Without free speech we don’t have democracy, or the chance for a more intelligent society. What that means is quite stark, and is worth stating clearly
Jem Bendell is Professor of Sustainability Leadership, University of Cumbria, UK. He has recently published the book ‘Breaking Together – a freedom-loving response to collapse’
By reaching millions around the world, popular podcasts have become a new form of broadcast media. Some people like the way they challenge the hegemony of legacy media, while others worry about an avalanche of misinformation. Some people, myself amongst them, both like and worry about the changes to our media landscape, and hope that something can be done to improve the contribution of independent media to public discussion. The New Year kicked off with another example of this dilemma, thanks to an understandably grumpy Mel Gibson appearing on the popular Joe Rogan chat show. At the time of the interview, the movie star’s house was burning down in Los Angeles (LA). He complained about politicians, which one might expect. He also dismissed the role of climate change, which according to a comprehensive study by scientists, not filmstars, has caused conditions helping to double extreme wildfires worldwide over the last 20 years. When he quipped that the Governor of California should spend less on hair gel, Gibson was implying the politician cares more about image than people. A film star accusing someone else of vanity is amusing, but then Gibson dismissed climate change with a schoolboy error. He claimed scientists incorrectly think that melting sea ice raises sea levels. They don’t. Melting ice from the land and the thermal expansion of water are what have been increasing sea levels worldwide, measurably, over recent years. Joe Rogan made reassuring noises during Mel’s schoolboy moment, despite having heard from a climate scientist once on his show. This wasn’t the first time Rogan has not challenged, and apparently agreed with, his guests who dismiss climate change. That doesn’t mean Joe is a bad guy, or that he should be censored, but it points to a broader issue of how the rise of alternative media might better help societal dialogue rather than adding to distractions and distortions. Because currently, the discussions about the implications of the LA fires that have been promoted in society by both mainstream media and alternative media are a huge distraction from the conversations we need on how to reduce harm in the years ahead. In this essay, I’ll explain why this is happening, and make some suggestions about what could be done – suggestions which I haven’t yet heard from either governments, BigTech platforms, or alternative media themselves.
Many people watch the news to know how to fit in. They just don’t know that’s their motivation. That’s because following the news or scrolling through current affairs is a habit and seems like a way to pass the time. “Oh, that’s awful, I’m glad I’m not them” is the general undertone for most news consumption. However, if you are the type of person who follows reports on what is happening in the world because you want to work out for yourself how to support the good and resist the bad, for you, your friends, community and wider humanity, then that’s great. In that case, you probably welcomed the growth of alternative media in the last few years. You may have been pleased that journalists like Glenn Greenwald, Kim Iverson, Aaron Mate and others have gone independent with their own channels. You may have been happy that entertainers like Joe Rogan, Jimmy Dore and, yes, even Russell Brand, comment regularly on current affairs to huge audiences worldwide. Whatever their pros and cons, you will know that without them, you might have agreed with mainstream media that Russia blew up its own pipeline, that the Pfizer jab stopped infection and transmission, that lockdowns were a definite net benefit to health and society, that the persistently high rates of excess deaths in many richer countries aren’t worthy of our attention, and that the obliteration of Gaza has not been a Western-backed genocide (despite international legal opinion). Therefore, you will have been concerned at the increasingly establishment-friendly approach of mainstream media and the censorship (or “visibility filtering”) of alternative views by the various BigTech companies that own Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn and suchlike. But are you completely happy with what you have been told by your favoured alternative media?
