The Hate Debate

Should you be able to say and do whatever you want online? And if not, who should police this?

More Perfect hosts a debate at WNYC's Jerome L. Greene Performance Space about online hate speech, fake news, and whether the First Amendment needs an update for the digital age.

The key voices:

Corynne McSherry, legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Elie Mystal, executive editor at Above the Law and contributing legal editor at More Perfect
Ken White, litigator and criminal defense attorney at Brown White & Osborn LLP — he also runs Popehat.com

The key cases:

1957: Yates v. United States
1969: Brandenburg v. Ohio

The key links:

ProPublica's report on Facebook's censorship policies  

Special thanks to Elaine Chen, Jennifer Keeney Sendrow, and the entire Greene Space team. Additional engineering for this episode by Chase Culpon, Louis Mitchell, and Alex Overington.

Leadership support for More Perfect is provided by The Joyce Foundation. Additional funding is provided by The Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Foundation. 

Watch the event below:

NOTE: Because of the topic for the night, this discussion includes disturbing images and language, such as religious, ethnic and gender slurs and profanity. We have preserved this content so that our audience can understand the nature of this speech.

ADDENDUM: During the debate one of debaters misspoke and said World War II when he meant World War I. The case he was referring to can be found here.

Should you be able to say and do whatever you want online? And if not, who should police this? More Perfect hosts a debate about online hate speech, fake news and whether the First Amendment needs an update for the digital age.