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Jan. 22, 2025: Civil digital discourse

We’re examining some of our given rights to certain freedoms.

But, how exactly do those freedoms work online? We sit with UMass professor Amir Houmansadr to learn about the nature of the TikTok ban, American digital censorship, and how game theories might help address data security breaches that everyone is nervous about.

We also head to Great Barrington where a theater full of 8th graders is getting a civics and civil rights lesson through a screening of the movie, “Selma,” directed by Ava DuVernay. To learn more about the importance of bringing the movie’s lessons into the present day both in and out of classrooms, we chat with Triplex Cinema creative director Ben Elliot, a handful of observant pre-teens, and Shriley Edgerton, founder of Jacob’s Pillow, community activist and post-movie conversation moderator.

And, we take our hearts back to Philadelphia with Word Nerd Emily Brewster as we delve further into the American Dialect Society’s picks for its many other words-of-the-year. Although there’s only one that gets to be the #1 word, much like other award shows, there’s a lot of other accolades that are given out when a room full of linguists and language enthusiasts come together.

Digital censorship
"Selma" at The Triplex
More words of the Year with Word Nerd

Christopher “Monte'' Belmonte is host and executive producer of NEPM's The Fabulous 413. He was born and raised in Massachusetts and has been a radio host in western Massachusetts for the last 20 years — the last 17 of them as host of Mornings with Monte on The River 93.9/WRSI.
Kaliis Smith is a radio host and producer for NEPM's The Fabulous 413. She was most recently host and producer at The River 93.9/WRSI where she appeared on Mornings with Monte for the Nerdwatch segment and hosted weekday evenings.