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Over the past five years TikTok has radically changed the online world. But trust us when we say, it’s not how you’d expect. Today we continue our yearslong exploration of what you can and can’t post online. We look at how Facebook’s approach to free speech has evolved since Trump’s victory. How TikTok upended everything we see. And what all this means for the future of our political and digital lives. Special thanks to Kate Klonick EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Simon Adler Produced by - Simon Adler Original music from - Simon Adler with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloome Fact-checking by - Anna Pujol-Mazzini Lateral Cuts: The Trust Engineers Facebook’s Supreme Court Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected]. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Duration
32m
Broadcast on
17 Oct 2025
Audio Format
other

Over the past five years TikTok has radically changed the online world. But trust us when we say, it’s not how you’d expect.

Today we continue our yearslong exploration of what you can and can’t post online. We look at how Facebook’s approach to free speech has evolved since Trump’s victory. How TikTok upended everything we see. And what all this means for the future of our political and digital lives.

Special thanks to Kate Klonick


EPISODE CREDITS: 

Reported by - Simon Adler
Produced by - Simon Adler

Original music from - Simon Adler

with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloome

Fact-checking by - Anna Pujol-Mazzini

Lateral Cuts:
The Trust Engineers
Facebook’s Supreme Court

Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!

Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.

Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].


Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.


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We're going to be speaking to that microphone. Nope, the one closer here. Hey I'm Simon Adler. This is Radio Lab. One, two, three, four, five. Can you hear me, Kate? Yep. And that... Oh wow. Is Kate. Yeah, Kate Klinek. I'm a professor at St. John's Law School. I've talked to her a bunch over the years. We did a couple different stories that felt like news at the time about Facebook's rules for what we can and can't post on their platform. Don't get me saying the F word again because last time my parents yelled at me. Did they? Yeah, they were like, "Kate, you're an adult now." Oh come on. You're a serious person. I prefer to swear on the radio as much as possible. We covered the origins of these rules and just how complicated they can become. But beyond the specifics, what we were really exploring was how the ideal of free speech plays out in different spaces in our society. You know, from a good old public square where anyone can say anything they want to lightly regulate broadcast TV to straight up private spaces, and we were asking, like, where does social media fit into all that? And you know, I kind of thought we were done talking about all this. But then... I'm happy we still have a show too, I guess. This past month. Jimmy Kimmel can't say that anymore. The late night host taken off air indefinitely. As we all know, free speech was in the news again. I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard one. It's censorship. That's state speech control. And these questions of who can say what, where, and how much pressure the government can or can't exert just felt fresh and vital all over again. And so I called Kate to see how this is all playing out online. Yeah. And now it is a problem of, okay, how do we stop billionaires and authoritarian governments from twisting these platforms into censorship machines or political propaganda? Okay. F***. I know. That's kind of how I feel too. Well, I guess before we get into all of that, let's build a bit of a foundation first. Sure. So I guess how has the actual practice of keeping stuff up and taking stuff down changed and

Transcription truncated.

Over the past five years TikTok has radically changed the online world. But trust us when we say, it’s not how you’d expect. Today we continue our yearslong exploration of what you can and can’t post online. We look at how Facebook’s approach to free speech has evolved since Trump’s victory. How TikTok upended everything we see. And what all this means for the future of our political and digital lives. Special thanks to Kate Klonick EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Simon Adler Produced by - Simon Adler Original music from - Simon Adler with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloome Fact-checking by - Anna Pujol-Mazzini Lateral Cuts: The Trust Engineers Facebook’s Supreme Court Signup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected]. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.