Me neither. And many people I chat with remember a few times when they have been duped by alternative voices on YouTube and Telegram. For instance, they thought there were functional nanobots in the jabs or that we can actually see fire-starting lasers (invisible “directed energy weapons”) without dry ice or movie-added special effects. Like me, they didn’t notice any correction or apology from the sources of the misinformation. If it came from a well known independent podcaster, I hear my friends give them the benefit of the doubt: “His heart is in the right place and he doesn’t have teams of researchers, while he did some really brave reporting on Covid.” There are some problems with that view. First, with power comes responsibility. The income from popular shows is huge, which could easily fund people to manage adherence to standards of good journalistic practice as most publishers and broadcasters do. The issue is then what kind of standards – something I’ll return to in a moment. Second, the issue with news and current affairs isn’t just about getting the facts right – it is about choosing what to focus on and what to ignore. Just as mainstream media operate with incentives and disincentives for choosing what to cover, so do alternative media producers. They seek viewing figures, so provide the content that their audience wants. A busy person will typically prefer their worldview and identity buttressed in the face of bad news – that’s a normal human response and can be seized upon by both mainstream and alternative media. So they offer us simplistic depictions of issues, without complexity or nuance, involving battles with the ‘bad guys’. That influences what the public chooses to focus on and how they discuss it – which then has massive implications for our collective action (or inaction).
The fires in Los Angeles at the start of 2025 showed us, yet again, the implications of the evolving media landscape for public conversation about current affairs. The mainstream media did what it normally does, either ignoring the connection with climate change, or explaining the connection in a way that limited the implications in an establishment-friendly way. That limited agenda is the ‘ecomodern’ lie that climate change can be ‘fixed’ with technology and some new policies. So their message was that such fires will get worse unless we all switch to electric cars and eat less meat. It means that a more radical critique of what produced this unfolding tragedy was not presented, nor the different possibilities for adaptation to more climate-related disruption. One approach from popular alternative media is to oppose that ecomodern agenda, by claiming climate concern is a hoax promoted by hypocrites to control people, reduce our standard of living, and enrich elites. Another popular approach is to focus on other aspects of a disaster, such as a bad decision, silly statement, or notable hairdo, of a politician. Such superficial approaches are partly due to a lack of grounding in environmental issues and what is unfolding in the world, ecologically. But it is also partly due to those dynamics of infotainment that I described above. Rather than explore a topic in a way that requires us to think and realise there is no simple enemy or solution, it is far easier to blame someone or something so we can feel self-righteous, suppress anxiety and release frustration. So with LA, people end up blaming the fish, the greens, the energy weapons, the globalists, the Democrats, the mayor, the MAGA crowd. The reason I am writing this essay is because, for a few years, I’ve been explaining to people the real world consequences of this opportunistic avoidance, and I want to encourage a useful response, rather than a draconian and counterproductive one.
Consequences of distraction
When disasters occur, there are always lessons to learn. As disasters related to weather extremes are increasing and intensifying, worldwide, it is important that we prioritise such learning and become better prepared, as best as possible. Many experts on the fires in California in early 2025 explained that there was not a general water problem in the area that affected the availability of water during the wildfire response. Instead, they claim there was either terrible luck or a bad decision that one reservoir was being repaired at the time, and the extent of the fires meant the pumping system could not cope, while the 100 mile-an-hour winds meant that any capability would have been overwhelmed. If that is true, then at least seven issues come into focus. The first is how to reduce risk at the individual property level and ways to get widespread adoption of such measures, so it might reduce collective risk to urban areas. Techniques such as requiring fire resistance and readiness as part of accessing housing insurance could be of use, along with tax breaks and government grants. Second is a serious reassessment of whether insurance, public or private, should cover properties in areas of very high fire, storm or flood risk, how that might be subsidised and, if not, then what compensation should be available to the uninsured if disaster strikes. Third, is how to reduce risk within the urban-adjacent forests, and whether changes in conservation techniques are sensible. Fourth is whether to build new water infrastructure explicitly for fire protection, or whether such funds could be better used for other readiness measures, such as investing in the availability of water-bombing planes. Fifth is whether the costs of fire prevention and recovery should override other calls on the public purse which don’t receive media attention, such as over 1000 people dying each year in LA while homeless. Sixth is the revision of planning law to take into account the rising risks of disasters in a changing climate. That is especially important given that commercial factors have overridden past assessments of the danger in fire belts. Seventh, are forms of emotional and practical support for people living with heightened risk, or having survived recent disasters.
What I have just listed are some aspects of a transformative or Deep Adaptation agenda, that recognises our difficult global predicament of increasing societal disruptions, disasters and collapse. People who have given serious attention to the changing global environment have been working on such matters for years, while being sidelined from mainstream environmentalism and mainstream politics. If you go down that rabbit hole, there is a whole new way of approaching life to discover. Old priorities don’t make sense anymore. But it takes courage, not bravado, to step onto that tough but liberating path of truth.
