FCC Orders a Review of ABC's Broadcast Licenses | Hacker News Reader

FCC Orders a Review of ABC's Broadcast Licenses

nytimes.com

35 pointsstandardUser16 comments

Is there anybody outside of the Trump administration who is in favor of doing this, and believes there is any good faith behind the decision?

To be clear, I'm not asking if you're against DEI and support a review on those grounds (I'd also disagree, but that's whatever). I'm asking, do you think that's really why they're doing this, and if it isn't, do you support the actual reasons?

I see that folks could see this as evidence that I live in a bubble, but I genuinely cannot think of a way this is not an authoritarian move.

It absolutely is, but yes there are people who will defend it.

I'll never forget that in my twenties I came to the realization that I would support an authoritarian regime that ran everything exactly the way I wished things were. It was startling and sobering.

I no longer think that way, thankfully. But there are millions of not-so-thoughtful people who do.

I think this is exactly the issue, and it is not actually a partisan issue. I feel that urge, too -- how bad would it be, really, if I got what I wanted and people who thought like me did too? How much do I really care about the fates of folks whose morals and goals are so disparate from mine?

But it's no way to live and we're seeing the consequences of it now.

Couldn’t be me: “ran everything exactly the way I wished things were” is mutually exclusive with “authoritarian regime” from first principles, like how decisions are made and how accountability and liability are structured.

>I see that folks could see this as evidence that I live in a bubble...

Not all bubbles are created equal. In the US, Republicans tend to rely on a smaller pool of news sources (https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2025/06/10/the-politi...). And those few sources are increasingly interdependent. Outlets like Fox News and Newsmax generally follow Trump's lead, which is how they got into trouble on the election fraud claims. in addition, the Republican Party actively works to insulate Trump from criticism via memes like TDS (literally implying that anyone who criticizes Trump has a mental illness) and "fake news" (simply dismissing inconvenient facts), for which there is no liberal equivalent.

I brought this up with my MAGA friend about the earlier Jimmy Kimmel skirmish and he trotted out how Roseanne Barr was dismissed from her show on ABC because of her offensive tweet, and that according to informed sources (Barr herself), that her dismissal was ordered by Michelle Obama. Then he went on to list a litany of hurts by cancel culture.

When I noted there was a difference in the situation and this was literally a textbook First Amendment issue, that was ignored.

This guy is highly intelligent but also an evangelical Christian -- we literally live in different universes and he has zero interest in challenging his assumptions. It's heartbreaking that he's like this and so are tens of millions of others.

Tell your MAGA friend if Trump is going to censor people he should be better at hiding it so they don’t trigger first amendment concerns. This is the first time I’m hearing Michelle Obama got Barr fired!

That's the thing. I can't tell him anything that he doesn't already believe. The programming is so deep that I think it's part of his identity and any questioning of his beliefs is taken as a personal attack.

I wish I could find some way to engage but I every time I try it becomes more and more clear that there's literally nothing I could say that would make him examine the situation from a different angle. Fox News has done its work well.

I have MAGA family so I sympathize.

> This guy is highly intelligent

> There's literally nothing I could say that would make him examine the situation from a different angle.

I feel like you need to examine your definition of "intelligent" from a different angle.

My definition of "intelligent" is native cognitive capacity. My definition of "stupid" is the failure to use one's intelligence.

I consider myself to be relatively intelligent and yet I am not immune to being stupid.

Because my friend is a devout evangelical (his father was a preacher), he's been deeply indoctrinated. It's my contention that religion by design makes one stupid: "do not question things, respect authority".

In evangelical circles it's my understanding that children are indoctrinated to treat "outsiders" as ungodly and to be avoided, let alone engaged with. This lines up with his behavior too.

If your definitions of "intelligent" and "stupid" aren't mutually exclusive, then I'm not sure what's the point of them, or if you're really even attempting to apply logic.

I think “competent” and “capable” are synonyms that should receive more usage in the place of “intelligent”.

I might be in favor of it for fairly weird reasons, but I can’t help but think how pointless it is, I’ve heard several folks say Kimmel could make more money and have a bigger reach on his own. Legacy media is dying, broadcast media fastest of all, the fcc would be sort of accelerating its own irrelevance.

If it looks like a communist dictator, acts like a communist dictator, and quacks like a communist dictator, might as well be a communist dictator.

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