some of these platforms was simply telling a true story about something that happened to him which is that he took the vaccine and then developed long covid symptoms afterwards which is something that the nih admitted that was true. this is the problem with the whole thing is that government agencies have policies that they want people to follow. they want people to get the vaccine. so rather than targeting -- they have this idea of now information which is true but politically unhelpful. so, they will go after posts that they say will promote hesitancy. that can mean something that is true like for instance somebody who gets the shot and get sick.

but, it will tend to promote hesitancy if you printed. and that is not how the media is supposed to work. i was raised in a media system where it is true it is a good story. we do not really care about how you interpret it. our business is to decide whether it is true or not. we put it out, and we trust the public to make good decisions. this new system of censorship assumes that the public cannot handle true information. so it tries to make the political decision ahead of time, and that is why it is faulting -- faulty. host: you started racket news. explain why you went from " rolling stone" to racket news. guest: i work on sub stack which is a new subscription-based media outlet. i had a great gig at "rolling stone" and i covered presidential campaigns are

rolling stone magazine which is the job that hunter thompson did and i had a great time. but things began to get pretty tense after donald trump got elected. i did not agree that there was compelling proof in the russiagate story. and i started realizing that i will not last long in conventional media. i knew -- i moved to this subscription-based model and i am doing better than ever. i am making more money than i ever was before. the media business was in decline previously. it is interesting to watch. the audiences are plummeting in regular media and places like sub stack are thriving. host: what approach are you taking to the stories that you print on your site, racket news. guest: i discover what i think is interesting which is mainly what i did most of my career

until 2016 when i started to get more motion from editors. i think the censorship story that i started to cover at " rolling stone" is a compelling and massively underreported story. i have been working on it for six years now, more or less nonstop for the last two. and, it is something where i get a lot of audience organically because the major organizations cover it from another point of view. they will not cover the censorship angle but they only want to talk about disinformation and misinformation. that is getting people to forget that freedom of speech is important. they want them to worry about the other thing and forget about the loss of rights. i'm covering it from the other view and i want to thank those other organizations for not covering the story. host: louisville, kentucky. benny is a democrat there.

caller: thank you so much and a pleasure to be on. i watched you on bill mar and other platforms previously. i am calling because it seems like you are saying that there is no reason to censor and as long as people will identify or say that they've actually done misinformation like fox news. they have not owned up to those voting machines. and they still have to pay that money. but i have not heard them. and i watch it all the time because i am trying to see when they will correct their issues. they do not do it. and you have a strong following of people see all of this stuff and i think there should be either censor them, or something showing that it is a lie and is not true. so -- guest: you do not seem to think

-- you are not convinced that they are telling the truth and you are not full by it. why do you think other people absolutely must be? caller: i have talked to people all the time and i get into disagreements. with donald trump for example, the last election people were telling me that i work with that he did win and you will see that he won and i said we would wait and see. and then after it was confirmed that they did not cheat and he did lose the election, they still went down this road because he continued to say and fox news continued to promote that it was all lies. guest: do you think if a government agency forced these groups to correct themselves that that would change the opinions of all of the people with whom you are upset? it would only harden them. throughout history, and i am old

enough to have gone to school when there was a soviet union and absolute censorship of media. if they -- if the government said it they assumed that the opposite was true. if you have a system of censorship in the country and networks are forced to say one thing or another they will not believe it. the next time we have a pandemic and there are recommendations on these channels they are going to do the opposite what those recommendations are. you cannot censor and expect people to trust the media it does not work that way. host: benny, are you still there, do you have a response? caller: i just think at some point there needs to be a label or something saying this has been checked and it is not true. go ahead. guest: it does not work like that. the only way you will reach those people if you think they

are wrong is to argue with them and -- in good faith. and, if you cannot reach them. then they will never be reachable, not by government fiat. the american system is based upon the idea that we are all adults and we can all handle information. and we take what madison called the multiplicity of interests and we sort out all of this information. and from that soup of staff, we make our own political decisions. if you have the government in there acting as a sensor or arbiter of fact, which is exactly the opposite of how the founders intended this country to work, what you are going to get his people not listening at all. so, a precondition to getting people to listen to you or change your minds is to not force them to believe something.