But back to that bravado. Despite the schoolboy stuff with Mel Gibson, host Joe Rogan is not bad amongst alternative media. A couple of his guests have talked about climate change as a real problem, as well as the many guests who have dismissed or downplayed it. Other alternative media hosts are far less balanced. With eight million YouTube subscribers, Jordan Peterson provides us with an example. He regularly hosts scientists and other commentators to dismiss the fact that carbon gases trap heat and contribute to global warming, or to argue it doesn’t matter much anyway. Each podcast is a procession of logical fallacies presented as courageously independent radical thought. It appears to be having a chilling effect on others: many popular podcasters simply don’t cover the topic, perhaps because they seek cross promotion to each others’ audiences. Their self-made taboo means they’ll claim to be defenders of rights and freedoms but never mention the environmental defenders being murdered around the world, nor the climate protesters being brutalised by police or facing draconian custodial sentences. They’ll say they’re into protecting society, but will focus on moral panics and counter-panics rather than conserving the biosphere, which is the basis of any society, including their own.
Unfortunately, public discussion of climate change amongst my friends increasingly mirrors the battle between mainstream media’s ‘ecomodernism fixes the planet’ falsehood and alternative media’s ‘climate change is a scam’ falsehood. I always point out that two things can be true at the same time – that there are fake green globalists trying to use fear about climate to increase their power, while there is also a serious climate crisis unfolding around us. In my book Breaking Together, I describe this reality and how we need to resist the fake green globalists and reclaim environmentalism for and by the people. I dive into it in Chapter 13, which we released as a free audio in January. On the ‘climate is a scam’ side, many of my friends now repeat conspiracy theories, despite them being easily debunked if they analysed the claims more carefully. Simple facts about a fire, such as loads of blue roofs having burned, that ‘blue’ VW van having a white roof and top, and trees not catching fire from high-speed embers as easily as houses can, are all easy to realise for oneself, despite the ‘conspiracy porn’ being shared on chats. Sadly, the hunger for simple stories of self-righteousness against defeatable threats is so dominant in some people that they have been losing the plot entirely when considering climate change.
I don’t think that individual podcasters like Joe Rogan are intentionally contributing to mass distraction from the truth of our environmental predicament, but some elites seem to be engaged in that. It would be strange if they did not. For they know that the standard of living has been falling for many years in most countries of the world. They know these are global trends because they relate to global difficulties. Therefore, they know these are rebellious times. Offering people fake rebellion against fake enemies is a tried-and-tested tactic from elites when they see further difficulties ahead. This is the ultimate consequence of distraction – hate and peer-to-peer violence rather than solidarity and revolution.
Free speech matters
None of what I have shared thus far in this essay leads me to want governments to intervene via requirements for BigTech to restrict or censor the output from alternative media on the basis of claims of misinformation. We know from recent experience that authorities get so much wrong. That is partly because they are focused on their own interests and that of their lobbyists, while having their own narrow interpretation of the public interest. So I’d not want to see more of the “visibility filtering” by “factchecking” organisations that are biased towards the agendas of their funders, or their funders’ funders, and government agencies. They have hidden or deleted so much that was either true or a valid opinion, with massive consequences for the global discussion. In Breaking Together I gave the example of the suppression on YouTube of my interview with a World Health Organisation official where she mentioned a repurposed generic medicine with anti-viral effects. I also provided the example of Facebook suppressing the more ‘alarmist’ readings of climatology since 2020, which are already proving to be more accurate than the consensus view at the time.
Without free speech we don’t have democracy, or the chance for a more intelligent society. What that means is quite stark, and is worth stating clearly. Free speech involves the freedom to be factually incorrect in public, to offend with one’s views, and to say something that doesn’t instruct a crime but which someone else might hear before they commit a crime. If freedom of speech doesn’t include all of that then we are on the slippery slope to authoritarianism, where someone or some group with power decides what is allowed to be said. One must start with that principle and before considering cultural concerns and specific country laws around fair advertising, hate speech, harassment and bullying, defamation, incitement to violence, nudity, violent imagery, bad mouthing royalty or religion, amongst other concerns. Without a primary commitment to free speech, a network of agencies that have the ear of US BigTech firms will increasingly control the digital public sphere in countries around the globe, thereby ending the sovereignty of those nations, not just their democracies.
