[BitwiseFool]

People might not have the appetite to watch Christopher Hitchens, but I submit to you this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcJxN1VlcuA

It's okay to interview "crackpots". There is this pervasive notion that merely letting such people voice their views to a wide audience is a moral hazard. That these people are so obviously wrong that they need to be silenced because the public at-large is so simpleminded they cannot reason for themselves and will ultimately believe whatever is presented to them.

[sfteus]

I keep seeing the same general sentiment through these types of threads, something in the nature of "if the scientists are so sure they're right, they shouldn't be afraid of mis-information because only their data will stand up to scrutiny."

The fact that Rogan has these types of people on his show is not the issue, and just as you say it's fine to interview them. The issue is that he tends to take a backseat and let the interviewee make whatever claims without any push-back[1]. Simply having an episode with a pro-vaccine person and another episode with an anti-vaccine person is implying that both viewpoints are equal, which in my opinion they are not. HN is sort of unique in that likely a large portion of the user base is interested in researching claims more in depth after hearing them; I would wager that your average person does not do this and will likely take what they hear at face value. If they did that due diligence for any claim, it's unlikely we would have such a large list of "common knowledge" that is actually false.[2]

W/R/T Rogan specifically, his show reminds me of a decade-old Youtube comedy video, "Both Sides" by SMBC Theater[3]. In it, the show host organizes a debate between a Caltech Biologist, and a "Scientator" from the "Christ Rode a Dinosaur and I Have Pictures Institute," another debate between an MD and a man who believes all ailments can be cured by sticking steak knives in your eyes, and a final debate between an actual journalist and the host's intern, who is described as "anti-rape, bedwetting, and dreaming about their own mother naked," implying the journalist is of the opposite viewpoint. This is obviously farcical, but is meant to prompt the question: at what point does someone with a large viewer base have a responsibility to curate themselves and their guests?

Circling back, again, I don't think hosting people with fringe-views is an issue. I do believe a host has a responsibility to critique all viewpoints on their show, or to bring in someone who can do so if they are not able to. In my opinion, re-establishing the Fairness Doctrine[4] is a necessity and would satisfy both sides of the free-speech / censorship debate. Non-mainstream views would be able to be explored as long as there is an opposing viewpoint there to critique it at the source (as opposed to the "mis-information" warnings now that show up after the majority of exposure has already passed). I also believe that it should be expanded to apply to web-based media, though I don't have any good ideas on what exactly the criteria should be for it to apply (ie, a Youtuber with 100 subscribers probably shouldn't be, but Joe Rogan and other large podcasters probably should be). Advertising in large web services (ie, Google, Facebook, Youtube, etc) should probably also be subjected to this rule.

---

[1]: From what I've heard from discussions of Rogan (I'm not a fan of podcasts in general), he tends to go even further by pushing back against science based interviewees while letting anti-science interviewees basically have an open platform. However, I'm trying to make this comment assuming I'm mis-informed about that and he simply lets all guests say their peace.

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions

[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGArqoF0TpQ (NSFW)

[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine

[jayspell]

Did you actually watch the episodes in question? The big difference is that those Rogan has on actually have credentials to back up their claims, and they provide evidence in the form of studies, it is the opposite of what you've laid out here. On the other side the expert from CNN seemed extremely uninformed.

[dekhn]

From what I can tell (I don't watch Rogan, so I get a lot of this indirectly through articles) at least some of the experts on the show make claims and then cite work that has been retracted, or is trivially verifiable as pseudoscience, or just not convincing/supporting. But it's presented uncritically as such and the viewers really have no way to make a reasoned decision one way or the other.

[jayspell]

If you watch the episodes that are controversial the citations are WHO or studies from Israel / Great Britain / Canada (I don't know them verbatim but this is what I remember - been a month or so). I would make the claim that if you actually watch these episodes the two guests sound very reasonable and have no citations that are "crackpot" in nature. Getting information indirectly is a big problem. He talks to people for three hours, how do you condense this to a five minute read? Before dismissing actually take a look. Watch the episode and see if anything they say sounds unreasonable.

[dekhn]

"The two guests sound very reasonable". Do you mean Malone? https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/jan/06/who-robert-ma... sums it up; he's made numerous statements that are almost certainly false.

"the citations are WHO or studies from Israel / Great Britain / Canada". Discreted doctors can cite discredited studies on Rogan's show with absolutely no pushback. They can also cite good studies but suggest a wrong conclusion based on their own interpretation.

Note: I'm a PhD-trained scientist with extensive background in medical biology. I'm obviously not the target for Rogan's show, but what I can say is that I'm a damn good judge of bullshit and Rogan is allowing people to state total bullshit with zero checking if the statements are scientifically accurate or not.

[jayspell]

Can you highlight some of the BS?