Freedom of Expression Under Assault
Episode Notes
Transcript
On this week’s episode, Sonny steps back from Hollywood a bit to look at the broader state of free expression in America and around the world. PEN America’s Summer Lopez joins the show to discuss a range of topics: from the heinous assault on Salman Rushdie in New York to efforts to pressure libraries to remove books across the United States to foreign oppression of writers and thinkers to concerns over the ability of a handful of Internet-based companies to determine what can be expressed. If you enjoyed this episode and want to help get the word out, please share it with a friend.
A brief plug: I am a member of PEN America and have been so (on and off, mostly dependent on remembering to pay my dues) since the group stood up for the journalists killed during the Charlie Hebdo massacre. They do great work to help shine a light on the limits of free expression around the world; a couple years back, I had PEN’s James Tager on the show a couple years back to talk about their report on China’s pernicious influence on Hollywood. You can become a member here. The group is celebrating its centenary; the year-long commemoration includes PEN America @ 100: A Century of Defending the Written Word, an exhibit at the New-York Historical Society through Oct. 9; a daylong public symposiumon Sept. 12 called “Words on Fire” in New York with a lineup of literary stars including Margaret Atwood, Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie, Dave Eggers, among others; and Flashpoints, a series of talks on free speech and civil rights in cities nationwide that continues through 2023.
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This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors and omissions. Ironically, the transcription service has particular problems with the word “bulwark,” so you may see it mangled as “Bullard,” “Boulart,” or even “bull word.” Enjoy!
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Welcome back to the Board close to Hollywood. My name is Sunny Von culture editor at the ballwork. And I’m very pleased to be joined today by Summer Lopez, who is the chief program officer for free expression at Penn America. She joined pet American twenty seventeen and previously worked at the United States Agency for International Development. For eight years of posted in Zimbabwe all over the place.
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Great great stuff. And I wanted to I wanted to get you on today to talk about something that it’s it’s pretty important to me. It’s a little bit outside of the normal wheelhouse of this podcast, a little more Hollywood focused, but I think freedom of expression is important to everyone in Hollywood, obviously. And that was the the attack on Selman Rusty and your guys’ response to it, which I think has been has been really great. So could you just fill folks in on a little bit of the background here.
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I’m sure people know about the thought and all that. But, you know, just just set the stage for us. Howard Bauchner:
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Sure. So I guess, I’ll I’ll slip the stage a little bit in the context of of Solomon’s relationship with Pan America as well. I think that, you know, when the thought was was announced, it really it was a moment, you know, for Pan American and for our community as well to really respond and stay end with Selman, and that was a a moment that people really, you know, took up the the cause of of defending him in that at that time, you know, of course, when he eventually kind of emerged from, you know, living more quietly for a while, he then became the president of Pan America in two thousand four. And, you know, he led the organization during sort of post nine eleven era. He created our Penn World voices festival, which is international literary festival really intended in that moment to ensure that global cultural and literary dialogue in exchange wasn’t wasn’t lost.
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And he’s remained an absolutely stalwart defender of freedom of expression and of and of other writers under threat around the world. So he’s been an advocate, a supporter, and a part of America. He’s you know, regular figure at our events. And, you know, so, of course, this came as just an absolutely devastating shock. This attack.
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You know, it’s not I don’t think any of us have forgotten that the threat still existed. And certainly, we work on the cases of a number of writers. Threatened both in Iran and by the Iranian regime around the world. And so it’s not — it wasn’t a complete surprise. Of course, this this threat is still out there.
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But, of course, you know, someone also has has insisted on living his life in a very courageous and defiant way without security around him all the time and and really, you know, shunning that sort of idea that he needed to live with that sort of protection, you know, in in an effort to be defined, I think, to make a point. And so, of course, this was just devastatingly shocking for for all of us. But it really I think it has also really been a moment that has in so many ways kind of crystallized why we do what we do. His his entire story and life really who embodies so much of why an organization like Pan America exists both to defend freedom of expression, but particularly the written word and the and the freedom of writers to to do their work.
