Ashutosh Bhagwat
Description: Ashutosh Bhagwat is the Boochever and Bird Endowed Chair for the Study and Teaching of Freedom and Equality and Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law at the UC Davis School of Law. Earlier in his career He clerked for Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy of the United States Supreme Court.Professor Bhagwat’s recent work focuses on the first amendment, with multiple articles and a book on the topic called Our Democratic First Amendment. In this episode we talk broadly about freedom of speech, its perceived threats and its importance in our society. Particularly we explore the idea of trusted communicators and gatekeepers in the media and how they play into our understanding of information flow.
Websites: Ashutosh Bhagwat
Book:
Our Democratic First Amendment
The Myth of Rights: The Purposes and Limits of Constitutional Rights
Publications:
The New Gatekeepers?: Social Media and the ‘Search for Truth’
Why State Censorship Still Matters
Judge Johnson and the Kaleidoscopic First Amendment
Resources:
UC Davis School of Law Podcast: Our Democratic First Amendment
Show Notes:
[0:00:01] Introduction and Background of Professor Ashutosh Bhagwat
[0:03:38] Changes in Freedom of Speech over Time
[0:06:16] Concerns About Bias and Censorship on Twitter
[0:09:05] First Amendment and the protection of awful but lawful speech
[0:12:43] Removing bots and the control of misinformation on social media platforms
[0:15:57] Gatekeeping role of social media firms in tension with democracy
[0:20:31] Dominion Systems Case: Fox News and Defamation Lawsuit
[0:24:36] Ideological Monolith in Academia
[0:26:56] Setting Boundaries: Holocaust Denial and Astrology
0:30:07 The New Labeling System on Twitter
[0:32:58] Campaign Finance Laws and Anonymous Association
[0:35:38] Incentives and Profits in Social Media Engagement
[0:38:11] The California Consumer Protection Act and Data Usage
[0:40:55] Freedom of Speech and Banning Companies
[0:43:03] Autonomy vs. Controlling the Government in Constitutional Law
[0:45:38] Corporations' Rights as Speakers in Political Discourse
[0:46:30] The Limited Understanding of Free Speech by Founding Fathers
[0:53:39] The Importance of Exposing Oneself to a Range of Ideas
[0:57:27] Violence vs. First Amendment Rights
[0:58:59] Words of Wisdom for Students in the Current Climate
[0:59:10] Developing Deliberate Skills in the Age of Social Media
Unedited AI Generated Transcript
Introduction and Background of Professor Ashutosh Bhagwat
Brent:
[0:01] Welcome, Professor Ashutosh Bhagwat. Thank you for coming on today.
Ashutosh:
[0:05] Thank you for having me. Looking forward to it.
Keller:
[0:08] We'd love to start off by hearing a little bit more about your story.
How did you get to Davis? What got you interested in law and overall, how did you end up where you are now?
Ashutosh:
[0:15] Sure. So I got interested in law, I think, largely because I was a history major in college and coming out of college, I wanted to do something that was both practical, but also had some theoretical interest, and so law became a logical choice there.
And after law school, I clerked for a couple of years for two judges, including Justice Kennedy on the Supreme Court, which is how I started getting interested in constitutional law.
And after practicing for a couple of years, I went into academia.
I was actually a professor at what was UC Hastings College of the Law.
It just changed its name in San Francisco for 17 years, and then I came to to Davis 11 years ago, so.
Brent:
[0:59] And then what are the different types of law? Because you said you, that shift from what you were practicing to then constitutional law?
Could you define like the broad categories?
Ashutosh:
[1:08] Absolutely, so when I was in practice, I actually did telecommunications law.
So I worked with, our clients were mainly AT&T and other sort of big telecom providers.
And so it was mainly regulatory stuff, economic stuff.
But the thing is, when you do telecom, there's always a free speech component to it because obviously that's how we speak, is via telecommunications.
And interestingly, I didn't really do much with the telecom stuff for many years until social media. And all of a sudden, the rise of social media is making both sort of regulatory and free speech issues sort of come together.
So it's been very interesting for me.
Brent:
[1:47] And then are the laws that governed over telecommunications similar to the laws over social media, or did we just kind of take them and apply them to social media?
Ashutosh:
[1:57] Some of the laws apply to social media, but not really.
Social media is the wild, wild west right now. There's almost no, yeah, I mean, Texas and Florida have adopted legislation in the last couple of years that tries to regulate social media, in my opinion, blatantly unconstitutionally.
But no, there's very, very little out there.
Brent:
[2:16] Interesting.
Keller:
[2:18] So what is the Democratic First Amendment? You were talking about freedom of speech.
Ashutosh:
[2:22] So if you read the entire First Amendment, it protects a number of rights.
Everyone knows about speech, also free press.
It also protects the right of assembly, which is essentially a right to gather in public, including to protest and to confer. It protects the right of association.
The word doesn't appear, but the Supreme Court has said it does correctly, which is a right to form groups with fellow citizens, it protects the right to petition.
And my book, Our Democratic First Amendment, is about how those rights work together in tandem to support democratic institutions.
And I look at the history of the First Amendment, because once I was a history major and I still do that, looking at how basically the framing generation understood these democratic rights, and then I talk about how they apply in the age of social media.
The nature of communication has really changed so fundamentally in just the last 10 years, 12 years, right? I mean, social media is a new phenomenon.
But we live in a whole new world in which anyone can speak to a broad audience.
And so it's a lot about how you translate those ideas, about how political dialogue worked in 1791 to 2023.
Brent:
[3:31] And then, have you seen a huge difference in how freedom of speech is practiced
Changes in Freedom of Speech over Time
[3:38] from the historical context to now?
Ashutosh:
[3:42] Yes and no. I think that in some ways it's easy to exaggerate the changes, like people we'll talk about polarization.
American politics have been polarized since the 1790s.
I mean, it's like, they hated each other then, you know? It's like, it's a – I mean, and so, I think that there's some overstating of changes, but the two things that social media has fundamentally changed is, one, it has given ordinary people voices, which is good and bad, because it creates a lot of voices, and it sometimes creates chaos.
And two, arguably more importantly, it's eliminated what I call gatekeepers, which is the idea that the speech that you're exposed to has to go through some professional gatekeeper, and that's just not there anymore.
It's not a phenomenon, because social media is unmoderated, right?
I mean, just the internet generally, not just social media, it goes across everyone.
And that has changed the tenor of conversation. I think it has created more of a tendency for people to get radicalized or to believe things that are just not true, because they end up in these echo chambers. Paul Definitely.
Brent:
[4:58] And we're going to jump more into that in a little bit here.
