The Joe Rogan

Rogan Experience

Train by day Joe Rogan Podcast all day. Let's just get into it. I just get into it. Ira, first of all, thank you for being on the show. I really appreciate it.

Well, thank you for having me. It's great. It's a perfect time to have you on. I mean this is I mean we're talking about free speech in the time when the

president of the United States has been banned off of Twitter and Facebook and it's right. It's a wild time.

What do you make of that?

Well, you know, Facebook and Twitter

are private publishing, right?

I mean, we don't exactly know what they are they're not

exactly like the Times or like NBC or ABC but they're close they're they're certainly in the private sector and and the private sector has always had

has always had the discretion. It's their First Amendment right to decide

who to publish and who not to publish. You know it's different with Facebook and Twitter because they claim to be

platforms like the telephone company that you know anybody can use to have

conversations but they're they're not quite that they really are a lot like a

publisher and you know if the Times decided to fire one of its

columnist because it didn't like what he wrote they have a First Amendment right to

do so and they're not the government.

So, you know, and to that extent, what Facebook and Twitter did is perfectly legal and not really different than what a publisher or a broadcasting company would do if it

decided to change or fire one of its anchors or one of its columnists. On the other hand, they are sort of like a platform, like an electronic soapbox that they've erected in a park and invited everybody and anybody to come.

And when they start picking and choosing no you're not good you're not good you're

okay you know they still when they start being a gatekeeper you run the risk of them closing people out of a national dialogue and depriving

people of an audience, basically. that that's a problem and it's a problem we

...