“Views on First” is the Knight Institute’s flagship podcast. Each season, we invite leading legal scholars, practitioners, tech policy experts, and others to join us in conversations about some of the most pressing First Amendment issues in the ever-shifting expressive landscape of the digital age.

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Season 1: What happens when social media collides with the First Amendment?

Season 1 of the “Views on First” podcast begins with arguably the most famous Twitter handle of all—@realdonaldtrump—and the Knight Institute’s groundbreaking lawsuit establishing that the First Amendment bars public officials from blocking critics from their social media accounts. Over the course of five episodes, host Evelyn Douek—legal scholar and a self-described content-moderation nerd—talks to guests from the tech industry, legal practice, and academia about some of the thorniest questions that arise when social media collides with the First Amendment.

Full season here.

Season 2: War & Speech

The war in Israel and Gaza has unleashed a wave of censorship and suppression in the United States—including by government agencies and officials, university administrators, private companies, and cultural institutions. In season two of “Views on First: War & Speech,” host Jameel Jaffer talks to scholars, writers, advocates, and others about whether our system of free speech is failing us, and, if it is, why that’s so. How repressive is the climate we’re living in, really? Are there historical precedents for it? And how might the events unfolding now shift free speech culture and the boundaries of the First Amendment?

Full season here.

Season 3: Speech & the Border

Throughout history, governments have used international borders as justifications and pretexts for censorship and surveillance. During the Cold War, the United States government denied visas to foreign artists, writers, and scholars whose political views the government wanted to delegitimize or suppress. This practice was resurrected during the “war on terror.” Today, the government uses its expansive authority over the border to justify the surveillance of social media, the interrogation of travelers about their political and religious views, the search of travelers’ laptops and cellphones, the imposition of limits on Americans’ right to engage with foreign speakers and to access foreign communications platforms, and the suspension of the constitutional rules that would ordinarily apply to the surveillance of Americans’ emails and telephone calls. At the same time, technologies have reshaped what the border means, and how ideas and information travel across borders. Foreign governments have exercised their authority to reach through the U.S. border to try to influence Americans and suppress their own ex-patriots in new ways. On our third season, “Views on First: Speech & the Border,” hosts and Knight Institute attorneys Xiangnong (George) Wang, Anna Diakun, Ramya Krishnan, and Alex Abdo work through these challenges with the help of legal scholars, experts, and real people living at the intersection of speech and the border.

Full season here.