# The Strangest Week (Plus the Attack on Free Speech) Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/to-the-contrary-with-charlie-sykes-7201870/the-strangest-week-plus-the-attack-on-free-speech Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/to-the-contrary-with-charlie-sykes-7201870/the-strangest-week-plus-the-attack-on-free-speech.md Podcast: [To The Contrary with Charlie Sykes](https://stenobird.com/podcast/to-the-contrary-with-charlie-sykes-7201870) Published: 2026-04-11T09:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/to-the-contrary/episodes/69d94ba379a641a1f3319321 Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/67a407e5340a5590cd2953ad/e/69d94ba379a641a1f3319321/media.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/to-the-contrary-with-charlie-sykes-7201870/episodes/the-strangest-week-plus-the-attack-on-free-speech Duration seconds: 3060 ## Resource Sarah McLaughlin is a Senior Scholar of Global Expression at FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), and author of Authoritarians in the Academy. She joins Charlie to explore the global threats to free speech, especially with recent developments in Turkey, the UK, and Australia, and their implications for free expression in the US. Also, Charlie summarizes one of the strangest weeks we've witnessed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/to-the-contrary-with-charlie-sykes-7201870/episodes/the-strangest-week-plus-the-attack-on-free-speech/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/to-the-contrary-with-charlie-sykes-7201870/the-strangest-week-plus-the-attack-on-free-speech.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.