Joe Rogan, Whoopi Goldberg, and Bull Sessions

I view both Joe Rogan’s participation in The Joe Rogan Experience, and Whoopi Goldberg’s participation in The View, as participations in public bull sessions. Bull sessions are associated with late-night college dorm informal conversations and discussions. I view them as experiments with ideas, which includes hypotheticals, trolling, and taking the roll of a devil’s advocate. All sorts of language is allowed. Nothing is censored.

Whatever Joe Rogan or Whoopi Goldberg said or believe should be protected as the freedom of speech. If any of their speech is offensive to some listeners, these listeners have the right not to listen.

However, the matter is complicated by the fact that Rogan and Goldberg are saying things within the orbit of private companies. Joe Rogan is sponsored by Spotify, and Whoopi Goldberg is employed by ABC which is owned by Disney General Entertainment. Both Spotify and ABC are interested in the bottom line, and nothing more. It is clear that Spotify is not about to get rid of Rogan, and ABC has given Goldberg a slap on the wrist.

There is a more serious problem with censorship as exercised by Facebook and Twitter. In a sense Spotify and ABC have a right to control and fire their employees, but Facebook and Twitter are trying to control and “fire” the general public by either shutting down their accounts for some period, or banning them altogether.

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See also:

Pat Condell on the new censorship against “hate” speech

Political Correctness in Academia