I spoke with TRTWorld anchor Adnan Nawaz recently in support of Neil Young’s decision to remove his music from Spotify in protest of the potentially fatal COVID misinformation spread by podcaster Joe Rogan. Spotify and similar companies aren’t defending free speech, they’re exploiting it for private gain at social cost. In effect, they’re strip-mining democracy.
Transcript
Adnan Nawaz (Host) 0:01
Thank you so much indeed for your time. I wonder if it ever pays to stand up for your principles, which is basically what Neil Young is doing.
Spencer Critchley 0:09
I think it pays in the most important dimension, you know, which is the moral and ethical dimension. And I think one of the great mistakes we’ve made in liberal democracy over the past couple of centuries, really, is in trying to separate morality from economic utility and assuming that the free market could be free of a moral component. But I think we’re discovering that everybody, especially anybody with any economic power, has a responsibility in a democracy to be moral actors in the economy, not just rational actors.
And so I think what Neil Young has done here is important in itself, valuable in itself, but it’s also an important example for every everyone else. And if I may say, so, you know, in our own small way, we run our own company exactly the same way: we refuse to take clients who we don’t sincerely believe are committed to making the world better. Otherwise, you’re just essentially strip-mining democracy.
Adnan Nawaz 1:04
But of course, so much of the world has been reduced to the lowest common denominator — is that do you think what’s made Spotify fall in the camp of Joe Rogan? Because basically, he makes more money for them?
Spencer Critchley 1:20
Absolutely, I mean, it’s legal, and it’s profitable, and so it happened. And what we’re struggling with in American democracy right now is, How do we preserve freedom, including the free market without allowing for business models, like, unfortunately, Spotify’s, which I consider to be a form of digital strip mining, similarly to strip mining in Appalachia in the United States, where coal companies have been enormously profitable, but have left social and environmental devastation, to be paid for by everybody else, in their wake.
A lot of these social networks are strip mining journalism. In particular, they’re claiming, basically to be telecommunications companies, like the old style phone company that just allows people to talk to each other. But that is not what this model is. It’s journalism with no editorial control, and they will claim it’s free speech. But we can’t allow a free speech right that ends up killing people. And that’s what happens when people spread this outrageous, dangerous disinformation about COVID.
Adnan Nawaz 2:23
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is the argument that’s been going on for some time now, about platforms which say, Hold on, we’re not really the publishers, we’re just the conduit for someone who’s expressing an opinion. Do you think there might come a time, because there have been cases in the United States, and I’ve read them, of someone literally on their deathbed in hospital? And the last words they say, were, Oh my God, I thought it was fake news — that someone might hear some misinformation about COVID 19 on a public platform, whichever one it is, and something happens to them, and they’re disabled, because of long COVID? Could they possibly sue that platform?
Spencer Critchley 3:04
That’s an excellent question. And traditionally, you know, libel law, for example, was a defense that allowed for free speech, but not abusive free speech. Now, again, how do you define what’s abusive? Governments that want to assert their control will define any criticism as a threat to the nation.
But traditionally, in the United States, we did a fairly good job of allowing very wide tolerance for free speech, but stopping people short of, for example, publishing the instructions for how to create a bomb and rallying people to go to a government building and set off that bomb, you know, or, you know, publishing deliberate lies that destroy somebody’s reputation, knowing that they’re lies.
And by removing that level of control, which is what has happened in social media, we’ve discovered how vulnerable the general public is to misinformation, because each member of the public who are not prepared for the job is expected to be their own managing editor of everything that comes in. And anybody who’s ever actually edited the news, as I have, knows, that’s a difficult job that requires years of preparation.
Adnan Nawaz 4:14
Spencer, we see the guitars behind your right shoulder, so I’m going to end with a quote for you okay. And obviously, it is the great Neil Young, and the quote is as an afterthought. “This too, must be told. Some people have taken pure BS and turned it into gold.” Spencer, really appreciate it. Thank you so much, indeed, Spencer Critchley.
Spencer Critchley 4:34
Appreciate that Neil Young quote. Thank you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai