The Freedom of Speech

Throughline

NPR

Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 16.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2023

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Book bans, disinformation, the wild world of the internet. Free speech debates are all around us. What were the Founding Fathers thinking when they created the First Amendment, and how have the words they wrote in the 18th century been stretched and shaped to fit a world they never could have imagined? It's a story that travels through world wars and culture wars. Through the highest courts and the Ku Klux Klan. What exactly is free speech, and how has the answer to that question changed in the history of the U.S.?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Come on, y'all, no not these! No KKK!
0:03.0	Those matches, USA!
0:04.5	Spirited commentary.
0:06.3	The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and thought of all of them.
0:09.9	Lively debate.
0:11.3	U.S. Supreme Court handed social media companies a major victory.
0:16.5	Supreme court cases that could reshape the future of the Internet.
0:20.3	Right now, we are witnessing an extraordinary amount of confusion.
0:27.0	Do you think some of this is going to fall?
0:29.0	An extraordinary amount of threats.
0:31.0	But where is the line?
0:32.9	An extraordinary amount of passion about what free speech means.
0:36.9	This has everything to do with trying to take the voices of people
0:42.1	and make sure that they stay silent.
0:53.1	There is such a big gap in some ways between what the average American understands,
0:58.6	the First Amendment to say and to protect, and what the law actually says.
1:03.2	And in addition to that, the law is actually extremely confusing and changing every minute.
1:08.4	Mary Anne Franks is a law professor at the University of Miami School of Law,
1:13.6	an author of the book, The Cult of the Constitution,
1:16.8	an affordscoming book on the First Amendment called Fearless Speech.
1:21.3	The bottom line is free speech affects everyone.
1:24.0	It's obviously an incredibly important value for Americans.
	...

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