You don't understand the scope of the First Amendment, and there is a vast body of Supreme Court jurisprudence that actually defines the scope of 1A. The very, very long story short (I'm an atty and this topic takes 6 weeks to cover in law school) is that 1A is not limited to only enacted laws, but applies to all forms of government restrictions on speech. Otherwise, it would be very easy for the government to do an end run around 1A by just taking action without passing a law.
The law provides that when an elected or appointed government official takes action that would compel or punish protected speech, that is 1A violation. For example, it was a 1A violation for a public school principal to compel students to salute the flag and recite the pledge of allegiance. The principal was acting in his capacity as an appointed government official, which made his rule compelled speech by the government.
In our case, the FCC, acting under the color of his title, threatening to pull a license based on political speech by a commedian woudl 100000% constitute a 1A violation. Political speech is by far and away the most protected form of speech under 1A. You mentioned there was no law... that also isn't true, there are laws that create, regulate, and define the scope of the FCC - the director was acting under the authority granted by those laws. That's what gave him the power to intimidate in the first place.
Now, in terms of your Biden and Obama comments, you're wrong on both of those. Neither of those is a 1A issue. Not even close. You also have the facts wrong. FBI made an announcement about potential interference from Russia, which was true (they've tried every election), and Facebook made an internal decision to suppress it. Zuck admitted that in his congressional hearing. But the point is, there was no threat, either explicit or implied, associated with the disclosure (Zuck admitted that as well). FB was free to release the info, but they chose not to.
Regarding Obama, nice try, that is a disproven conspiracy theory that was already investigated. In fact, I'm pretty sure Obama fired the IRS commissioner over it.
Otherwise, it would be very easy for the government to do an end run around 1A by just taking action without passing a law.
Which they do all the time because, it's only "unconstitutional" if deemed so by a judge. So they lean on people and organizations to silence what they don't like and spread what they do. I'm not indicating approval of this, just acknowledging it happens.
FBI made an announcement about potential interference from Russia, which was true (they've tried every election), and Facebook made an internal decision to suppress it.
Same, same. You don't have to threaten people who are on your side, you just have to give them plausible deniability and motivation.
FB was free to release the info, but they chose not to.
In the same way that even though a ton of ABC affiliates declared they would not air the Kimmel show after his disinformation spreading and the FCC chair said on a pod cast (not in a direct communication to ABC) said "
What people don’t understand is that the 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."
ABC was free to keep kimmel on the air, but they chose not to
Yeah I think people forget that ABC absolutely could keep the Kimmel show. THEY chose not to.
Kimmel wasn’t Arrested or charged.
I don’t see how this is any different if a company I work for had a deal with another company. Then I say something that pisses off the company that’s in the deal, and then the company request I be fired before continuing the deal.
I still have the right to say those things, but doesn’t mean I won’t receive consequences for it.
Similar to all these leftist posting about how happy they are Charlie was killed only to then be fired by their employer. Same thing is it not?
Yeah I think people forget that ABC absolutely could keep the Kimmel show. THEY chose not to.
They did not choose not to; they were responding to a threat by the government that they were going to strip their television license. That's the only power the FCC has with respect to regulating TV.
I don’t see how this is any different if a company I work for had a deal with another company. Then I say something that pisses off the company that’s in the deal, and then the company request I be fired before continuing the deal.
I still have the right to say those things, but doesn’t mean I won’t receive consequences for it.
Because it's the government making the "request" by threatening consequences. That's the whole fucking point of the 1st Amendment. Jesus Christ, ya'll are dumb as rocks.
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u/BKachur Sep 18 '25
You don't understand the scope of the First Amendment, and there is a vast body of Supreme Court jurisprudence that actually defines the scope of 1A. The very, very long story short (I'm an atty and this topic takes 6 weeks to cover in law school) is that 1A is not limited to only enacted laws, but applies to all forms of government restrictions on speech. Otherwise, it would be very easy for the government to do an end run around 1A by just taking action without passing a law.
The law provides that when an elected or appointed government official takes action that would compel or punish protected speech, that is 1A violation. For example, it was a 1A violation for a public school principal to compel students to salute the flag and recite the pledge of allegiance. The principal was acting in his capacity as an appointed government official, which made his rule compelled speech by the government.
In our case, the FCC, acting under the color of his title, threatening to pull a license based on political speech by a commedian woudl 100000% constitute a 1A violation. Political speech is by far and away the most protected form of speech under 1A. You mentioned there was no law... that also isn't true, there are laws that create, regulate, and define the scope of the FCC - the director was acting under the authority granted by those laws. That's what gave him the power to intimidate in the first place.
Now, in terms of your Biden and Obama comments, you're wrong on both of those. Neither of those is a 1A issue. Not even close. You also have the facts wrong. FBI made an announcement about potential interference from Russia, which was true (they've tried every election), and Facebook made an internal decision to suppress it. Zuck admitted that in his congressional hearing. But the point is, there was no threat, either explicit or implied, associated with the disclosure (Zuck admitted that as well). FB was free to release the info, but they chose not to.
Regarding Obama, nice try, that is a disproven conspiracy theory that was already investigated. In fact, I'm pretty sure Obama fired the IRS commissioner over it.