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Yeah. When I was after the attack, I was, you know, going through some of my some of my books and and and and looking at some of this stuff. And one thing that I had forgotten about, and Christopher Hitchens talks about in in his memoir, was that after that they fought what was issued in nineteen eighty nine. It was the president of Pan America Susan Sontag who was instrumental in organizing support for him in the United States, getting him meetings, getting, you know, all of that sort of stuff So the relationship here is is long standing. I mean, to to the extent that I I I remember your your CEO after the attack said that just that morning, she had been emailing with someone about trying to help writers in Ukraine.
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Yes. It was very emblematic of the role that he is playing, continuing to support and be constantly concerned for the welfare of other writers under threat around the world. And, you know, of course, what he was about to speak about on the panel was about writers in exile and offering safe havens and opportunities for writers to have, you know, safe spaces to go to in the United States and to be able to continue to write despite the threats that they may faced in in other places. So this has remained a very significant focus of of his and and in partnership with us. And and I think it it’s because of that relationship that we thought we you know, really needed to do something to demonstrate our our support and solidarity as well and and to demonstrate that, you know, his words wouldn’t be silenced and that we would not either tower in the face of any attempt to intimidate or why we organize this reading.
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Last Friday sent with Selman on the steps of the New York public library to have prominent writers reading from his work and from a number of his remarks and speeches over the years and to really send a message both to him and more broadly. Into finance of this this sort of attempted intimidation and silencing.
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What was the the response like from writers that you reached out to both in in in in in Pan America and elsewhere. Like, where how how did folks respond?
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It’s been overwhelming. And and some of came from the writers themselves. I mean, as soon as I think as soon as it really became clear that that he would thankfully survive. You know, we were hearing from writers about what they could
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do.
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What we could do is pin, and we had also began talking about it too. And it just sort of came together as a very natural way demonstrate our support and to stamp him. Howard Bauchner:
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Yeah, what what can what can people do now to help support both both Rusty and and you guys at Penn in terms of spreading the word and and helping helping get the word out.
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Absolutely. Well, you know, I think the the advice to read his books has been really important. I think that is such a great important thing for people to do. I hope this, you know, if there’s any sort of silver line of something so horrific as this. I have one that will be that people might be reintroduced to his his works who might not have read them in the past.
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You know, and I think, obviously, this is happening against the backdrop of a sort of proliferation of book bands that we’ve seen across the country. And so I’ve heard a lot of people say, you know, read his books, read other banned books. Of course, you know, we wanna say that too, there’s there’s books that are very prominent, there are authors that are well known, who are being band and silence. There are many lesser known books out there and authors out there whose works are being repressed. In different ways in this country as well.
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And so we have done a report on book bands around the country called band in the USA that we put out a little earlier this year. We’re gonna be doing updates to that shortly. I hope people will take a look at that and get a sense of kind of what’s happening in the U. S. More broadly right now and learn a bit about that and what they can do to push back against those efforts.
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Of course, if you wanna become a pet member of Penn America, we’d love to have you as well. If you’re a supporter of freedom of expression and and reading, you can join join Penn America and be be part of our work too.
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For the record, I am a member of Penn America. Well, I I use that as as leverage to get you on this show today. Which but I but I I’m strong supporter of Penn America. I I joined in the aftermath of the the Charlie Hebdo attack — Mhmm. — which was another, you know, fairly vicious assault on frequent expression.
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And there was some drama internally. I don’t really wanna wanna get into all that again. But the the the organization is great. I’ll put a link to it in the email sign up if you were if if folks folks are interested in defending freedom of expression, Pan America, a great organization. Let’s talk about the book bands.
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So let’s talk let’s about Bandit America. What is what is happening on that front in the United States?
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Yeah. I mean, what’s happening is really an unprecedented assault on on what we are calling the freedom to read in schools and libraries across the United States. And, you know, book bands are something that Pan America has worked on for decades. Generally, we see two to three cases a year, you know, where some books get pulled off shelf or at a classroom. Or banned in the school district somewhere.
