Can YouTube Debates Bring America Back Together? with Jubilee’s Jason Y. Lee

Can YouTube Debates Bring America Back Together? with Jubilee’s Jason Y. Lee

Mixed Signals from Semafor Media · 2025-04-11

In a YouTube landscape filled with podcasts and talking heads, Jubilee Media’s wild debate videos stand apart: A doctor debates 20 anti-vaxxers, Ben Shapiro debates 25 liberals, Pete Buttigieg debates 25 conservatives. But are these viral videos bringing a divided America back together or are they just profiting off of polarization? This week, Ben and Max bring on Jubilee’s founder and CEO, Jason Y. Lee, to talk about his vision for “radical empathy” for quite extreme views and how even dumb debates – between flat earthers and “round earthers,” for one – can be productive. They also discuss why the Biden White House censored parts of their video with Pete Buttigieg and the media lessons Democrats can learn for the next election.

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Mixed Signals from Semafor Media

Every Friday media reporter Max Tani and Semafor Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith pull back the curtain on the most important stories about media, revealing why you see and hear what you see and hear.

Mixed Signals from Semafor Media is supported by Think with Google.

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