Keller:
[5:01] Jared Yeah. But if there are no more gatekeepers, who are the biggest threats to our freedom of speech?
Ashutosh:
[5:09] See, this is the thing, is that, I mean, I think if you ask some people in this country, put on the left and the right, they would say the big social media companies.
Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are the problem.
I am not all that, you know, I'm not like some sort of a huge Zuck fanboy or anything, but I am not convinced that social media poses, the owners of social media pose a major threat to free speech, despite the deplatforming of President Trump.
I think generally, they're pretty vibrant places.
The idea that conservative voices are suppressed on social media strikes me as being nonsensical. I mean, they're there.
Keller:
[5:43] Look around.
Ashutosh:
[5:44] So, that's just...
That's not—and I don't think the government is really that big of a threat because the First Amendment is alive and well.
I think this is the problem, is there are no longer centralized threats.
The problem, the primary threat to discourse is the chaoticness of modern discourse, right?
Like, honestly, if you asked us who is the biggest threat to free speech today, I would say it's all of us, right?
Brent:
[6:13] Pete Yeah. And then have you had a chance to go through some of the Twitter
Concerns About Bias and Censorship on Twitter
[6:16] files that have been coming out in the last few months.
Ashutosh:
[6:18] I've been following it, yeah.
Brent:
[6:20] Yeah, because I think that is where some people started to get concerned because they saw government officials asking the people at Twitter, hey, this account was a problem, or it skewed more towards conservatives being silenced.
Ashutosh:
[6:40] So, that is not – I know that that's been the spin that some journalists have placed on the Twitter files, and that's certainly the spin that Elon Musk wants to place on it because, you know, of his politics.
I don't think that's actually a good reading of what happened.
I mean, I agree with you that when the government sort of is targeting particular accounts, that's troublesome.
But I don't – again, like, what threat does the government have that's going to hold any sort of weight over, you know, YouTube or Facebook or – I don't feel like there's a lot of ability for government to really force them to do things.
Insofar as, for example, the security services are pointing out, hey, these are terrorist accounts.
I mean, we don't want them to do that, right? I mean, of course, I think that's just part of the natural state of things, right?
I think what the Twitter files demonstrate more than anything else is doing content moderation right is impossible.
No one will ever get it right because the sheer volume of content on these platforms means that.
They're going to sometimes over moderate, they're going to sometimes under moderate.
And it's not physically possible to get it all right. I mean, even using algorithms in AI, which these companies have more increasingly do, those algorithms are imperfect. They make mistakes.
Brent:
[8:05] So then do you think we need to err more on the side of less moderation to not infringe?
Ashutosh:
[8:15] I, first of all, I think this is none of the government's business.
I think the government should stay out of this. This is why I really oppose the Florida and Texas laws.
Brent:
[8:23] Could you define those real quick? Sure.
Ashutosh:
[8:24] Well, they do a lot of things, but the Texas statute in particular prohibits social media platforms from engaging in what it calls viewpoint discrimination.
Which is blocking speech because it disagrees with the viewpoint.
Here's the problem, and this is, it actually ties to your earlier question too, is that it's, social media companies moderate content because they, it's in their business interest to do so.
This sounds bad, but it's not necessarily. It's in their business interest to do so because they don't want their customers, their users, to be scared away by awful speech.
First Amendment and the protection of awful but lawful speech
[9:05] And the problem is, and this is something people don't understand, is the First Amendment protects a lot of awful speech.
Hate speech is fully protected by the First Amendment. A lot of pornography and nudity is fully protected by the First Amendment.
[9:20] ISIS propaganda is fully protected by the First Amendment. And under the Texas statute, the Supreme Court has explicitly said that hate speech is a viewpoint.
Which means, I think, that the Texas statute means that if it actually were to go into force, I think Facebook can no longer moderate neo-Nazis in Texas.
They also can't moderate ISIS in Texas, because ISIS is a viewpoint, right?
I just don't see how that's a good result. I mean, I find it kind of baffling that the governor of Texas thinks that's a good result, though he seems to.
[9:56] That's the problem, is that there's a lot – the phrase that is often used in my community is awful but lawful.
There's a lot of awful but lawful speech that the platforms tend to moderate in their own business interest.
And I tend to think that generally their interest is largely – I mean, again, they make mistakes, don't agree with everything they do.
Don't, for example, agree with the decisions that were made about Hunter Biden's laptop story. I think I think that was wrong to suppress that.
But I think fundamentally the pattern is to try and keep the online experience not awful.
Brent:
[10:34] Yeah, and then real quick, is hate speech a legal term?
Ashutosh:
[10:39] No, it's not because it's not a legal category. It's treated as, I mean, the term hate speech is used all the time.
And in most of the rest of the country, the government has a lot more power to ban hate speech than in the United States.
But, if by hate speech, generally people talk about speech that is derogatory towards human beings on the basis of certain categories like sex, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, on and on.
It's not a legal category because we don't treat it differently under First Amendment law in the United States than we do any other political speech.
Not true in Europe, not true in Canada, and most of the rest of the world, the government hate speech receives much less protection.
Brent:
[11:23] So are we the only country with the constitutional right to freedom of speech?
Ashutosh:
[11:28] No. Essentially, I once actually did an empirical study on this, essentially every constitution in the world protects free speech.
The only major exception I could think of Saudi Arabia.
Indeed, if you read the constitution of the People's Republic of China or North Korea, they have some of the most strong language in their constitutions protecting free speech.
It is, of course, meaningless because it's not actually enforced in that way.
But as a matter of written constitutions, essentially all of them protect free speech.
Brent:
[12:03] So even in Europe, if you, if they're able to ban hate speech, how is that?
Ashutosh:
[12:09] It's just, it's interpretation, right? So we have the First Amendment protection for free speech.
Most European countries, not United Kingdom, but most of them have written constitutions that protect free speech. And then there's the European Convention on Human Rights, which very explicitly protects free speech. But what it means to protect free speech is not self-defining.
And different courts in different countries interpret it differently.
And our Supreme Court probably has, if not the map, probably the most absolutist reading of free speech in the world.
Brent:
[12:39] Okay.
Keller:
[12:39] Okay. And with regards to Twitter, we were talking about government involvement
Removing bots and the control of misinformation on social media platforms
[12:44] and whatnot, but what are your thoughts on the effort to remove bots?
Is that a fruitful endeavor or does that seem like a waste of time?
Ashutosh:
[12:53] I mean, I think that it's a fruitful endeavor in the sense that bots are the equivalent of lying, right?
Because they give the impression that lots of people hold these opinions, when in fact they don't.