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Typically, you know, if we write a letter, we raise a little bit of a fuss. The decision might be reversed. Nobody likes to speak called a book banner, and and that’s kind of usually it. What we’ve seen over the past year is completely different. We track we looked at from starting in July of twenty twenty one to the end of March of this year, we tracked over fifteen hundred book bands occurring in eighty six school districts in twenty six states.
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And we unfortunately, it has not slowed down since then. And we’re really seeing attempts to target books, particularly by or about people of color and LGBTQ folks. So it is it feels very directed at particular stories and identities. Also books about issues of race, gender, American history. You know, this is also connected to some of the legislation we’ve seen that we’ve called educational gag orders.
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Barring discussion of certain issues and topics in classrooms and both at the University and K-twelve level. So it’s really, it’s sort of a broader, very alarming assault than I’d say we’re seeing around the country. Now.
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Yeah. Could you tell us some of the specific books that have been have fallen under these these bands?
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Yeah. So one of the ones that you know, we there’s a a book called genderqueer by Author Maia Kibave, that is one that has come up a lot. There’s all boys that aren’t blue. There are a number. There’s, you know, of course, some of the children’s book versions of some of Ebrahim Kandi’s work, there’s a range of issue of of books again that we have seen kind of come up over and over and over again in these tax.
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And so what we often see is people are often sharing lists of books to essentially complain about to their school districts. Pulling, you know, there’s a organization that has a sort of recommended list of books of concern on their website. And so we often see people, you know, just kind of taking these lists directly to the school district and asking that these books be removed, not without miss having read them without necessarily having any, you know, knowledge of how those books might be being taught or utilized in the schools, but that’s something that we’re seeing quite a bit of as well. And
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let’s talk about the educational gag orders a bit too because it’s a I I know it’s it’s a it’s a very controversial topic one of my one of my colleagues here at The Bulwark, Sarah Longwell wrote wrote about this in the Washington Post. The the fear that such a such a gag order would prevent her children from talking about her relationship in the classroom. You know, she she has two moms, her her daughter, and like that, you know, that would be that could is the sort of thing that could fall under one of these one of these rules. What what is happening there? And what what are what are you guys doing to kind of push back against them?
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Yeah.
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So what we’ve seen and we just put out a new report on this this week called America’s Sensor classrooms. We tracked in the last in this past year’s legislative session, a hundred and thirty seven bills introduced that qualify as educational bag orders. That’s a huge increase from what we saw. Previous year and you know, this is these are primarily bills that would restrict discussion of, in often cases, to divisive concepts. And again, they’re all almost always very vague and broad in terms of what they consider to be off limits.
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And so our real you know, the concern is both that that schools and teachers may be held liable in certain ways for the things that they want to talk about and and teach about in the classroom. But the broader chilling effect is also the real concern. Right? Nobody has a good sense of how they, you know, what would exactly kind of violate these laws. And so there, you know, we are hearing examples of teachers having shied away from, you know, answering questions about about things like slavery and genocide of the Native Americans and and really being a very superspect about the things that they will touch on.
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And and, you know, I think that the concern expressed is is a very real one. So the the impact of this I think we’re already starting to see even though certainly not a much smaller number of these have actually passed, but the sort of chilling back even of introducing this type of legislation can be very significant. Howard
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Bauchner: Has any of this filtered down to textbooks, you know, changing textbooks and and what is actually taught in the classrooms? Or is it more just kind of what is being discussed by the teachers? So
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I’m not sure we’ve had really the time to see that kind of level of impact. Obviously, textbooks tend to be a little behind anyway. Only so often the states who revise those, but we have, you know, we have obviously seen debates around what should be in state level curriculum connected to these conversations. And there was just a survey released by Rand that stated that one in four teachers said they had been told by school or district leaders to limit their classroom conversations about certain political, about political and social issues generally. And some of those were also in cases where they have an official restriction in GAG order in place.
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And so, you know, really feeling like there are policies that are putting that kind of pressure on them and that the, you know, the districts and the leaders within those districts are also feeling a tremendous amount of pressure and that is trickling down to teachers in the classroom too. Howard Bauchner:
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Yeah. I saw I I don’t know if you if you saw this, but the the pen social media team tweeted out a story about the Scholastic Book Fair in a in nearby town to me. I live in Dallas, Texas. Grandfind Grandfind’s not too far away. I think I I have a like, geography.