Nasty speech will occur online as it does in the rest of life and it would be beneficial to help people to stand up to that, including providing citizens with advice on laws on bullying and defamation, and legal aid (or cheap legal insurance) for poor people to act if bullied or defamed. I say that as someone who has been publicly defamed over the last five years, sometimes by influential people, and have decided not to take legal action despite the psychological distress, impact on friendships, funding and income. Even with that experience I’m more concerned that people can’t find out about my views because they are being ‘visibility filtered’.
With free speech centered as a core principle, what then could be done to improve the contribution of alternative media in this era of intensifying societal disruption? I think there are implications for the content producers themselves, the big platforms, and intergovernmental agreements. In the rest of this essay on how to raise the quality of dialogue around the world in this new media landscape, I want to share some ideas on what could be done about it.
A code of conduct involves conviction not bravado
Raging against the authoritarians in government, the egos of bigtech billionaires, the bias of legacy media, and the greed of their shareholders, are all warranted, and is a hot topic amongst popular alternative media pundits. However, now that some of those alternative pundits reach tens of millions of viewers, merely raging against others for their failures on independence, accuracy, curiosity and accountability is not enough. To say they are merely sharing opinions is nonsense, when any opinion involves claims about facts and can have a massive influence. Therefore, it is time for popular alternative pundits to lead by demonstrating their own responsibility.
As viewers, wouldn’t it be good to know that alternative media would consistently admit it whenever they got anything wrong? Wouldn’t it be good to know that it will not be the government or bigtech platforms deciding what we see from them? That’s where a code of conduct comes in. Typically when a sector becomes a significant activity in society, key persons and organisations get together to establish what they think are good standards of practice. There are already some initiatives in this area, such as from Podcasters United.
Signatories to its code covers matters of transparency on ownership, sponsorship and conflicts of interest, as well as ethical content creation, fact-checking and being responsive to any listener concerns. Their code might not be the most appropriate for the top shows on Youtube, for instance, but it is a useful example.
Any code would need to use existing mechanisms for swift, easy and effective implementation. It would also need an organisation, partly funded by signatories to the code, which would enable and oversee its implementation. As an example, let us return to Jordan Petersen’s YouTube channel. Let’s say that once again he hosts someone like Bjorn Lomberg, who says we don’t need to worry about climate change that much as more people die of cold weather than warm weather. That conveys the false view that climate change only produces warmer weather, rather than producing weather extremes of all kinds, including extreme cold periods due to destabilisation of the jet stream. If Peterson’s YouTube channel was signed up to a voluntary code, then if a complaint was made to the organisation managing the code, and they assessed it as both valid and substantial, then either he or a colleague could produce a ‘video short’ correcting this claim, within a week, and there would be a link to this correction in the notes of the original video, as well as from a ‘YouTube card’ that would appear in the original video at the moment the false claim is made. Such a self-regulation system would also involve an independent panel for disputes about compliance, as there will be instances of disagreement. The organisation managing the system might itself seek to be accredited for its integrity in upholding the code.
The existence of such a system would be one way for some popular alternative media pundits to operationalize and demonstrate their commitment to accuracy and to not misleading their audiences. The way that many popular pundits like to present themselves as rebels means it would be surprising if they took the lead. However, this isn’t only relevant to the most popular shows. Specialist alternative media on environmental and social issues aren’t immune to getting things wrong. One example was after the US presidential election when a blog incorrectly and illogically claimed election fraud had occurred with Elon Musk’s involvement. When the source was presented as a data scientist, and as one amongst many with the same view, and their data not interrogated, and no other opinions sought, the story was augmented and given the aura of truth. When journalists work for publishers and broadcasters they would need to participate in accountability processes, and so a code of conduct for their independent work makes perfect sense.
