You’ve probably heard about the censorship being carried out by the large tech platforms like: Apple, Google, Twitter and Facebook. You might think that your podcast app hasn’t yet joined in on the censorship action, but depending on your go-to podcast app your trust may be misplaced.
Podcasts added to the iTunes search index must meet certain content requirements or else they will be rejected. Being rejected by Apple will keep a podcast from appearing in podcast apps that use the iTunes podcast search index. However, certain radical developers like Marco Arment have decided to take that censorship up another level and block certain podcasts from search results based on his own criteria in addition to Apple’s.
However, unlike Google, who does publish statistics on the reasons and number of take down requests they receive, Marco at Overcast does not provide any transparency to podcasters who have had their podcast shadowbanned by his decree.
The fact that the extent of this censorship is being hidden by Marco makes it difficult to track down which podcasts are being censored, but I recently stumbled into one while searching for one of my favorite podcasts on Overcast.
The Real Ass Podcast is a popular podcast hosted by the founder of the Gas Digital Podcast Network and it’s easily found by searching for the podcast on the Apple podcast app (Of course it’s easily found on HyperCatcher as well, but we’ll get into that later).
However, when you search for any combination of “Real Ass Podcast” on Overcast you will not find this podcast… it’s been shadowbanned.
We may never know what transgressions Luis J Gomez committed against Marco Arment to get his podcast banned from the platform. What jokes told on a comedy podcast will get your podcast delisted from Overcast search and how many other comedy podcasts are currently censored on the Overcast platform?
While censorship is on the rise in the US, it’s important to know that there are developers who stand up for free speech. The Podcast Index is an alternative Podcast search index with a commitment to free speech. This is the podcast index that’s used by the HyperCatcher app and you have a commitment from me as the developer of the app to not censor podcasts returned from the Podcast Index search.
If you’re interested in using a podcast app with a commitment to Free Speech check out HyperCatcher today!