So it's a way of, it's a form of, subtle form of misinformation.
And I think that it's perfectly legitimate for the owners of platforms to want to control that.
You know what else the First Amendment controls, but protects?
Brent:
[13:20] Lies.
Ashutosh:
[13:22] That's a case about 10 years ago in the Supreme Court, so held.
So again, the government cannot prohibit misinformation, but there are obvious reasons why the platform owners might want to.
Keller:
[13:34] Yeah, so.
Brent:
[13:36] Are all lies protected, though?
Ashutosh:
[13:38] That's a...
Keller:
[13:39] Okay, okay.
Ashutosh:
[13:41] Take my first amendment class and we can spend 200 bucks on that.
Brent:
[13:43] No, the short answer is no, clearly not.
Ashutosh:
[13:46] Commercial fraud isn't protected. Lots and lots of lies aren't protected.
But the fact that something is a lie is not in and of itself sufficient to make it unprotected.
Brent:
[13:55] Okay, it's more about the harm that comes after.
Ashutosh:
[13:57] Exactly.
Brent:
[13:57] Perfect, yeah. So you started to touch on it a little bit earlier, but how about we dive into the idea of trusted communicators and gatekeepers, and your opinions on what social media is becoming in light of those terms.
Ashutosh:
[14:14] Sure. So, yeah, I have had an article in a book chapter about the new gatekeepers, arguing that there's a lot of pressure currently on social media firms, mainly from the political left from people like Elizabeth Warren, Senator Warren, to do more content moderation, especially of things that misinformation, hate speech, and so on.
And I think that they already do a fair bit, but I think it is unrealistic to expect social media firms today to perform the kind of gatekeeping function that, say, the institutional press did during the middle of the 20th century, which is kind of the height of gatekeeping, right?
When three broadcast networks controlled essentially all TV news, and most metropolitan areas had one or two major newspapers, and that was kind of all the source of your information.
I think that's just, expecting Mark Zuckerberg to play that role is just not realistic. He's not a journalist.
Facebook is not full of journalists. It's full of, you know, and I think also there There has been a cultural shift.
[15:17] That is partially a product of social media, but not exclusively, where there's been a loss of faith in elites.
And I think that's been happening, and I think there are many reasons for that, including, honestly, things like the Iraq War, which, you know, did not leave elites looking real good.
And I think that as a result, I think Americans are understandably dubious about anyone deciding for them what they're allowed to see.
But effectively, when we ask social media people, companies to be gatekeepers, that's what we're asking them to do, is to decide what's appropriate and what's not appropriate for the public.
I don't think that's going to fly anymore.
Gatekeeping role of social media firms in tension with democracy
[15:57] I think that in fact, that particular approach is in deep tension with democracy.
Brent:
[16:05] Paul Yeah.
Keller:
[16:07] And how does that work with like, with firms, like social media firms, for example? How does that work when news networks are also heavily intertwined within that definition. They do a lot of their work on social media.
Ashutosh:
[16:17] I mean, I think it's fine, right? I mean, the reality is that if you go to social media, you get access to all different kinds of news networks.
And yeah, I mean, they're all active.
And obviously, CNN and Fox have very different perspectives on things.
And you know, as long as they stay within the guardrails that the company set up, and most professional journalists typically do, it's fine, right?
I mean, it's good, in fact, because it gives more people access to the information.
Keller:
[16:44] PWYSER How does that work with cases? I don't have any specific, but I know there's been times when there is some degree of misinformation.
They say, oh, but it's just entertainment.
They use that cop-out and then it makes it really difficult to follow along.
Ashutosh:
[16:56] MG Well, it's hard, right? Because it's just true that caricature has been a part of political dialogue since there have been politics, right?
I mean, for thousands of years.
And so, trying to forbid caricature would be terrible. I mean, caricature is also funny.
So, how you draw the line between, you know, things that are just caricature that are just sort of using humor and actual misinformation, well, going back to what I said earlier, perfect content moderation is never going to happen, right?
Sometimes we're going to mislabel stuff that really should be protected as caricature as misinformation and vice versa.
You know, it came up when someone posted that video of Nancy Pelosi in slow motion that made her look drunk.
And she was really upset at Facebook for not putting it down, and Facebook said, ah, this is just political parody. It's not.
I kind of think Facebook's right on that one, right?
In the sense that it was pretty obvious, if you took half a look, that it was not actually genuine video.
And politicians don't like to be made fun of. So, giving them the right to decide when, you know, they're going to be criticized and parodied and not as that's, that's not going to fly either.
Brent:
[18:14] Yeah. And I think a lot of the...
Words nowadays about like misinformation and the social media companies being so partisan.
Could you maybe give us a brief history a little bit on the more traditional media types and then the fact that they were always partisan?
Ashutosh:
[18:33] They were less so in the middle of the 20th century.
And I think that for a lot of older people today, and I count myself in that group, having grown up during that period, we remember Walter Cronkite.
We remember everyone trusting Walter Cronkite because he was, I mean, he was center-left, but he was solidly centrist, and so forth.
But if you go back to the early part of the 20th century, and you look at yellow journalism, you know, Hearst newspapers, and all that stuff, or further back, Civil War, further back, American Revolution, newspapers were more like Fox News.
They were deliberately partisan. They were affiliated with particular political movements. And everyone accepted that. And there were newspapers on both sides.
And that's kind of the norm, and I think that's kind of where we're sliding to today.
And I think people think, oh, this is a big change. It's not.
What was unusual was the centrist consensus that basically existed in this country for 30 or 40 years after World War II. Yeah.
Brent:
[19:29] So then do you think what we need to shift to is more so saying, hey, I am partisan in this direction, and just being more transparent?
Ashutosh:
[19:37] I think yes. And I also think, and my thinking on this issue is very undeveloped, I'll be honest, I have no easy answers, but I think we do need, as a society, to have better access to facts.
People should not believe that the COVID vaccines are dangerous, because they're not.
They're just not, right? People need to—and it's funny, like, it's the vaccine doubts have become something that's associated with the political right used to be very lefty, right?
I mean, Marin County used to have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, resulting in things like whooping cough outbreaks in schools in Marin, like liberal bastions, right?
Dominion Systems Case: Fox News and Defamation Lawsuit
[20:31] So it's not... But we need sources of information that people can trust, and we need to accept that just because a politician Could you explain a little bit more what happened in that case?
Sure. This is the Dominion Systems case in which right after the election, Fox had a bunch of guests.
Election deniers, basically, from the Trump camp, who were expressing the view that this company, Dominion, was making voting machines that were deliberately designed to skew the vote.
