Joe Rogan blasted “woke” Big Tech CEOs in a recent podcast.
Rogan hosted Daryl Davis, a black musician and author who befriended members of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis in an effort to turn them away from racism. Bill Ottman, an internet entrepreneur and free speech activist also joined the show.
According to The Blaze, both men are involved in the “Change Minds Initiative.” This initiative argued that de-platforming individuals on social media lead to radicalism.
“The research found significant evidence that censorship and de-platforming can promote and amplify, rather than suppress, cognitive radicalization and even violent extremism," their paper on censorship reads. "Shutting down accounts accused of violating hate-speech policies and misinformation often shifts those banned individuals to alternative platforms where their narrative of long-suffering victimhood is further refined."
Ottman argued that even some leftists admitted that de-platforming leads to extremism, as The Blaze reported:
So the fact that big tech apps are not looking at this data and applying it to their policy, it makes you almost have to speculate that they're intentionally causing it. I mean, because they these are very smart people that work at big tech sites. They know about data science, they know the spread of information.
Rogan disagreed and added his own thoughts on censorship. "I don't think they're intentionally causing it," The Blaze reported him as saying. "First of all, there's an ideology that is attached to all the big tech companies, whether it's Google or Facebook or Twitter, you have to be what they think is 'woke,' right?" The podcaster continued: "You have to subscribe to a certain line of thinking, and anybody that deviates from that line of thinking should be suppressed, minimized or banned."
Rogan argued that Big Tech CEOs have to virtue-signal to be successful, as The Blaze reported:
The CEOs have to virtue signal. All the people that are executives have to virtue signal, and they have to say, "We're doing our best to stop harmful talk." But what they call 'harmful' like a lot of it is like disagreeing with pharmaceutical companies, which is just f***ing crazy.
Rogan added that dialogue with people you disagree with is essential to a free society, as The Blaze reported:
I have people on this podcast all the time that I don't agree with at all or I agree with them very little, and I want to see what's going on in their head....And the idea that you the f***ing tech dorks are going to step in and say, 'No, this is dangerous thinking.'
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
