It's fine if you can do it, but not everyone can. When he had Alex Jones on his podcast I actually had this debate with someone else, and I went to Facebook, I searched for discussions or posts of the video (you can do this right now too I guess), and the amount of people who actually believed Alex Jones is crazy, in some comment sections it probably was the majority of users.
You had people repeating everything from Jews running the world, to Sandy hook victims being actors, to pizzagate, and so on. Joe Rogan has 30 million listeners, he has a responsibility when it comes to what he puts out into the world. As it stands it basically a clearinghouse for bad ideas and conspiracy theories.
My distaste for Joe Rogan is the same as the parents in this thread - may times he is in over his head while his guest plainly states bullshit that goes unchallenged. Joe has shown he can push back but his style of interview isn't a debate.
However, the idea that Joe has a responsibility is something I heard and don't understand. Who bestow'd on Joe this responsibility? How has the responsibility changed from when he had 30,000 viewers? And why is he supposed to change his format?
I ask this question for two reasons. One, the very idea of saying "you can no longer talk about X because you have Y million viewers" is an odd sort of censorship. Does my Freedom of Speech end when I gain Y amount of followers? Two, when did the World become so helpless that Joe "Wow look at the size of that Gorilla" Rogan has become the Messiah of the people?
The basic idea of Joe Rogan’s responsibility goes like this:
Joe Rogan is engaged in an activity with potentially serious consequences. His audience size is such that, to make a contrived example, if a tenth of a percentage of his listeners become convinced by whatever jackass he gives a microphone to that, say, “the Jews” run the world and decide to “do something about it,” that’s 30,000 people deciding to “do something” as a result of Joe Rogan’s podcast, or roughly the population of a small city now contemplating violence against a particular group.
Joe Rogan has a responsibility because his actions potentially have effects on a large enough scale that it’s simply irresponsible for him to ignore them. He’s not legally obligated to fulfill that responsibility, but he should expect people to get angry at him over the consequences of his actions, as should we all.
Not a legal responsibility, an ethical one. Whether we like it or not, people tend to idolize public figures and believe what they say.
When people regularly tune in to his show, they may be exposed to a certain topic / idea for the first time, and their only exposure to this idea may be what Joe Rogan and his guest have to say. I would say he therefore has a moral obligation to TRY not to mislead his listeners.
I think if you're going to provide people a platform to spread their ideas, you have a responsibility to challenge what you believe to bad ideas, publicly (but also give the person the space to respond to your challenge). Allowing people greater reach in spreading bad ideas, unchecked, is irresponsible.
As the person running the show, that responsibility increases as your audience increases.
I still have yet to check out Rogan's show, but if he's just providing nutjobs a platform to spread lies and misinformation, without Rogan giving enough context, that's incredibly irresponsible of him.
I suspect that you’re dramatically overestimating the show’s ability to influence people. I doubt that those people went from level-headed, rational thought to believing Alex Jones conspiracy theories; I’m sure Joe Rogan’s show already had a huge audience of people that already believe that shit, and you’re just seeing it come out.
The idea that all media should be paternalistic and “contextualize” and/or censor what people hear may be harmful in the long-term. I think it just adds fuel to conspiracies, since they legitimately become something the media “doesn’t want anyone to know”.
I definitely don’t think all media should be an open platform like this, but having a more unfiltered channel (including for influential nuts of all sorts) serves a useful purpose. I think any effort expended should be focused on teaching people critical thinking, and not reasoning about any “responsibility” Joe Rogan might have. People are going to get a feed of crazy shit whether his show exists or not.
You had people repeating everything from Jews running the world, to Sandy hook victims being actors, to pizzagate, and so on. Joe Rogan has 30 million listeners, he has a responsibility when it comes to what he puts out into the world. As it stands it basically a clearinghouse for bad ideas and conspiracy theories.