They were also making up stuff like they were somehow linked to the Venezuelan government, which is completely not true. And all of this was being broadcast, and eventually Dominion sued Fox News for defamation, which is very difficult to do.
But the judge found that Fox News knew that it was – we have all the emails from people like Dr. Carlson demonstrating that clearly they knew that what they were saying was not – the message they were allowing to be presented was not true.
Eventually, that case settled for a very, very large sum. I can't remember exactly how much, but it was like three-quarters of a billion dollars or something, some very large amount.
So, Fox is paying that to Dominion.
Keller:
[21:45] And how do we build towards more transparency if it isn't in a direct, in terms of profit, if it isn't in direct line with the business model that these news are operating in?
Ashutosh:
[21:54] I actually think we can't, which is why we need some other source of information.
But this is where my family, the one institution that I actually think works pretty well is Wikipedia.
Keller:
[22:06] Interesting.
Ashutosh:
[22:08] Wikipedia works pretty well, right? It's decentralized. And yet, when I want to know the answer to something, where do I go first? Wikipedia, right?
And 99.9% of the time, I'm confident that I can trust their answer.
That's the kind of crowd-based sourcing kind of stuff that I think is more likely to work going forward.
But how to do that is something I'm still noodling.
Keller:
[22:35] Yeah. It seems like it could also just be be people taking more accountability for how they're consuming.
Ashutosh:
[22:41] I mean, yes, and I also think that means educating people, especially children, to be more discerning about information sources.
That just because you read something on the internet doesn't make it true.
My daughter, for a couple of years out of college, taught middle school science, and she says, like, the one thing she just had trying to get through to her students was The fact that you find some website that says something, you can't trust that, right?
I mean, there's just a lot of stuff out there that's plainly wrong, that something on TikTok does not make it true.
Don't eat laundry detergent, kids.
Brent:
[23:21] Yeah. Do you carry that same sentiment towards the classroom?
And just because a professor said something, it is true?
Ashutosh:
[23:29] Oh, absolutely. I mean, when a student proves to me I'm wrong, it's the best day of my life, because, yeah, of course I make mistakes.
But I'm also, I mean, there are also things where I do know a lot more law than most of my students, because that's the reason why I'm behind the podium.
But I try very hard.
To distinguish between this is the law because the Supreme Court said it is, which that's just true.
This is what I think the law should be, and these are just my opinions, right?
Yeah. And then, you know, I'm a human being. I don't succeed perfectly.
But trying to make it clear to students when you're shifting from objectively true things to opinion is really important.
Because students are well, I mean, when I say that something is the law, I mean, I guess occasionally I make mistakes, but usually I expect them to take my word at face value.
Brent:
[24:24] Yeah.
Ashutosh:
[24:24] But when it's my opinion, they don't have to agree with me. Yeah.
Brent:
[24:27] And then do you see the polarization in academia being a problem for that?
Ideological Monolith in Academia
Ashutosh:
[24:36] I think there are two separate problems going on.
One is, for complex reasons, faculty lean overwhelmingly left in academia.
Brent:
[24:48] Yeah. Isn't the style of something like 90 plus percent in humanities?
Ashutosh:
[24:51] So, it's very, very high. It's less so in the sciences, but in the sciences, it matters less. Yeah. But in the humanities and law, it's overwhelming.
And that can create sort of some monolithic thinking, which is not great.
I mean, I believe in all forms of diversity, and I think ideological diversity is a form of diversity. Yeah. I think on the student side, honestly, you would know better than me.
But I do sense that one thing that has changed in the last 10 years is students on the right are more hesitant to speak in class.
Now again, we're getting into very deep water here because frankly, people don't like to make, you know, for other people to get mad at them.
But if you say something really offensive, people should be mad at you.
Sometimes people seem to think that free speech means no consequences.
That's not the case. I mean, it's like, you're a neo-Nazi, well, I'm not going to be your friend.
Brent:
[25:49] That's the consequence.
Ashutosh:
[25:53] But I think there is at least some...
Polling data that suggests that we've gone to the point where people are hesitant to say things that are well, should be at least mainstream and not considered out of bounds.
And if what, the way, for example, this is not an issue anymore, but for example, when I'm teaching a very controversial case like Roe versus Wade, which I have not taught Con Law 1 since it got overruled, so I haven't had to deal with this issue yet.
But you know, I'm teaching Roe versus Wade, it's really important that the arguments on both sides come out.
And as a result, one of the things is, I end up playing the devil's advocate, you know, and just say, well, these are the arguments on the other side, even if I don't actually agree with those arguments, because they need to be on the table, right? People need to understand both sides.
Brent:
[26:42] Pete So, do you think maybe if faculty took more of a stance of, here's fact, here's my opinion, and kind of purposely putting all things on the table, be in a better spot?
Setting Boundaries: Holocaust Denial and Astrology
Ashutosh:
[26:56] Yes, within limits, right? I don't – again, the both-sidedness is also tricky.
I mean, some recent – I think it was in Texas where some school director was talking about how Holocaust denial needs to be on the table.
I'm like, no, it doesn't.
Keller:
[27:12] That's ridiculous, right?
Ashutosh:
[27:13] I mean, that's crazy. There are bounds of stuff that does not need to be on the table. It doesn't need to be taken seriously.
I'm also like, you know, I don't expect astronomers to teach astrology.
That's just not. So, it's line drawing.
Brent:
[27:28] Pete Yeah.
Keller:
[27:29] Jared Yeah. I just, yeah, definitely could see it getting into murky water because I've asked students, like, we've had conversations with our friends and they're like, I have this opinion.
And I chose not to say anything because the sentiment in the classroom was overwhelmingly in the other direction.
And in isolated cases, that isn't too worrisome, but especially when you look at Davis or other UCs where it's these massive institutions, and then people get their trust from the people that go through those institutions, and get tricky. Dr.
Ashutosh:
[27:54] Zaino Yeah, it does. And it also, the other concern that's been expressed to me by – I've seen it in writing, and I've also sort of said it actually makes some conservative students more radical because they've been silenced.
And that's not good too, because, you know, it's not good for anybody.
Yeah, no, I think that – I mean, I think that there are some issues definitely with environment on campus. I think they're they're also exaggerated. And I also think that...
People have a legitimate right to criticize speakers they don't agree with.
And if speakers don't want to be criticized, tough. Right? That's not, to my mind, saying that I get to say whatever I want, and there should be – no one should say anything bad about me. I just don't see how that's a plausible world.
Brent:
[28:42] We kind of went off on a tangent there. I think it was a very good one, though. Kind of coming back to the idea of gatekeepers, though.
