Joe Rogan explains why he’s worried about social media censorship

Popular podcast host Joe Rogan delved into the hot topic of internet censorship in his JRE podcast, and revealed why he’s worried about the power some social media companies have.

Censorship has been at the forefront of discussion lately, as the US President was suspended from Twitter, Facebook and other sites. While some people applauded the decisions made by these companies, Joe Rogan doesn’t share their optimism.

“Authoritarianism in this country is like… there’s a lot of people that like it because it silences their opponents,” he said while speaking to his guest, Yannis Pappas.

The former Fear Factor host and UFC commentator brought up rival social media applications being shut down or taken off Google and Apple’s stores for allegedly “spreading hate.”

“What percentage is spreading hate? What are the numbers? Is this wise that we shut down all discourse that you disagree with?” he rhetorically asked. “Like, it’s not good if someone gets on there and they’re talking about violence against individuals or they’re spreading racist ideas or whatever the f**k they’re doing that disturbs people. You’re right. That’s not good.”

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So, even though Rogan agreed that some speech is problematic, he doesn’t feel censorship is the right solution and it sets a “weird” precedent.

“It sets a precedent where the people that are in power can decide that something is ‘wrong speak,’ something is bad and that you can just eliminate it completely,” he added. “And then when things like that happen, they keep going. They don’t just stop at things that we can all agree are terrible. They go to things that maybe you don’t think are terrible, but other people do. And then they keep going further.”

Preventing censorship has been quite the big deal for Joe Rogan, especially once the host decided to move the JRE show to Spotify.

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Back when the host first announced the move, he made clear to fans that the show would remain “exactly the same” and that Spotify wouldn’t have any creative control – something many of Rogan’s supporters were worried about.