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But but the a scholastic book fair basically was like, well, we we can’t come because we won’t give the school district a list of all of the books that we’re gonna be selling there. We can’t, you know, figure out, we don’t wanna divide, you know, by age groups and all that. Is is are we seeing that sort of thing happen around the country? Or is that, you know, kind of infrequent?
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This so far seems to be a little bit of a new thing, but we are concerned about it and the possibility that we could see more of it. You know, all of these things kind of started out as one case where we thought, wow, that that seems way beyond the line. That’s not probably gonna happen in a lot of different places, and then it actually it absolutely has. And so this is this is also one that we’re definitely watching for that reason, you know. And I think it’s it’s just indicative of sort of this broader culture suddenly where the sense is that all of these books might be dangerous.
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And, you know, we have to review them and and make sure that nothing dangerous is getting through. You know, I think we’ve mean, I remember going to Scholastic web pairs when I was a little thinking of that was happening at the time. And so, you know, it’s it’s it’s really — I think it’s just alarming in terms of the kind of broader shift that we’ve seen in this sort of sense that if any parent disapproves of a book that is being made available to students, but that they have the right to ban access to that for all students. And that, you know, that’s completely contrary to the concept of freedom of expression and to enter students’ rights to access a wide range of stories. And and ideas and that’s kind of what access to books and literature is supposed to be about in schools in particular.
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Yeah. So to to play devil’s advocate, you know, in the in in the eight report about educational gag orders, you mentioned, look, this is it’s it’s a it’s a fraud topic. It’s a controversial topic. Parents are obviously very mindful of what their kids, you know, experience, especially younger kids, you know, in high schools. There’s you can maybe have broader range, elementary schools, it’s a little trickier.
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How do you balance the concern of parents with the concerns about freedom of expression and the ability of children to access. I mean, children we say children. I mean, teenagers, you know. Right. Kids in kids in Honors English, you know, eleven or whatever.
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AP AP comp. Literature. Right? Like, the it’s not like we’re just talking about seven year olds here. We’re we’re talking about a a wide spectrum of of ages here.
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How do you balance that concern? Between parents and what kids should have access to? Yeah, absolutely.
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I don’t think, you know, nobody wants dismissful legitimate concerns of parents and then PM, and their legitimate right to have something in, you know, in their children’s education. But I think, you know, anybody I think who has had any role in a school knows that if a parent comes in and says, I really don’t want my kid to read this book or I’d really like figure out some alternative to this lesson for my child, that’s almost always going to be possible. Right? So I think there’s always a solution for a parent’s child in general. And specifically, I think, you know, as I said, the issue is really when that parent wants their sense of what’s right for their child.
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Child to apply to everybody else’s child as well and that, you know, I think what we’re seeing a lot right now is a lot of talk about parents rights, but it’s it’s really specific parents rights. To kind of make decisions that impact everybody. So, you know, what about the gay parents who would like their child to be able to read a book about the family who looks like theirs? You know, I think that that is the it’s a it’s a it’s not the right solution to what may be concerns the parents may have. And so, I think that that’s the approach that we thing needs to be taken.
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And, you know, in most of these cases as well, schools and libraries have procedures in place, right, for reviewing if they get a challenge about a book, a complaint, a concern, expressed by parents. They usually have policies and procedures in place to deal with that. And what we’re seeing in fast majority of these cases is that those are just not being followed at all. Right. You know, you’re having a principal or a superintendent come in and say, these books were challenged.
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We’re taking all of them off the shelf. This is what also happened in Texas recently where a list of books was challenge over the course of last year. They reviewed them. Two different committees reviewed them. They decided to keep the books.
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And then right before school started this year, the authorities came in and said, nope, we’re pulling all of these books. That’s how they ended up banning the bible because it had been challenged. Sean should I believe on that one had been withdrawn. But everything would have been challenged ended up getting pulled anyway with complete disregard for the actual process.