Do you view the new, or the social media, the new platforms as the new gatekeepers?
Ashutosh:
[28:53] I think that they play that role to some extent. Inevitably, that's what content moderation is. But I think that they should be play, that their own interest is in playing it to a relatively limited extent, only in the extremes. And I think that's a good thing.
I think that one of the stick, a classic example of pressure on social media reading resulting in a bad result, is when early in the COVID pandemic, the major platforms labeled the lab leak theory of COVID origin misinformation, and they suppressed it.
We still don't know whether there was a lab leak or not, I suspect we never will, but it's now taken seriously. There are parts of the government that believe that's the most likely explanation.
That's a classic example of just, it was a mistake.
And it was a mistake that makes no sense to me, because I'm not sure what harm, even if the lab leak theory was wrong, it's one thing to suppress information that is positively harmful, like telling people that masks are useless, right?
That's bad, because that encourages behavior that can get people killed.
But the Galapagos Terminus, who cares? Yeah.
The New Labeling System on Twitter
Brent:
[30:07] And then how about the new labeling system on Twitter? Have you had a chance to look at that?
Ashutosh:
[30:14] I'm aware of it. I have not taken a close look. No.
Brent:
[30:17] Okay.
Ashutosh:
[30:17] Because also it keeps shifting, right? I mean, yeah, every week.
Brent:
[30:20] Yeah.
Ashutosh:
[30:22] I mean, that's as if Elon has a bad night and everything in the world is different.
Brent:
[30:25] So even this week there's a new CEO. Yeah.
Ashutosh:
[30:28] So, yeah. So no, I'm waiting for the dust to settle a little bit before trying to dig in there.
Brent:
[30:34] It seems like an attempt for more transparency.
Ashutosh:
[30:36] Yes. I mean, and insofar as that's true, that's fine.
And often, I think labeling is better than suppressing.
That's the preferred remedy because you're not taking something off the table.
But it's also true that I think that there's a sense that the atmosphere on Twitter has degenerated somewhat since Musk bought the platform, because there's more bad stuff.
By bad stuff, I mean things like hate speech that may be protected, but it's sort of unpleasant, if not vile.
Brent:
[31:14] Are they starting to see the statistics on that?
Ashutosh:
[31:17] It's so preliminary, it's very hard to say. And it's like, so it's a lot of reporting, but I've not seen a good empirical analysis yet.
And again, it's really hard to collect data when given the volume of things that go over these platforms.
Brent:
[31:30] I think that's also part of the motivation to get rid of bots is to reduce some of that volume that's not truly representative.
Ashutosh:
[31:36] I think that's correct. And I think that's, again, that's a good thing.
Keller:
[31:40] Yeah. It is weird too with Twitter though, because what I saw most recently was with the government funded label, he put that out on one of the news sources and then they all just left. Yeah, it's on NPR.
Ashutosh:
[31:50] Yeah, it's because it's also just the percentage of NPR's budget that comes from the government is tiny, right?
To label it as the equivalent of some sort of state-run media in an autocracy is ridiculous. I mean, it's just...
Brent:
[32:05] Yeah.
Keller:
[32:05] Do you think generally that is a decent practice? I know Open Secrets is a website that's pretty common.
If you do want to understand a little bit more behind the motivations of certain politicians to just try to see where the money's coming from?
Ashutosh:
[32:17] Oh yeah, of course. I'm a big believer in disclosure requirements for that kind of stuff. Yeah, absolutely.
Brent:
[32:22] Do you think that will ever go into law and or practice given the fact that it's kind of going to expose the secrets of the politicians, the ones making the laws?
Ashutosh:
[32:31] Well, there are just campaign finance laws.
Generally, politicians are required to disclose donations, and that information's typically available at the federal level. The Federal Election Commission maintains that information on its websites.
That's tough, actually. And the Supreme Court has typically upheld disclosure laws.
Usually, I think the only person who dissented the last time was Justice Thomas.
So, they're pretty solid.
Campaign Finance Laws and Anonymous Association
[32:58] The problem becomes funding for non-politicians, where there are rights to anonymity.
There's a case law and anonymous association.
And often these entities, they're often called 527s, they adopt these names that say, you know, citizens for a better America.
And you have no idea where the funding is coming from. I personally would support more disclosure there, but I'm not sure the Supreme Court would would permit it, so. Yeah.
Brent:
[33:27] And then something just came to mind about disclosure is when we start looking at a lot of the communications or the meetings with like Jeffrey Epstein, is there a reason a lot of that stuff isn't being disclosed? Like a legal reason?
Ashutosh:
[33:40] I don't know.
Brent:
[33:41] Okay.
Ashutosh:
[33:42] The Epstein thing has, I've just have not understood it at all.
Brent:
[33:45] From a legal standpoint?
Ashutosh:
[33:47] Yeah. And I don't, I don't understand, I don't know where the information is.
I'm not sure who is suppressing it. It's all just very murky to me. I just don't know.
Brent:
[33:54] Think there is like clear signs of suppression? I don't know.
Keller:
[34:00] Okay, that's fair. We talked about a lot of the issues that are out there.
How about some solutions?
Ashutosh:
[34:07] So, I actually think that the strongest solutions are going to come from us.
That user, citizens, people need to be more discerning and more careful. I also think that, Most people are not terrible, right? The people who engage in flaming, vicious rhetoric on the internet, it's a relatively small percentage of the population who make things kind of unpleasant for the rest of us.
I think that we would all benefit by not engaging with the trolls, honestly.
I think that that's – I think the responsibility for cleaning up things is going to be on us.
I think there's some social media platforms will continue to do the bare minimum that's necessary to keep the worst stuff off, but they're not going to want to suppress large parts of their user base, because they want to make money.
And I don't trust the government to do it, because I think the government will do it in systematically biased ways, as I think, for example, Florida and Texas are doing right now.
But I wouldn't trust Democratic governments to do it, Democratic Party to do it either.
[35:16] So yeah, I think that the solution is really, first of all, building up people's ability to figure out what's good and bad information.
Slowing down the conversation. Like, you know, I mean, I think that the difference between reading something and immediately responding as opposed to waiting five minutes can be miraculous.
Keller:
[35:37] It's just good habits, right?
Incentives and Profits in Social Media Engagement
Brent:
[35:38] And I think the key point on that was engagement, because if you look at the algorithm side of things on social media.
Whatever you engage with, you're fed more.
Ashutosh:
[35:48] Yes.
Brent:
[35:50] And could you maybe speak a little bit more to some of the incentives and how engagement is their, how they get their profit?
