The Importance of Tone in Public Dialogue

I was looking for some certainty around the tough issues of censorship and misinformation — legal definitions, rules, and clear lines — so I called Ben Wizner, a lawyer with the ACLU and the director of its Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. I’d hoped we’d have a Free Speech 101–type conversation, with tidy resolutions and a clear path forward. But what I suspected, and Ben confirmed, is that the law gives us very few answers to the hardest questions that we have. So in this episode, the two of us grapple with issues of balance and boundaries, unpacking the harms that speech can cause and the harms that censorship can cause. I’m glad that we had over an hour to talk, because as tempting as it is to approach issues like this with firm certainty or with 140 characters, it’s much more important to unpack the nuances and unlock the opportunity for growth and learning.

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