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Comment by SilverElfin | Hacker News Reader

I’m saying the sequence of events was that Nexstar’s voluntary actions, which they shared their justification for, immediately led to broader ABC action, which they pretty much had to before other groups of stations did the same and turned it into an embarrassing moment for Disney.

As for Carr - he is staunchly in support of first amendment rights. Politico wrote about this yesterday since he split from the rest of the GOP on broader censorship (https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/16/fcc-brendan-carr-so...). He also can’t take unilateral action - the commissioners would have to vote. But the FCC has a lot of content rules for the mediums they regulate, which have thus far held up in courts (although I find it questionable). In that sense, what he was suggesting may be legal (unfortunately).

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> As for Carr - he is staunchly in support of first amendment rights

Right, because he said this on a conservative podcast:

  Hours earlier, FCC Chair Brendan Carr told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson that Kimmel’s comments were “truly sick,” and that there was a “strong case” for action against ABC and Disney.

  “This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney. We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

"easy way or the hard way" sounds pretty staunchly against the first amendment to me and more like a fascist thug.

I linked an article that you may want to read. He is against any actions taken around online speech due to the first amendment. He is okay with applying FCC’s regulatory authority because the courts - including SCOTUS - have upheld its constitutionality (prior to this administration).

Right, don't listen to Brendan Carr's actions or the words he literally tells you, instead read this completely separate article about how he's totally in favor of Freedom of Speech while stomping on your rights. Do you even see the cognitive dissonance in play here or are you just completely in favor of running interference for someone taking actions against the constitution?

I'm confused - are you saying he didn't make the remarks quoted above?

No, I am not saying that. What I am saying is that he seems to care about acting along the lines of what is constitutional. And the FCC has regulatory authority over broadcasted TV, including on the content itself to some extent. The authority of the FCC on regulating the actual content has been upheld across numerous court cases as being constitutional. The article I linked shows he is unwilling to implement censorship that is unconstitutional despite there being some calls for it on the political right.

If he is unwilling then why did he say this

"“This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney. We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead."

It's still censorship even if the FCC has regulatory ability. Censorship is a type of action.

If the FCC bans porn before 10pm that's still censorship. You can argue whether it's justified or not

> It's still censorship even if the FCC has regulatory ability. Censorship is a type of action.

> If the FCC bans porn before 10pm that's still censorship. You can argue whether it's justified or not

I agree with both of these statements. But I don’t think that contradicts my point necessarily. I’m saying his approach is to do things that are censorship but are also legal, but to refuse to do things that are illegal even if there is political pressure to do so. I also noted in one of my other comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45284283) that I think it is unfortunate that the FCC has the authority to regulate content at all.

The Communications act of 1934 which gives the FCC regulatory power specifically states it doesn't have the power to censor speech.

There are only court rulings that allow censorship of obscene material and the like

OK, but you are ignoring other stuff he said that appears to contradict that - the remarks posted above, and also his reaction to the suspension where he calls on other companies to do the same thing (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45284746).

I get that you support the remarks he made yesterday, but I would like to know what you think of the remarks he made today.

Upheld the rights with limits related to indecency

FCC v. Pacifica Foundation

It should be noted this FCC guy expressly stated in the past that the FCC should not do this sort of thing.

This is not surprising when you realize the modern GOP has one overarching rule in their grievance-based culture: "Rules for thee, none for me"

hypeatei says >"fascist thug"<

You don't know the true meaning of "fascist", so why do you misapply the word? Why don't you look the word up in a dictionary so you can reserve it to use it properly and find another word to use here?

"fascist" this! "fascist" that!

I hear all day in the news and none of the fools speaking has a clue what the word means. Nor do they seem to have a vocabulary large enough to house the appropriate words. Probably b/c they were demonstrating instead of studying in university class.

Try "bad" (that's what you mean!) instead of hiding behind a smokescreen of cryptic, archaic or important-sounding (to an idiot audience) wordings. But then fools like you always had no meaning. indeed:

"a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." - William Shakespeare

  Fascism is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.

Instead of getting emotional, please explain how what we're seeing now isn't moving in that direction.

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