Ashutosh:
[35:56] Sure. So, I mean, they get their profits by selling, by and large, by selling advertising, right? I think that Twitter is starting to explore alternative source of revenue, but historically, the vast majority of revenue for people like Facebook and YouTube has been advertising.
[36:13] Advertisers want eyeballs. Engagement is eyeballs.
Right? And this is where I don't quite know what to do with this, because if you think about it, going back to sort of who is the source of the problem, when we say Facebook engages people bad, let me rephrase that.
Facebook shows people what people want to see, good or bad, right?
I mean, insofar as Facebook is doing things that have bad results, it's a consequence the fact that Facebook is basically reflecting human nature, right?
I mean, it's like, what sucks you in? If what sucks Facebook's audience in is, you know, like high sort of level rhetoric, not high level, but sort of low level rhetoric, like lots of yelling, well, that's what they're gonna do, right?
I mean, it's like the talking heads shows used to, like Crossfire, where they all yell at each other. It's like, why are they doing that?
It's because they get an audience. It's not a different phenomenon.
And I've always been of the view that expecting for-profit companies to do something different from what maximizes their profit is a little odd, right?
And in other areas, we regulate. We regulate emissions of pollutants.
We regulate all sorts of things because of social harm. But regulating speech is much more tricky, both constitutionally and in terms of do you trust the government. Yeah.
Brent:
[37:39] So if there's a, if the consumers can get a consensus on, we're going to engage differently, it all changes.
Ashutosh:
[37:46] They will change, yeah. I mean, it's not—if users of Twitter—, are not basically providing the incentives that Twitter and Facebook are acting on, of course, they'll change.
Keller:
[37:59] Yeah. And in situations like for the California Consumer Protection Act, is that an important act to come through of making it a little bit more apparent to the consumer how their data is being used? Yeah.
The California Consumer Protection Act and Data Usage
Ashutosh:
[38:11] I mean, I think the data privacy stuff makes some difference.
I actually think it's going to make very little difference.
What you see in practice is that consumer privacy laws basically involve.
Ultimately, what are you going to do? I mean, the algorithms that social media uses to provide content are based on your user behavior.
That's what results in the fact that my feed shows things that I'm interested in.
You can't stop that, because then you'd just make social media useless.
And then they're gonna use, so I think that the fundamentals are baked into the business and into the technology.
And sure, we can tweak, we can prevent disclosure of private data to third parties, we can do all sorts of things, but I don't think it's gonna make that much difference. Yeah.
Brent:
[39:02] And then have you started to look at foreign influences on our social media?
Ashutosh:
[39:08] Only based on press reports. I don't really, and I mean, I'm not, I don't know that we know really, but other than the Russia set of stuff from the 2016 election, I've not seen any good studies of that.
Brent:
[39:20] Oh, okay, even TikTok in China now?
Ashutosh:
[39:23] Well, that's complicated, right? Because TikTok is obviously owned by a Chinese company, no one doubts that.
There's a lot of claims that...
That maybe TikTok will misuse user information. I haven't seen, I guess one incident where that happened, where a bunch of journalists were targeted by TikTok employees in China, where that really did happen.
I haven't seen any evidence that that's a systematic problem.
On the other hand, do I trust the Chinese government? Of course not.
They're a surveillance state, right? I mean, everyone knows that they survey everything, and if you're in China, you should not expect any privacy on anything.
Most of the content of TikTok strikes me as being utterly harmless.
And I'm not afraid to warm up with what's it doing.
So I think that some of this stuff is definitely overwrought.
But who knows? It's also true, I don't have access to intelligence about what's going on with this data. Maybe there is stuff going on that I don't know know about.
Brent:
[40:23] Yeah. And then you mean harmless from just like a freedom of speech perspective, right?
Ashutosh:
[40:28] Yeah, I take it. I mean, a lot of it's dumb, but so what, right? I mean, so is a lot of TV.
I mean, you know, it's like no one is talking about banning real housewives.
I think that's pretty dumb.
So I feel the same way. I feel like people are, social media may be more addictive It's true. Yeah. Than other forms of media. Yeah. The word addictive is tricky there, right? Because addictive, people like it.
Freedom of Speech and Banning Companies
Brent:
[40:55] Yep. And then, kind of on the same tone of Chinese influence, what's the legality of us not allowing Huawei to come and practice in the US?
Is that, can we ban, I know we have in a lot of ways, but is it okay to just ban a company like that?
Ashutosh:
[41:15] Normally, sure, right? There's no, I mean, a foreign company, foreign owned company doesn't have constitutional rights.
When it's a speech thing, it's more complicated. A ban on TikTok is, I don't know that it would be upheld under the First Amendment, because...
A ban on TikTok impacts speech. A lot of that speech is by American users and for American audiences. Obviously TikTok is worldwide, but within the United States.
And, you know, one is hesitant about the government sort of doing away with entire channels of communication, unless they have some good reason.
And I just, till now, I haven't seen any actually objective reason as opposed to just speculative concerns.
And that's why I think it would be at least vulnerable to a First Amendment challenge.
Like, imagine trying to ban Fox News.
Brent:
[42:06] Non-starter, right?
Ashutosh:
[42:07] And rightly so, right? I mean, that's just that – this is slightly different, but still.
Brent:
[42:13] Paul Sure.
Keller:
[42:15] You'd mentioned earlier taking more time with media consumption and kind of making it less of a quick action.
How can we do that when we have these addictive models that, you know, the reward for making these things quick and getting quick engagement, but if you're going going to really learn about something or be able to develop your own opinion, it's going to take time. It will.
Ashutosh:
[42:35] I don't have a good answer to that. I mean, you know, we should try harder.
I mean, I'm very dubious about the idea that the law can force you to do that.
I'm very dubious about the idea that the law should govern what social media experiences are like because you really trust the government.
I mean, it's not. And so, that kind of leaves some combination of users and platforms, right?
Autonomy vs. Controlling the Government in Constitutional Law
Brent:
[43:03] And then, on the idea of trusting the government, at a broad level, are laws more designed in the U.S. to protect the rights of the citizens or kind of give a playbook for what the government can do?
Ashutosh:
[43:18] So, that is one of the great debates in constitutional law.
There are people who believe that constitutional law is all about the autonomy of individuals, and others believe that things like free speech rights and the Bill of Rights is primarily about controlling the government.
I am very much in the controlling the government camp. Indeed, my first book is called The Myth of Rights, and it argues that autonomy arguments are garbage.
But I have, again, opinion, right? Opinion versus fact. There's vast disagreement on that question.
Brent:
[43:50] Could you maybe give a couple of examples of what the autonomy law would look like?
