Episode
Democracy at risk: The big banks censoring free speech
- Podcast
- Media Confidential
- Published
- Apr 13, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1612
- Processing state
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Summary
In this week’s episode of Media Confidential, Alan and Lionel are joined by Rainey Reitman, writer and civil liberties advocate. She is the co-founder and president of the board of Freedom of the Press Foundation and is the author of Transaction Denied: Big Finance’s Power to Punish Speech . The three explore financial censorship: how companies like Visa, PayPal, and Mastercard have cut off support for journalists, activists and small media outlets and use their power to silence dissenting voices. What effect does this have on democracy? They discuss a number of cases, including the historic banking blockade that crippled WikiLeaks. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.