and what you are thinking about doing is trying to force them to have a point of view, which will never work. host: how do you respond to people who point to january 6 and say the president saying -- the former president saying that the election was rigged and that he did not lose and the culmination of the speech on the march to the capital, it is the misinformation that led to that. how do you respond to that? guest: what i would say is that the bigger culprit in incidents like that is the loss of trust in conventional media and the loss of trust and other politicians which is caused by stories for instance like russiagate, which was false on a number of levels. if you make mistakes and you lose the trust of audiences, they will believe someone else. and that is going to be true whether or not you have a

sensor. if you had a sensor -- censor they will rebel even more. and so, by the way i was on twitter. i saw all the internal discussions within twitter about what we do about the problem of donald trump. one of the problems they have is that trump himself did not actually violate their terms of service to the point where they had a reason sufficiently to ban him and they had to change the definition of incitement to justify taking him up twitter. does taking donald trump off twitter help or hurt his popularity with his supporters? it is a total misunderstanding of how media works to think that it helps. it actually emboldens and hardens his support when you do that. host: georgetown, kentucky. randy, a republican.

caller: good morning. bless you and you have a hard road to travel, sir. i have been trying to speak out against something that has happened about beach in this country for so many years. you can understand where your plight will go. and that is what title i three churches and it sounds crazy. but purchase god from all religions and christians. and god is everything and god is politics and society. and this is the plight that you are going to have. you trying convention a christian that these institutional churches are against what they should believe and you will see what i am talking about. thank you so much. host: alright. host: we are going to steve in maryland. democratic caller. caller: good to speak to you.

it is all about control. we have lost everything in this country when it comes to control. we are no different in china when it comes to state run media anymore. so, you are fighting an uphill battle. i wish you the best but eventually it is all about control. and it speaks for itself. guest: well, thank you for the comment and that is very pessimistic. i disagree. look, the chinese system is fully controlled. the european system is now on the road to something like that with the digital services act. but i think the american system is the best because it recognizes something that is absolutely true. again, the soviet union in 1989 or 1988. they did not read the newspapers

and they read the stuff that people passed around among each other because they trusted it more than they trusted the official versions. that is always going to be true, that there is going to be somebody who speaks and is trusted and the person who is trusted the most is the person who does not force you or control you. and i think the beauty of the american system is that we always recognized that lack of control is a fundamental aspect of how communication works. each is free and have -- any effort to try and control it only lessens the ability for the public to communicate and be educated. i do hope that we do not abandon our unique approach and we do fight for our free speech rights. host: craig in new jersey. independent. caller: hello.

i am a user of twitter and i was banned by elon musk and my question is why do you see so many people seeing him as the defender of free speech when he has banned and shadow bands so many people on twitter after his acquisition? guest: look, it is very unfortunate when i first started doing the twitter files. elon was talking a big game about being a free speech advocate. he has done a lot of questionable things since. so -- and most the people on the platform i write on our de amplified. that does not mean that we should abandon free speech principles and we should criticize elon musk. the problem is that all of these gigantic platforms whenever the owner is involved they are always going to be playing these

decisions about -- weighing the decisions about if they will take the profits about operating in countries with very strict rules about certain kinds of content or whether they will fight back. he tried to do in brazil and then quickly surrendered. so yes. i am not pleased with elon musk. but the reason he think -- people think he has a free speech advocate is because he at least talk to the good >> c-span's journal. discuss the latest issues in government, politics and public policy from washington and across the country. coming up saturday morning we will discuss the state of the lever -- the labor movement in the u.s. and its role in campaign 2024 with bloomberg reporter ian cole grin and a senior climate resilience policy

analyst with the union of concerned scientists on the rising cost of natural disasters and climate preparedness. c-span's washington journal. join the conversation live at 7:00 eastern saturday morning on c-span, c-span now or online at c-span.org. >> the house will be in order. >> this year c-span celebrates 45 years of covering congress like no other. since 1979 we have been your primary source for capitol hill providing balanced unfiltered coverage of government taking you to where the policy is debated and decided with the support of america's cable company. c-span, 45 years and counting powered by cable. ♪