Ashutosh:
[43:54] Well, it has to do a lot with — well, autonomy-based arguments basically are that, with respect to speech, people should be able to say what they want as long as they're not causing act of harm to others, period.
And that, you know, therefore all forms of speech that people care about should be protected. I myself think that...
I would never say it's exclusively so, but I think the First Amendment primarily protects political and cultural speech.
Speech that affects how we jointly want our government and our society to operate.
And that other stuff, like commercial advertising and all sorts of other things, maybe they get some protection, maybe not, but certainly that's not what the First Amendment is primarily about.
I very much think that there's a hierarchy of speech.
But lots of people, including, I think at this point, a majority of the Supreme Court, disagree with me.
Brent:
[44:48] Okay.
Keller:
[44:49] And have you seen that change coming along with more government infringement?
Ashutosh:
[44:55] I don't think so. I actually don't think there is more government infringement.
I think free speech is pretty good in the U.S. right now.
I think we probably overprotect some things, like commercial advertising.
But for example, here's where my inkling, which often takes me sort of progressive directions. Here, it puts me in a conservative direction, is I think Citizens United is correct.
I think that suppressing political speech by corporations raises serious First Amendment problems.
If you're an autonomy person, corporations aren't people, right?
Why should they have rights?
But that's not my focus. My focus is, is the government suppressing political speech. Why, yes, it is. And that, to me, is immediately a concern.
Corporations' Rights as Speakers in Political Discourse
Brent:
[45:38] Could you maybe expand a bit more on the idea that, because I feel like I've heard some people say, like, corporations kind of have the right of people or they don't have the right of people.
Ashutosh:
[45:46] Well, that's the right. I mean, if you're focused on the speaker, then there's a decent argument that corporations shouldn't be treated as speakers because they're not, you know, real people.
There are arguments on the other side as well. But if you're like me, and you don't think it's It's about the speaker's rights so much as it's about protecting public debate and discourse.
Do corporations contribute to it? Sure they do. Sure.
Brent:
[46:12] And then taking a bit of a step back, how do people study what the constitution was designed for or what the founding fathers were thinking in the moment versus what they were practicing?
The Limited Understanding of Free Speech by Founding Fathers
Ashutosh:
[46:30] Very difficult for two separate reasons. One, what we actually know is relatively limited, especially free speech. What the founding fathers thought about free speech, we know very, very little about.
Brent:
[46:45] So, it's more just intuiting it from other sources?
Ashutosh:
[46:49] Looking at what they said, looking at sort of what they did and – but A, you start looking at what they said, it turns out they disagreed with each other a lot.
Like, within ten years of the First Amendment being adopted, seven years afterwards, you have this massive fight over the Sedition Act of 1798, in which two groups of founding fathers are taking opposite positions on what free speech means.
So this idea of consensus is very, very tricky.
The other problem is the problem of translation.
Using the Second example, the right to bear arms when the primary arm at issue is a musket.
How do you translate that into...
The modern era of mass-killing weaponry. And I don't even know what the right answer there is, by the way. I just know that saying, oh, the right to guns is protected, well, gun meant something very different when you're talking about a musket than when you're talking about an AR-15.
And I'm focusing on the Second Amendment, but the same problem is true of the First Amendment.
When you think about a concept of speech in the press that developed in the era before electronic communications, where the printing press was the only real means of mass dissemination, how do you translate that to social media?
Keller:
[48:03] Yeah.
Brent:
[48:04] Because on that example, the Second Amendment, I've heard of one letter in specific where a founding father granted permission for the ship to come in with a lot of arms far beyond a musket.
Ashutosh:
[48:15] Mm-hmm.
Brent:
[48:16] If you were to take that example, could you take this, oh, here's a letter that one of them wrote, this is what the Constitution means?
Ashutosh:
[48:23] It can't, right? It's one person.
Brent:
[48:25] Yeah.
Ashutosh:
[48:25] And also, were they doing that because of the Second Amendment, or were they doing it just because they thought it was fine to ship the arms, right?
It's very difficult to do this stuff, and it's really hard when you've got very different social contexts.
The Supreme Court has said that we are going to measure Second Amendment rights based on history. I have no idea how that works.
Brent:
[48:45] Paul Yeah.
Keller:
[48:46] So given all that, how revolutionary was the US Constitution when it came out?
Should we view it as this document that should be held up in this massive light and we shouldn't touch it? Or should it be seen as something a little little bit more malleable?
Ashutosh:
[48:59] Well, I mean, I would say both. It was revolutionary in the sense that the idea of written Republican constitutionalism didn't really exist before the U.S.
Constitution. So in that sense, yeah, it was a completely new idea and really important. And the rest of the world has sort of followed suit. Having said that…, There's an amendment mechanism in the Constitution, and the reason it's there is because the framers understood that there's no way that this document can work without some changes.
And we did amend the Constitution in numerous times. We haven't done so in a very long time.
I think that saying that it was really important and a major accomplishment does not mean it's sacrosanct, because times change, right?
Brent:
[49:49] Do you think there will be a bigger push soon to start amending it again?
Ashutosh:
[49:55] The way the U.S. Constitution is written, basically you need consensus of most of the country to amend.
Right now, we can't agree on anything. We can't agree on how to not default on our debt. I mean, there's some basic things.
So the idea that we're going to engage in constitutional amendment is fantasy.
We would need to, the polarization makes that impossible.
Keller:
[50:18] Do you think our polarization that we're facing now is kind of just part of the ebb and flow of having a country and we're gonna head back towards the direction of being more centralized or does through the trends?
Ashutosh:
[50:27] I don't know. I would like to believe so.
I think that for that to happen, I mean, one, there are two things that are going on.
One is that for a long period of time, working class Americans took a major economic hit for a number of reasons, including automation, but also free trade.
And that seems to be starting to reverse itself. You're starting to see wages rising, again.
I think that, if that actually continues, is going to take some pressure off.
If people feel better about where they are economically, it makes a big difference.
But the other thing is the increasing racial diversity of the United States, and that's not going away.
So, I just don't know, you know? I mean, it's a...
We live in unique times.
Brent:
[51:12] And then, on the racial diversity side of things, and just general diversity in the US, could you maybe speak to how that makes governing this large and diverse of a country so uniquely challenging?
Ashutosh:
[51:22] Yeah. I mean, it's just... There's just more perspectives in a country like the United States than in a country like Sweden, right?
And it's harder, as a result, for people to feel like they're part of a joint project.
Not impossible, in my opinion. I think you you can certainly do it, but it certainly poses challenges.
Brent:
[51:45] Yeah.
