Essential Liberty

Share this post

'Jawboning against Speech' with Will Duffield

www.bobzadek.com

'Jawboning against Speech' with Will Duffield

Government censorship is limited by the First Amendment. Nevertheless, government officials increasingly demand that platforms refrain from publishing disfavored speech.

Bob Zadek
Jan 27, 2023
3
Share

Everyone knows that special interests lobby government for favors. The Twitter Files have revealed that lobbying is a two-way street, with government lobbying corporations too – often to silence critics of its policies.

Will Duffield of the Cato Institute has become the go-to expert on so-called “Jawboning” i.e., informally pressuring private companies to censor disfavored speech. The Jawboning-industrial-complex includes members of both parties. Major social media companies now have internal teams to handle “suggestions” from government officials. Ban this person. Silence that opinion.

Follow Will on Twitter

It’s not exactly what Orwell pictured, but it’s still concerning.

I previously interviewed Jenin Younes of the National Civil Liberties Alliance on a related topic. NCLA has defended those who censored for contradicting official CDC stances on COVID, like Martin Kulldorff and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. Getting banned from a private social media platform isn’t the same as getting thrown in jail for speech. But what if the social media company is acting under implicit pressure from Congress? It’s a classic “Your Money or Your Life!” decision.

Does this kind of censorship violate the Constitution, even if no laws are passed? Duffield joins me Sunday to discuss the nuances of free speech law in the social media era, and to lay out a libertarian vision of digital expression.

Don’t miss it.

In the Book of Judges, it is said that Samson slayed 1,000 Philistine soldiers with just the jawbone of an ass. Today, government censors thousands of voices without even drafting legislation.

Listen Live, 8am PT

Can’t listen live? Get the podcast with detailed show notes/transcripts + book summary

Links:


  • Jawboning against Speech | Cato Institute

  • Follow Will on Twitter


ICYMI – Pleading the Fourth: The Institute for Justice's Fight Against Policing-for-Profit

Twitter avatar for @rzadek
Bob Zadek @rzadek
@IJ Mike Greenberg gives the facts of the case and puts the theory of the 4th amendment into the modern context – where courts aren’t always willing to uphold individual liberties against government violations.
5:00 PM ∙ Jan 23, 2023

Listen or read here:

Essential Liberty
Pleading the Fourth: The Institute for Justice's Fight Against Policing-for-Profit
Listen now (53 min) | First, just a reminder that the archives of the Bob Zadek Show podcast hold 15 years of discussion of major issues, including today’s topic of Civil Asset Forfeiture, which I first covered 10 years ago with Sarah Stillman (The Rise of Civil Forfeiture | The New Yorker…
Listen now
4 months ago · 3 likes · Bob Zadek
3
Share
Comments
Top
New
Community

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Bob Zadek
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing