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In lending, there’s a legal concept of disparate impact, which means even if your policy didn’t explicitly intend to harm this group of people, you implicitly / indirectly impacted them, and that also counts as a bad thing just like explicit impact.
Basically, you don’t have to prove intent, you only have to prove outcome.
…It was a roundabout analogy, but I think the same thing applies here. I don’t need the administration to say, “we did that because we don’t like him.” There is enough impact for me to conclude culpability, regardless of whether I can prove intent.
(Edit: maybe a better concept here is circumstantial evidence)
The FCC chairmen threatened ABC: https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/brendan-carr-abc-fcc-jimmy-...
Oma has had the 1000 yard stare for the last 10 years.
None of this is unclear.
I said
> I'm 100% supportive of disagreeing, debating, peacefully protesting, ignoring and even mocking ideas we don't agree with but I draw a hard line at shouting down, deplatforming or canceling them.
So we agree. What's there to be "Sorry" about?
> What First Amendment is trying to protect
My post doesn't mention the First Amendment or the troubling matter of the FCC chair comments about individual speech. I chose not to post about those because I wanted to focus on the other kind of free speech which doesn't involve the government or the First Amendment and isn't even a matter of law. It's about the morality and ethics of how consistently we as private citizens actively support fellow citizens we disagree with in being heard - even when they're offensive, hateful and wrong. It's about whether we should support or oppose private citizens canceling other citizens.
Frankly, I can't tell if we agree or not. I suspect it depends on exactly what you mean by the word "pressure". If "pressure" is limited to "disagreeing, debating, peacefully protesting, ignoring and even mocking" then we are in total agreement. If "pressure" includes "shouting down, deplatforming or canceling" then you're a canceler and we disagree. If it includes wiggle room which might lead to silencing viewpoints you oppose, you're a closet canceler - in which case the vagueness of the term "pressure" and being "sorry" make more sense. On the other hand, if "pressure" includes opposing even those you agree with most the moment they want to silence those you disagree with (instead of debating and countering their bad, wrong ideas) - then we're soulmates.
That is what the GP took issue with and I do as well. The protection of free speech from government reprisal is a right in this country, and it has a certain meaning. Trying to equivocate it with your vision of civility and politeness only serves to muddy the waters when it comes to discourse about these issues. If the right wing has had its free speech (your definition) impinged by rational people before Trump took office again, then why wouldn't they be able to take away free speech (the constitutional definition) now?
Frankly, I'm fed up with so many on the right and the left selectively abusing both constitutional free speech rights and civil free speech culture when it's to their advantage and then suddenly caring about them again when either is turned against them. In the 1960s the left elevated the ideal of civil free speech culture by eloquently articulating why it's so important: the rights enshrined in our constitution are safest when also enshrined in our culture. And yet in the last 20 years many on the left rationalized selectively abandoning their decades-long commitment to both F1A rights and free speech culture. And as cancel culture became an epidemic of self-destructive purity spirals, the right suddenly decided they care passionately about free speech culture. Then when political partisans weaponized stringent enforcement of document marking and classification regulations against Trump, he cried "Lawfare" and bleated about the abuse of government power - only to then turn around and pioneer all-new tactics in retaliation. And yet almost no one on either side has shown any self-awareness of how their own side has abandoned any pretense of standing by a principle, if doing so would get in the way of retaliating or, conversely, playing the injured party. What a shit-show all around.
The reason I didn't focus on F1A is because this latest transgression isn't even a good F1A case. It's almost certainly not even enforceable. The FCC guy will just argue being interviewed on a podcast isn't an official act. IMHO, Kimmel was "canceled" off the air by right wing-leaning network affiliate owners because FCC guy's vague threat gave them a fig leaf of justification AND it's within their legal rights. I think it sucks they did that - just as much as it sucked when many on the left canceled right wing viewpoints - even though it was equally within their legal rights.
To me, this whole episode is just more tit-for-tat tactical partisan political point-scoring. The only part of this that's really worth focusing on is it was easier for Disney/ABC's management to cave to those right-leaning affiliate concerns (despite not being right-leaning themselves), in part, because our culture no longer values civil free speech as a moral/ethical standard. Nowadays, as long as it's arguably within your legal rights, canceling someone for saying things you don't like is no longer even considered "a shitty thing to do." Why? Because BOTH sides have now done it when it suited them and then rationalized their behavior. So yeah, it's instructive how many responses to my original post are from those who only want to focus on the F1A rights aspect of this regrettable shit show (despite it not even being a prosecutable transgression). And, wow... the euphemistic vagaries and rationalizations deployed to justify the moral ethics of censorious cancellation are inventive. So much dancing around the clear, bright-line distinction between passively "not having to listen to" disagreeable speech, and actively suppressing that speech (or cheering on those who suppress it). I actually take it as a good sign some still feel a bit uncomfortable just outright admitting they would actively ban even the possibility of other viewpoints ever being heard (presumably under the naive assumption such social, cultural or legal power would only ever be in the hands of those they agree with). It's terribly sad that majorities on both sides seem to have abandoned civil free speech culture as even a principle worth selectively paying insincere lip-service to. It appears, as a society, we're actually choosing a Thunderdome brawl of discourse where it's acceptable for your "good side" to fight dirty, hit below the belt and even entirely silence their "bad side" by any means available: social, cultural, political, economic or legal - as long as you can technically skirt F1A prosecution. A very low bar indeed.
Actually it was a couple of big ABC affiliate owners that started the avalanche, and ABC followed…not any government pressure.
You can certainly speculate that the these affiliates had an ulterior motive in their actions to curry favor with the Trump administration, but it’s not unreasonable nor unheard of for station affiliates to make decisions about content and programming to avoid alienating or offending a large portion of the markets they serve or the advertisers that pay their bills.
In the end this is about eyeballs and advertising dollars and it’s no more nefarious than that.
This is highly misleading: those affiliates were responding to government pressure. The FCC is currently making key decisions for at least one of them[1], following recent decisions by the same government to attack other media organizations, install government political officers at other companies, or forced other companies to provide money or ownership. There’s absolutely no way those decisions were not made without factoring the current environment in.
1. https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2025/nexstar-tegna-fcc...
1. FCC Chairman Carr threatens licensed broadcasters (i.e. affiliates that have a license with the FCC) telling them they should stop running Kimmel and tell Disney they're doing it because the FCC may pull their license[1]
2. Nexstar, an affiliate broadcaster, issues a statement in response to Carr’s comments saying they're not going to broadcast Kimmel
3. ABC yanks Kimmel
Brah.
Brendan Carr, the current head of the FCC publicly threatened to go after ABC for his speech, then ABC pulled the show.[1] Walks, talks, and acts likes government pressure being used for censorship against views they don’t agree with
[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fcc-chair-threatens-jimm...
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/fcc-jimmy-kimme...
So yes, seems there was a middle step between Brendan Carr on a podcast, and top level ABC decision making.
https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2025/nexstar-tegna-fcc...
> “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
> Carr suggested that the FCC could pursue news distortion allegations against local licensees.
> “Frankly I think it’s past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney, and say ’We are going to preempt — we are not going to run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out,’” he said. “It’s time for them to step up and say this garbage — to the extent that that’s what comes down the pipe in the future — isn’t something that serves the needs of our local communities.”
(for those that don't know, ABC doesn't have an FCC license, broadcasting stations (affiliates) do, so that's exactly who he's using his unconstitutional leverage over)
https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/brendan-carr-abc-fcc-jimmy-...
Yes or no?
You don’t need to answer as that’s rhetorical. It’s obvious the answer is yes. Democratic governments try to avoid making public statements like that because the general public cannot tell if it was because of the government or a happy coincidence that the party being pressured just happened to comply. Because it can’t be discerned even the appearance of using government power like that degrades the rule of law
So “the FCC” did not apply pressure, the chairman did. He has a lot of influence and can set the agenda for the commission but he needs a majority of the commissioners to revoke a broadcast license. That is a super rare occurrence and would be unlikely.
And in fact, no individual politician should be capable of acting unilaterally for the government, so I guess they are all off scott free.
When you make the leap from Carr to “the FCC” it’s roughly like if Sen. John Thune said something and you attributed his words to “the senate”.
Otherwise the protection of free speech means nothing, because politicians can merely threaten you all day but never pull the trigger on an obviously disallowed act while implying that you'll make trouble for involved actors which has a degree of separation, enough to avoid it being a direct cause and effect. And in this case Carr did exactly that by threatening to make trouble for affiliates like Nexstar -- as long as your threat has a material impact (like causing a company to adhere to the desired action to avoid further red tape in their acquisition approvals), it would be enough to quell constitutionally protected speech.
Yes the individual agents of any organization aren’t the entire organization themselves. However to argue that the agent of an organization acting under the color of their role in said organization doesn’t represent said organization, is some sort of “the card says moops” level of sophistry
That is absolutely government pressure.
Think about it this way: if a police officer came by your business and suggested that a donation to their annual ball might lead to faster response if you called 911, would you immediately conclude that the rest of the force would strongly condemn that appearance of corruption or would the mere fact that they were comfortable saying it make you worry that the sentiment was shared by other officers?
Part of what the current administration has been doing is normalizing levels of politicization and corruption which would previously have been unthinkable in modern America. Actions like this are considered in light of the broader context where the President is openly shaking down businesses and the AG has made it clear that they’re his personal lawyer first and the nation’s top law enforcement official only to the extent that it serves his goals.
Is your position that no one can ever infer the intent behind someone’s actions unless you can read their mind?
The number of people in these comments pretending not to see what happened is flabbergasting.
ABC may have feared retaliation from Trump, but I guarantee they fear retaliation from their viewers and advertisers even more. This was a good excuse to get rid of a loose cannon whose useful shelf life was already up and try to gain some goodwill among a large group of people who are ready to write you off.
https://latenighter.com/news/ratings/here-are-final-late-nig...
I don't know what "ulterior motive" would mean. Businesses have no choice but to deal with real threats, that isn't a hidden agenda. And I wouldn't refer to bending to demands, as a means of damage control under duress, as "currying favor".
I would consider "favor curriers" to be those that align themselves with administration excesses, in hope of favors, without duress being a factor.
This is now a business reality: a US administration that loudly broadcasts its successful use of corrupted leverage against law firms, media companies, universities, tech companies, and others it wishes to bow the knee.
Even if we conjecture the same decisions might have been made in healthier times, for whatever reasons, the unlawful pressure still shades the decisions made in this reality.