Ashutosh:
[51:49] I think.
Most of our history, we have been able to commit to at least some basic things like regular elections, peaceful transfer of power, you know, I mean, the basic underpinnings of democracy.
I am less concerned than some people that that's falling apart, but that's where the starting point has to be, right? Is we agree that we all agree on these basic things, and then we can disagree on some sort of details of policy.
Brent:
[52:22] And is that where states' rights come into play, too, where some states have predominantly these feelings, and some states have those feelings, and that's a way of making up for such a large country?
Ashutosh:
[52:33] Yeah, and generally, I think that's right. I think it's fine that marijuana's legal in California, but not in Alabama, right? I mean, that's good.
I mean, where it becomes tricky is when you start, that starts interacting with fundamental rights, constitutional rights, right?
I mean, states are not free to eliminate the First Amendment.
Yes, that's a sort of national governing thing. But yeah, no, generally, I think federalism is good.
Try different models, you know? Business regulation looks really different in California than from Texas, that's fine. Yeah.
Keller:
[53:07] And do you have any advice for students on how to approach developing their own thoughts in a time where, at least from our opinion as, you know, the younger generation, it seems as though there is a a lot of censorship to developing these ideas.
There's a lot of ideas that are framed as bad, I guess is a better way of putting it. And it's hard for some people to necessarily approach those ideas and develop thoughts of them without getting labeled as someone who is of that thought process.
The Importance of Exposing Oneself to a Range of Ideas
Ashutosh:
[53:39] I hear you. I mean, I think to some extent, people are going to have to just deal with the fact that having particular viewpoints is going to make you less popular with some people. That's life.
It is also true that there are a lot of books out there. It's not as if we're suppressing ideas, right? They're all out there. They're all available.
We still have a First Amendment. And so, it's not as if one was determined to, one would not expose oneself to a full range of ideas.
And I think that's right, and I think that, you know, also student groups, I think, play an important role in being able to create relatively enclosed spaces where you can have conversations that are not necessarily public.
And all of that plays a role because, yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, it's the –, I have no reason, I do not think that this UC Davis campus needs to be a place that fosters neo-Nazis.
But I'm perfectly fine with not having any. But yeah, of course mainstream conservative thought there should be room for it on campus. I mean, how not, right?
Brent:
[54:55] And you're referencing the Charlie Kirk example? Or?
Ashutosh:
[54:58] Oh, no, I wasn't referencing anything in particular, no.
Keller:
[55:01] Okay, yeah.
Brent:
[55:01] But on the idea of student bodies being able to form, were you concerned at all to see the response for that example with the protests and or slightly more like violent protest of when Charlie Kirk came to campus?
Ashutosh:
[55:17] So, I don't remember the details of what happened with Charlie Kirk, because there's been a different incident every week.
But here's what I think about that. Charlie Kirk comes to Khai campus.
I honestly think, often with the most terrible people, the best way to deal with them is just to completely ignore them.
Because, you know, that's, I mean, you're just, people are often looking for a platform and to make, and they're being silenced as part of the message they're trying to do. They're trying to get silenced to some extent.
So you're just sort of doing them a favor by doing that.
If that's not the case, people want to protest, of course they have a right to.
Charlie, no one has a right on anywhere in the political spectrum to speak and not be protested. I mean, that's counter speech. I don't think you can shout people down. And I think campus rules make that clear.
And I think that administrators have to have the courage of their convictions and even-handedly enforce those rules.
Which you can't, you know, you can protest, you can put up signs, you can turn your back, but you can't disrupt an event. You can't make it impossible for someone to speak.
Brent:
[56:20] And then, are there governing laws over how to protest?
Because I think after COVID, we really saw a whole new form of protesting where streets were taken over and all of those things.
Ashutosh:
[56:33] Yeah. So, again, that's a big conversation.
And it is a huge – every jurisdiction has its own set of rules.
It's pretty much illegal everywhere to block streets.
Now, whether you want to enforce those rules or not is an interesting question.
Probably not in some instances.
Because where else are people going to assemble except on the streets. There was a lot more.
I have friends, colleagues and friends around the country who've done more work on this than I have, who point out that historically, especially in the 19th century, we were a lot more tolerant of disorderly protests than we are today.
We're actually a much more heavily policed state today than we were 150 years ago.
And part of it, of course, is the automobile, which changes the nature of the use of streets.
Violence vs. First Amendment Rights
[57:27] Violence, never protected. Break a window, you can be arrested, period. You don't have First Amendment defense to that. That's a no-brainer.
Violence to people or property is never protected. Other than that, it's tricky, right?
I mean, because when does milling around and being a little disorderly, which is fine, turn into risk of violence?
Do I think law enforcement overreacts? Often. And it's not even – sometimes it's in bad faith.
Sometimes they're just genuinely – their job is to maintain order, right? So, they're not going to value speech as much as the protesters are.
So, no, there are no clear rules.
Brent:
[58:08] Paul Yeah.
Keller:
[58:08] And historically, are protests a legally efficient way to gather like these large-scale protests of people marching? Does that have a turnaround effect on policy?
Ashutosh:
[58:18] Paul It can. Civil rights eras, proof that it can.
I think anti-war protests over Vietnam eventually led to a real shift in public opinion, which led to the U.S. eventually giving up in Vietnam, which was, you know, I mean, that's, so it did matter.
So, there are clearly historical examples of, yes, it making a difference.
I think the Black Lives Matter protests actually made a difference.
They changed the conversation. How much? Hard to say.
Words of Wisdom for Students in the Current Climate
Brent:
[58:59] Do you have any parting wisdom or advice to students in operating this current climate?
Developing Deliberate Skills in the Age of Social Media
Ashutosh:
[59:11] I'm going to go back to something I said earlier, which is I think the most important skill that we need to develop with respect to social media is to learn to be deliberate.
And basically, with the internet generally, we get bombarded with information.
A lot of it is intentionally provocative because engagement.
I think that people just need to learn to, A, be really dubious.
If you read something and you're like, really, do you say, well, maybe not, right? I mean, and also, whenever possible, pause before engaging.
It's tricky because as I think you both pointed out correctly, the platforms are trying to do exactly the opposite. They don't want you to pause, right? They want you to click, click, click, click, click because that's how they make money.
But we're not trained monkeys. We can actually think for ourselves.
And I think that's really what I would say.
Brent:
[1:00:14] CB. Definitely.
Keller:
[1:00:15] CB. Very important message to end on.
Brent:
[1:00:17] CB. Yeah. CB. Thank you very much.
Ashutosh:
[1:00:18] Thank you both.