It is obvious that adherence to a code wouldn’t mean that the popular alternative media will suddenly be brave enough to address difficult topics that are the most relevant to us – such as the truth of increasing climate chaos – but it would increase confidence in what they produce and undermine the rationale for censorship from either BigTech or the state.
BigTech regulation
In the New Year, Facebook announced that they mistakenly censored facts about the pandemic and other issues, and so would be switching to a ‘community notes’ approach to combating misinformation and disinformation. That triggered a lot of discussion about the responsibility of BigTech, which was already heating up in response to the strident political commentary from the billionaire X-owner Elon Musk. Some politicians and bureaucrats have been using this rising concern to advance legislation that would require more censorship of content by BigTech. But governments directing censorship is not something to be welcomed by anyone who understands the basic requirements of free speech and democracy, as described above. So what should be done? Knowing that corporations and governments will tend to produce ideas that align with their own self interest, it would be good for civil society to articulate what it wants on the enabling and governance of information sharing and to then seek that as an international standard, given the global reach of the platforms.
I jotted down some ideas on what could be done. That means for an essay that started by discussing Mel Gibson’s fixation on hairdos, I’m about to get a bit technical. That’s because I think it useful to demonstrate what a fair approach to this topic could include. It is not outlandish to envisage an international convention agreed by governments that would mean they require large social media companies to:
- provide transparency about content moderation policies, algorithms, decisions and outcomes, to enable public scrutiny of any sentiment promotion, censorship or censorship-like activities and effects;
- provide transparency on implementation of jurisdiction-specific restrictions on speech, which differ greatly, such as on nudity, pornography, hate speech, incitement to violence; combined with commitments not to over-apply relevant laws in order to censor views (on behalf of any government or organisation);
- provide transparency on the forms of political content and its micro-targeting of audiences;
- never delete, hide or suppress content without the user being told, and never to suspend or delete a user without a specific reason being provided and a system of rapid appeal made available to them;
- involve and empower users in fact checking and moderating, whereby ‘community notes’ are added on any content (including political adverts);
- ensure that when these ‘community notes’ identify legally-proscribed (likely criminal) forms of speech, then there is rapid process for restricting content visibility;
- to provide incentives for content producers with a sizable following to sign up to relevant codes of conduct for self-regulation (one like I mentioned above);
- to enable some diversity in the content suggested by a platform (rather than the current promotion of similar content which leads to the ‘balkanization’ of audiences).
If adopted, these measures would go some way to reducing the impact of either misinformation and disinformation without consolidating either the global corporate manipulation of our public dialogue or the interference of the state. Unfortunately the power of the BigTech oligarchs might now be both so extensive and opaque that they can undermine any such move against their monopolistic positions.
Becoming capable of learning from disasters
The LA Fires occurred after the worst fires in recorded history in Canada, Greece, Australia and other countries in the last few years. Because they hit regularly around the world, we are becoming normalised to news of weather-related disasters. Whereas these events could be opportunities for serious conversation about how societies might adapt to an era of societal disruption and collapse, both our legacy and alternative media avoid the seriousness of what is occurring. That happens because of the economic incentives they experience rather than any failings of character. Those of us who know otherwise can encourage civil society organisations to articulate a vision for a media landscape based on principles of free speech, self-regulation and the diversity of voices. Based on the principle of free speech, both codes of conduct for content producers and clearer international rules for BigTech behaviour could help that. However, in themselves, such initiatives won’t help the people who ‘hold the mic’ in our societies to address the most painful and pressing issues of our time. That’s where character comes in. Because the collapse of industrial consumer societies is simply too distressing and confusing for many people to engage with, even if they don’t have an audience to please or care for.
According to Jem’s criteria, BRAVE NEW EUROPE is a paragon of virtue among independent media. The problem is that readers want the hate and reassuring lies – and are eager to pay for it. The inconvenient truth is unattractive and worthless. As with stopping Israel’s genocide in Gaza, you have to put your actions and money where your mouth is. Not even 1% of our readers financially support us. The haters and the liars do much better. Maybe it is time for change here too.
To donate to BRAVE NEW EUROPE please go HERE

Be the first to comment