Brian Takes on Big Tech
Question Everything
Brian Reed
4.6 • 707 Ratings
🗓️ 25 September 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was forced off the air, it raised huge questions about who really controls what we’re allowed to say. From billionaires and politicians to social media platforms and regulators, the boundaries of free speech in America are being redrawn in real time.
To get a sense of the country’s mood, host Brian Reed goes to the Iowa State Fair – a carnival of fried food, political rallies, and raw opinions. What he finds – people are depressed. And they have reason to be. At the heart of the discontentment is the way social media and misinformation online is spreading hate and dividing the country.
From the fairgrounds to the halls of Congress, Brian traces it all back to a little-known law from 1996 that gives Big Tech sweeping immunity. The law makes it so social media companies can’t be sued for what happens on their platforms.
And Brian comes away with a renewed sense of purpose. Change. This. Law.
Check out our Substack, with more reporting on the war on truth, free speech, and tech companies’ role in it all.
“Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Who, boy, what a time to come back with a show about free speech and journalism. |
| 0:04.3 | The pace of news right now has been knocking the wind out of me. |
| 0:08.5 | Charlie Kirk's assassination and late-night hosts like Kimmel getting yanked |
| 0:12.3 | and multi-billion dollar defamation lawsuits from the president |
| 0:15.4 | and the FCC head acting like a mafioso. |
| 0:18.9 | Plus, we have the president now claiming that critical coverage of him |
| 0:21.7 | is illegal. I'm anxious. I know lots of people are, people with all sorts of politics. That's |
| 0:29.4 | certainly how I felt for much of the last year, frozen and helpless. The thing I know how to do |
| 0:35.7 | that we do on this show, journalism, |
| 0:38.3 | that's supposed to be a bulwark in these situations, |
| 0:41.5 | in democratic crises, |
| 0:43.3 | it feels absolutely pulverized, useless. |
| 0:46.8 | And if journalism can't make a dent, |
| 0:49.3 | what else is there for me a journalist to do? |
| 0:53.5 | Well, gratefully, I have an idea. |
| 1:01.2 | From KCRW in placement theory, this is Question Everything. I'm Brian Reed. Come with me for a moment |
| 1:09.8 | as I transport us back to a simpler time. |
| 1:13.1 | Back, back to six weeks ago. |
| 1:16.7 | When I made a visit, as I do now and then, to Des Moines, Iowa and the Iowa State Fair. |
| 1:25.9 | It was the middle of August. |
| 1:31.0 | I had a trip planned to Iowa with my family to clean out an old storage unit. My wife is from Des Moines. |
| 1:32.7 | And I figured I should take the opportunity to get out of the New York media bubble I live |
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