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Yeah. Iraving. There. That’s Yeah. That is really cool.
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Oh, irony. I and, Tony, I was I was looking back through Suzanne’s book dare to speak. The Suzanne Nasal, the CEO of in America, I was looking back through her book, DARE to speak. This week, And was it’s it’s interesting to read I mean, this it was published two years ago. It’s interesting to read with two more years of all of the arguments over freedom of speech and expression that we’ve been having in the country.
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But there’s something that you mentioned in that in that last answer that I think is very key to kind of under spanning the the balance of the debate right now, which is the the argument that some things need to be taken out of circulation entirely. And people there there are certain works that people need to be stopped for reading, or television shows that people need to stop for watching. Movies that need people need to be stopped from saying, and other people who are just critical of those things. And where how do you how do you find that balance of criticism versus de facto ban?
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Howard Bauchner: Yeah, I mean, I think, of course, criticism is always okay. Right? I mean, the whole point is to be able to, you know, consume a wide range of things, to debate them, to to think about them, to have those those conversations. But we can’t have those conversations if we can’t even access whatever the thing is. Right?
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And I think, you know, there’s there’s a sort of an assumption I think that if you if you read a book, it’s it’s an endorsement of the book or it’s inevitable that you’re going to agree with the book. But people read a wide range of things that they disagree with. And that too is very instructive. Right? I think it’s important to know you know, the arguments that you disagree with so that you can more effectively dismantle them, you know, if that’s if that’s your goal.
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You know, I think that we done and from a kind of, you know, access to information and and the historical honesty perspective, of, you know, there’s a real danger to saying, these books, you know, we don’t wanna read these books anymore. It shouldn’t have access to these books anymore because, you know, potentially then you’re essentially erase some aspect of history or of our kind of cultural conversation that are important for people to understand and know something about that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an endorsement of those books with the ideas in
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them.
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I mean, lots of, you know, bookstores carry mind comps and there’s a reason that we think that might be an important thing for people to know exists and to understand the history of. And so, you know, I think there’s that but that none of that should necessarily close down any space for debate or or disagreement or criticism. That’s, you know, that’s part of the idea to have the room for that. Yeah.
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Yeah. Trying to find that balance between, you know, look, obviously, nobody’s going no individual work will be liked by everybody or approved up by everybody, but, you know, having access to that thing is still important. Let’s let’s let’s go around the world a little bit if that’s can we — Yeah. — can
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we just do
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a hop around the world? So what what is happening in the from your from your perspective at Penn, you know, where are some of the freedom of expression hotspots right now that that, you know, we’re we’re finding trouble with.
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Yeah, absolutely. So one of the other things that we do is track the number of writers and public intellectuals imprisoned around the world every year And so, we have been doing that for the past three years now. We’ve seen unfortunately an increase during that time. Last year, we counted two seventy seven folks imprisoned around the world previously. I believe it was two years prior.
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I believe it was two thirty eight. So a bit of an increase Some of that I think not disconnected from the pandemic and some countries using COVID as an excuse to crack down on dissent. And, you know, the the top countries, you know, some of them not surprising China, Saudi Arabia, Iran. We have, you know, in the past year, been very concerned about the situation in Myanmar since the coup there in the early twenty twenty one. We’ve seen a significant, you know, reversal of the situation there.
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We’ve seen a lot of writers and artists imprisoned. Earlier this month, there were for democracy activists executed in Myanmar, two of whom was a writer and one of whom was a hip hop artist. And this, you know, this is something we haven’t really seen much of anywhere honestly in a while. So I think there was a journalist executed at Iran recently as well, but that’s that’s quite, you know, chilling. And and so I think the other concern that we So I think we’re we obviously see sort of things worsening in places that you wouldn’t be surprised or bad like China and Russia, but we also had seen real reversals in places like Myanmar, obviously, Afghanistan, and a number of other places that had, you know, been on a better track at one point at least.
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India has also been a a a high end concern for most recent night too.
