2 chapters across the catalog
An NGO called Tech Against Terrorism, funded by the United Nations, released a report in collaboration with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) regarding extremist use of podcasts. The research studied 18 podcasts over a 14-year period, claiming that the medium is used to normalize "hateful ideologies" and "anti-government" sentiment. The report highlights the difficulty of monitoring audio content compared to text or video.
The Tech Against Terrorism podcast discusses how the decentralized nature of RSS feeds allows "extremist" creators to bypass the content moderation of platforms like Spotify and Apple. The hosts mock the researchers for only recently discovering that podcasting was designed to be independent of centralized gatekeepers. The ability to "throw a file up" and reach a global audience is described by the NGO as a "subversive" distribution model.
