Free Speech Under Fire? From Campus Protests to Deportations

The Michael Shermer Show

Michael Shermer

Dialogue, Science, Reason, Michaelshermer, Natural Sciences, Skeptic

4.4 • 921 Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2025

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jacob Mchangama, author of Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media, joins Michael to examine the evolving landscape of free expression amid rising political and cultural tensions. They discuss how far governments, universities, and tech platforms should go in regulating speech, and what’s at stake when they do.

In this episode:

Should non-citizens have the same speech protections as citizens?
Social media, mental health, radicalization, and the “moderation dilemma”
The global shift toward stricter regulation of speech
How today’s most divisive issues test the limits of free expression

Jacob Mchangama is the founder and executive director of the Future of Free Speech, professor at Vanderbilt University, and senior fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).

Transcript

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0:00.0	you're listening to the Michael Shermer show
0:08.6	congratulations here's the book well this is what you were on. This is the hardback edition.
0:21.9	Free speech, a history from Socrates to social media. Now out in paperback, I think this week
0:27.5	when we release this, it'll just be out. Congratulations on the paperback. Good timing on the subject,
0:33.1	by the way.
0:33.9	Unfortunately.
0:35.4	Yeah. So maybe we start there instead of, we can get into the deep history later.
0:40.0	Current events.
0:40.7	So last time I talked to you were in Europe, I guess.
0:43.2	Now you've moved to America and we're living in Magaland.
0:46.9	Yes.
0:47.4	And just kind of give us an overall impression of how things have changed from the free speech
0:52.4	perspective since the election.
0:56.6	Yeah. Yeah.
0:58.8	Where do we begin?
1:00.4	And what can I say being on a green card?
1:03.1	Are you on a green card?
1:04.5	Oh, are you worried about anything you've said or written?
1:08.2	I, you know, I don't think people should think of me as some kind of dissident at all.
1:14.6	But, you know, the justifications that I hear from the administration is essentially that, you know, if they feel, if they, in their sole discretion, think that you somehow endanger the foreign policy
1:29.7	interests of the United States, and that could be an op-ed in a university newspaper, apparently,
1:37.6	or an update on Facebook, you know, you could have your visa or green card revoked and you
	...

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