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Let me sound I’ve got three countries here that I but I I I I have seen the headlines and I haven’t actually dug into this at all, but I saw the the the story about the Saudi Arabian woman who was visiting back home from college and sentenced to thirty four years. And present something like that. What what what happened there? It
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was basically for her tweets, and that included the fact that she had tweeted in support of some woman’s rights activist who had been imprisoned previously. One of whom would Jay and Naho, was somebody to be honored with our freedom to write award a few years ago, one side, two other. Saudi women writers and activists. And, you know, so, I mean, this is a pretty just an absolutely horrifying case, this most recent one. And it really demonstrates that Muhammad bin Salman, the conference in Saudi Arabia, would very much like to have this global image of himself as a reformer, and a forward thinker, he is quite the opposite.
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Obviously, we’re, you know, I think the the entire national community, the human rights community, was deeply concerned on many levels about the murder of Jamal. Koji, one of them being that if, you know, they kind of got away with that, you know, they would be emboldened and empowered to feel. They could essentially get away with anything. And I think, you know, unfortunately, that’s a little bit of where we’re at. And they’ve found ways of, you know, whitewashing some of these things though, Bluejay and all of the for example, to us who was released a couple of years ago.
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But she’s been under a travel ban. She’s restricted in her communications. Burden our ability to work. You know, they kind of create these de facto prisons without bars for people who are released. And so, you know, this is basically what we’ve seen is is no real change in the situation in Saudi Arabia.
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Maybe things are you know, getting even even a little bit more alarming at the moment. Howard
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Bauchner: The next country was Afghanistan, which I, you know, I follow the world of film a little more closely, and I I know that people were terrified of what would happen to the f Afghan film industry, which had been growing a little bit, you know, had had had found some room to blossom and obviously does not really have that space anymore. Have you guys heard much about what’s what’s coming out of Afghanistan? I
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mean, a lot of the focus obviously has been on, you know, people who continue to try to leave the country, you know, the response situation last year when Kabbel fell and the US presence ended was really devastating. I think the situation was obviously dire and has, you know, continued to be so and, you know, a lot of people left. I think there has been a lot of focus on trying to support Afghan artists, writers, journalists, others who are now outside the country. You know, I know that people are still trying to do what they can in in Afghanistan as well, but the situation is obviously just extremely challenging and the threats from the Taliban are very serious. So, you know, it’s it’s a definitely one where we are very concerned.
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It doesn’t really show up in our freedom to write index because the situation has not been one where people are being
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imprisoned
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necessarily. Mhmm. There were a number of writers killed last year and people targeted. But that’s it’s a I think at the moment what we’re seeing is is primarily kind of intimidation and and silencing — Mhmm. — in different forms.
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In
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India was the other the other nation that I was kind of surprised to see on the I mean, I I don’t follow Indian politics particularly closely. But the the sense that, you know, I I think I am a lot of other people have is that it’s more of a modernizing westernizing location, but obviously that may be mistaken. Well, there’s
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definitely been a reversal in terms of democracy and human rights. Under the Modi government. And we have, you know, been seeing that kind of happen over the past over recent years. There have been, you know, case brighter’s targeted. There have been a lot of journalists targeted by the government.
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And we just, also just last week, actually, put out a compilation of writings by over a hundred and ten Indian writers from India and from India. And I asked I called India at seventy five, marking the 75th anniversary of the country’s independence, and have reflecting on the state of India today. And you know, those were quite sobering. You know, most of most of these folks were reflecting on on the promise of of Indian independence and of so much of India’s history in terms of in terms of democracy and and the state of where things are right now, which is, you know, a lot of a sectarian violence being stoked and and shutting down of space for for freedom of expression and and scent.
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Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. It’s I I I this is why I asked because I saw it on-site, Barry. It was it was interesting.
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I was kinda, again, surprised surprised by that. One last thing I I I just wanted to to ask you about. Again, it’s it’s been it’s interesting to look back at dare to speak now. Again, we’ve we’ve had another couple of years of of debates over freedom of expression, first amendment, and all that. And one of the things that comes up in the book is the the rights and the responsibilities of corporations to kind of safeguard free speech.
