Feb 20, 2022
Chris and Jonathan welcome back to the show journalist Brooke Binkowski from Truth or Fiction to discuss the Joe Rogan/Spotify controversy and how we got here. The discussion includes what makes someone a journalist in 2022 and how reactionaries and extremists were early adopters of the Internet.
2:10 Addressing common accusations
3:44 The saga
5:26 The mainstreaming of falsehoods
8:21 Lack of responsibility and JAQing off
10:06 The aesthetics of masculine rationality and The X-Files
15:15 From harmless folklore to antisemitism
18:35 What makes someone a journalist
26:31 Moderating audio content
29:20 The 1988 Internet and surf Nazis
36:14 Monster Island, Galt’s Gulch, and Ram Ranch
42:13 The Spotify seal of approval and YouTube’s feeble moderation
46:08 The next five years of reactionary populism
* Theme music: “Fall of the Ocean Queen“ by Joseph Hackl.
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Links:
1) The Daily podcast on the Joe Rogan saga: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/11/podcasts/the-daily/joe-rogan-spotify.html
2) Jonathan’s article on Joe Rogan: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-health-and-nutrition-pseudoscience/science-vs-joe-rogan
3) The open letter to Spotify: https://spotifyopenletter.wordpress.com/2022/01/10/an-open-letter-to-spotify/
4) Aaron Rabinowitz’s article on Monster Island: https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2020/10/monster-island-free-speech-experiment/
5) God Awful Movies’ review of Atlas Shrugged, Part 1: https://www.stitcher.com/show/god-awful-movies/episode/337-atlas-shrugged-part-one-90134592
6) Truth or Fiction: https://www.truthorfiction.com/
7) Brooke on Twitter: https://twitter.com/brooklynmarie