What the Trump-Musk Alliance means for free speech | Nico Perrino | The Reason Interview

FIRE’s executive V.P. discusses the Biden administration's failures, Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s influence on free speech, and the most pressing First Amendment issues facing the U.S. today.

0:00- Introduction
1:29- Biden administration’s record on free speech
8:22- Internal and external pressures on tech platforms to censor
11:00- Double standards on free speech
12:19- Will speech be freer under Trump than Biden?
18:49- The TikTok ‘ban’ & DeepSeek AI
28:23- Elon Musk: friend or foe to free speech?
31:10- Free speech culture
36:00- What was ‘cancel culture’?
39:22- lnstitutional neutrality and campus speech post-Oct 7
46:43- Generational attitude shifts on free speech

Today's guest is Nico Perrino, executive vice president at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), director of the 2020 documentary Mighty Ira, which profiles the longtime head of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the author of a forthcoming book on the triumph of civil libertarians.

He's also the host of the popular podcast So to Speak, which takes an "uncensored look at the world of free expression through the law, philosophy, and stories that define your right to free speech." Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with him about the Biden administration's rotten record on speech issues, his hopes and fears for President Donald Trump's second term, and why he worries that, when it comes to speech, Elon Musk is "suffering from the curse of power, which is censorship."

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