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I mean, obviously, Twitter, Facebook. Instagram, etcetera. Like, these are these are areas where there is not necessarily a legal first amendment obligation to protect freedom of expression. And indeed, they may have obligations to crack down on misinformation or, you know, disinformation, things like that. How have you guys seen that kind of play out over the last couple of years here?
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And what do you think the state of Freedom of expression online is at the moment. Big question.
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Big question. Big question. And it’s such a complicated question. I mean, you know, you’re right. Obviously, these are not these are private companies, not bound by the first amendment.
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They have the right to sort of create the communities that they want to create online. But they are also in some ways are kind of de facto public spares and they are places that are important for public discourse, for writers and artists to create and promote their work. There’s spaces of creativity in a global dialogue and independent exchange. You know, I think it it can be easy to for at some of the things that these platforms offer to us and the ability that they give people who live in countries where they where they’re the only place where where a freedom of expression can can exist. And but obviously, there are very serious concerns.
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And to the spread of disinformation. We do a lot of work on disinformation. We also do a lot of work on online abuse and its impact on writers and journalists. As a threat to freedom of expression because we know that it silences people, that it drives people off of the platforms, can drive people out of out of their fields altogether in some cases. And it’s really a very alarming concern And so, part of what we have always tried to do is think about what are some of the solutions to these problems that don’t themselves infringe on freedom of expression and just asking the plot forms kind of take down more stuff is generally not the best solution in part because they’re not always very good at it.
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Right? They — Yeah. — don’t necessarily succeed in distinguishing correctly between actual disinformation and satyr or or, you know, people just expressing themselves freely. And, you know, so I think we have tried to figure out what are some of the ways that we can make the Internet a more open and equitably accessible space for people and here we put out a big report last year that was looking at kind of technical solutions, technical steps with platforms could take to better protect people from online abuse. That wouldn’t infringe on freedom of expression, pretty basic things that they could do.
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You know, I think we have seen some progress on that from some of them. But it’s tricky because I think in the same way that we don’t want to ask government to kind of do significantly more to regulate speech online because of the many dangers associated with handing them that power. We feel somewhat the same about the major tech companies as well. Right? Because of the power and the scope of power that they have over over public speech.
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Yeah.
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Yeah. Well, that was everything I wanted to ask, Summer. If I I would like to close these interviews by asking if there’s anything I should have if you think there’s anything folks should know about some of a rusty state of freedom of expression, whatever. Anything anything you think folks should know about? I
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mean, I think I’d just say, you know, I think that the the attack on someone, Rusty, has been for us, but I think a moment of really crystallizing why it is what we do, the work that we do, and why it is essential to protect freedom of expression for all, and why it’s important to protect the right even to offend because you never know who’s going who you’re going to offend and you don’t really want to decide, you know,
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who’s
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gonna decide who what is offensive and am what is the recovery response? This is, you know, I think this is a real moment to think about why free speech matters. And why it’s essentially we protect it for all of us. Because if it’sgotten for any of us, you know, none of us really get to enjoy that ride. And I I think that Salman really embodied that through his work and his advocacy throughout his life.
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And so I think it’s it’s been a a moment in which we all at Penn American, I think, have felt very kind of mobilized and and inspired to remember why we why we do this work and and hope that others will join us in that. Co sign that. Everybody
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should go sign up for a membership at Penn America. I am a member. So listen, listen to make your humble podcast or to do what I tell you to do. Alright. Thank you very much for being on the show somewhere.
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I really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having
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me a sunny. My
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name is Sunny Bunch. I am the culture editor at The Bulwark, and I’ll be back next week with another episode of The Bulwark Coast Hollywood. See you guys have. Get an
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inside look at Hollywood with Michael Rose and Bob. Let’s get inside Debra and Whoa. If you have to choose between true blood, dare double to do again. Partially because
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the
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Marvel series feel unfinished to me because we got canceled when we thought we were gonna have more. Whereas true blood, we did get to wrap it up. I knew that we were wrapping it up. I could say goodbye to everyone. I stole something from a set.
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I know I didn’t gonna steal anything from our daredevil set. Inside of
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you
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with Michael Rosenbaum, wherever you
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listen.
