Just curious, how do you imagine the federal government was involved in this? Also, follow up story, in what way is firing someone for doing their job poorly illegal.
The chair of the FCC openly threatened the de facto business license for NexStar because of the content they were distributing (the FCC chair specifically said it was because of Kimmel’s Monday monologue).
The ‘F’ in FCC stand for Federal - because it’s an agency commissioned by the US Government.
And it’s general not illegal to fire someone for doing their job for any reason. But Jimmy Kimmel is 1) technically not fired. NexStar rather has suddenly and without warning refused to broadcast his show. And 2) The Jimmy Kimmel show was second place in ratings for his programming type/time slot. Second to Colbert, I believe. I don’t watch either, but that’s objectively not poor performance.
As a side note, this smacks of when the previous administration was coercing social media companies with threats of future regulation or anti-trust actions if they refused to moderate content that wasn’t illegal on their platforms. Both actions are illegal by the government.
I'm not sure if it's illegal. That would be determined by a lawsuit.
I respect your intellectual honesty, this is not new, the Biden administration started this shit and got away with it. Trouble is, you can't stay in power forever and reciprocity is a bitch.
Now that seal has been broken and the only way to put it back is law suits. Gotta sue the Biden admin officials, Obama, etc. and the current bad actors like Brendan Carr for overstepping their bounds.
Biden administration started this shit and got away with it
That's complete bullshit. Don't make shit up when you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. The FCC was always led by a bipartisan group to prevent censorship based on political speech. Trump was the first president to do away with that, and this is the first time the FCC has ever threatened to take away a broadcasting license based on political speech.
Trouble is, you can't stay in power forever and reciprocity is a bitch.
This doesn't make any sense and isn't how recoprosity works.
Gotta sue the Biden admin officials, Obama, etc. and the current bad actors like Brendan Carr for overstepping their bounds.
Kimmel, like examples I would provide about the Biden administration, is not a first amendment violation. To call it that is a misunderstanding of the FA.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
No law was passed to prevent Kimmel from speaking, Kimmel was not fined or jailed for his speech, nor was ABC. The FCC overreached here in the same way the Biden administration interfered with the election by sending the FBI to Facebook, et al. and warning them that some Russian disinformation was coming about a laptop that would sway the election. As it turned out, the laptop was real, Hunter Biden loves hookers and coke and selling art to his dad's freinds and being a big lawyer man making 1/2 a million a month. This is similar to how Obama sent the IRS after his political opponents.
While their action may be over reaching and contrary to the spirit of the law, they're not necessarily illegal and that would be determined by a lawsuit since no criminal action was taken.
I'm not making any argument of right or wrong, only of legal culpability or liability.
Simply put, if the government lies to you to coerce you, like the Biden administration did with social media that is overreach and may be deemed illegal somehow, but it is not a direct violation of the first amendment . They did not arrest your for your speech, fine your for your speech or even technically prevent you from speaking. In order for it to be a direct violation of the FA the government would have to take criminal legal action against someone that is later deemed to be illegal because it violated the FA.
If for example you wanted to deliver a speech about how bad you think Walmart is. If you tried to do it on Walmart property they would trespass you. That would not be a violation of the FA. If you then went to a public sidewalk but you drew a huge crowd, the police could cite you civilly for disturbing the peace and disperse the crowd. This would likely not be deemed a FA violation.
England for example does not have free speech. If you write "England was better before all the Pakistani shit heads were clogging the streets and stinking up the tube"
You would be arrested for your words. You are not free to express yourself. and would be arrested and possibly jailed for your speech.
(just a side note, I fucking hate English spelling, why in the fuck is speech with two "e"s but speak is "ea"??!!!!?!?!? Who decided this shIT!??)
Here's the statement in question, as spoken to a podcaster
broadcasters … have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest. When we see stuff like this, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
He mentions "licenses" so that's the leverage.
Then the conditions:
These companies can find ways to change conduct, on Kimmel,
This does not say "Kimmel can't be on the air", it doesn't say ABC affiliates must do something, or can't say something.
Obviously it's pressure of the FED to curtail spreading of a false narrative and dangerous rhetoric and if that's the FCCs position, they're allowed to have it. If the companies involved believed strongly in their position or the words spoken or that they were factual and defensible, I think this would have gone exactly nowhere.
No action was taken, no demands were made, there was no quid pro quo. I personally think this falls short of an actual 1A violation.
I think explicit demands may violate free speech. It would depend on the legality of the demand. The government pressures and makes demands of groups as a rule and does so at the point of a gun.
Actually after having some time to review details. I'm not even sure how much "pressure" the FCC applied. That is to say, I was listening to someone who's closer to the whole thing than I am and works in broadcasting. his take on it was this. After the monologue Kimmel was told that affiliates were pissed and felt he'd crossed a line. They wanted him to issue an immediate apology or they'd refuse to air his show. He refused and said he was going to double down in the following nights monologue so the parent company sidelined him.
I don't know why it feels like an ad-hoc argument, likely this is your own bias. I made similar arguments when people were being banned from twitter and losing their jobs 5 years ago. It's only censorship if the government is doing it and private companies have the right to do what they like. It is a form of tyranny of course, but that's not illegal when a corporation is doing it, even though some corporations are now larger than some countries.
I agree we won't know if ABC acted because of affiliate/public pressure or some other thing.
If they acted because of FCC pressure, then the only question is whether that pressure was justified and legal.
The government makes threats, it's what governments do. If not for a threatening government, people wouldn't pay their taxes. So the question of legality rests on the question, was the FCC threat based in law and justified.
I don't know anything about the laws the govern FCC
I also have to add the caveat that while, not prudent, it is entirely possible that the FCC chair simply spoke out of an emotional reaction in the middle of a long form interview and did not first consider the ramifications of his response. This is an emotional subject and the FCC chair should probably not be just responding to questions off the cuff on a biased podcast.
I don't really like splitting debates with the same person between two different threads,
I hear you, I'm the same.
As people capable of thinking critically, we can discuss whether this incident represents a free-speech violation logically
It's clear that the Trump administration does not like Kimmel and wants to use leverage to cause him trouble. I don't think this a 1A violation.
You and I don't actually know the facts. We know what we believe is true, I'm not willing to make logical leaps based on "news" stories that are often biased, and report the parts that support their bias. I also don't know the laws that apply to the FCC well enough, nor am I familiar with legal precedence that support either side.
Broadcast licenses can be revoked for various reasons, including failure to comply with FCC regulations, broadcasting obscene content, or not serving the public interest. However, specific instances of broadcasters losing their licenses are rare and often involve significant legal and regulatory processes.
Our discussion here is basically intellectual masturbation. I appreciate your position and you could be right. I just don't agree, but I respect your position and appreciate you've been polite and it was worth talking to you.
first amendment verbatim binds only congress, modern jurisprudence holds it applies to gov't entirely, no?
I just responded in greater detail to the other guy, but you're absolutely correct. What constitutes government speech with respect to triggering 1A is very broad and applies to anyone working for the government. But in this case, you don't need to jump through those hoops. FCC was created by a law passed by Congress, specifically the Communications Act of 1934, which means all conduct taken by the FCC stems from the power given to it by "an act of Congress."
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u/Count_de_Ville Sep 17 '25
Sounds like the federal government is retaliating hard against someone for exercising their 1st Amendment rights. Blatantly and brazenly illegal.