Censorship

Earlier this year President Biden signed a rare law that passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan approval: by January 19th, TikTok must be sold to an American company or shut down its American operations. Democrats and Republicans alike were concerned that the Chinese-owned company might be pressured by the Chinese government to turn over Americans private user data. However, there's no evidence that this has ever occurred. Now ByteDance, TikTok’s parent, is asking the United States Supreme Court for a reprieve. What's more important, the First Amendment or a theoretical threat to national security? The TMI Show’s Ted Rall discusses the issue with Manila Chan, who is back on the air after an illness.

Never embarrassed to be seen blowing with the political winds, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spent the last four years leading Silicon Valley’s censorship-industrial complex. Facebook openly admitted throttling all political content on the grounds that users didn’t like it. It hired an advisory panel with clear ideological blind spots. Most notoriously, Facebook turned to outsourced fact checkers who decide whether or not posts get blocked and users get banned even though they rarely had any expertise in the controversies they were asked to weigh in on, and made frequent mistakes. Now, at least, Zuckerberg says the fact checkers are no more. Co-hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan are joined by guest Peter Coffin to ask: is Facebook really entering the Free Speech Zone? If so, how long will it last in the second age of Trump?