I agree FCC should not make threats as it did and that issue should be addressed on its own. I’m not so sure, as you state, Kimmel was fired for “having an opinion.” I wonder if Disney felt the services they were paying Kimmel for (comedy that entertains a wide audience) were not what he was delivering. Does Disney have a right to suspend an employee who is not doing the job to the employer’s satisfaction? If Disney said on Wednesday, “Hey Jimmy, you need to dial it down tonight on the show we are paying you to work on.” And he replied, “No! I’m going to go on the show that you are paying me to do and double down!” Does the company have a right to make a business decision to suspend? Does Kimmel still have his free speech to make comments on social media, YouTube, or other outlets? Can he start a new show or did he make the decision to sign a “non-compete” clause in his contract which he agreed in advance would prohibit him from doing another talk show for a period of time? In short, is FIRE sure it has all the facts in this dispute? I wonder if we will find out more that complicates the story.
granted the fcc chair carr's comments on a podcast (easy way or hard way) are not what free speech advocates want to hear.
however: "The decision to preempt ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ was made unilaterally by the senior executive team at Nexstar, and they had no communication with the FCC or any government agency prior to making that decision," a Nexstar spokesman said.
so, if we take this spokesperson at his word, the trump admin, did exactly what to undermine free speech?
compared to biden's systematic threatening of social media + moving dem leaning personnel from the fbi/cia/national security agencies to the legal and 'safety' groups inside big tech to censor americans throughout covid - trump's fcc actions look like nothing more than bluster.
remember when the ny post was kicked off of twitter for the hunter biden laptop story + how the fbi/intel groups tried to pre-debunk the story w/ big tech despite having the laptop for 1+ yr prior and verifying the details? when trump was kicked off twitter for questioning election integrity after the first ever wide use of mail in ballots?
i think carr's and bondi's comments are abhorrent and ignorant of the principle of 1A, but the trump presidency has some catching up to do if it wants to contend w/ the 1a violations of the autopen / weekend at bernie/biden's presidency.
> so, if we take this spokesperson at his word, the trump admin, did exactly what to undermine free speech?
Unfortunately, jawboning undermines free speech by creating a chilling effect on everyone. The Seventh Circuit held that the constitutionality of government conduct turns on what the threat tries to accomplish, not whether it accomplishes it.
If the Trump folk had just kept their mouths shut, we'd all already have forgotten about the very forgettable Kimmel, we'd have stayed focused on remembering Kirk, and we wouldn't have a brand new legal problem to discuss.
"This statement of facts is submitted on behalf of our client Alphabet Inc and its subsidiary YouTube..."
#8
biden admin officials conducted repeated & sustained outreach to Alphabet and pressed the company regarding certain user-generated content related to Covid19 that did not violate its policies.
# 9
"...administration's officials including President Biden created a political atmosphere that sought to influence the actions of platforms based on their concerns regarding misinformation."
now youtube is inviting all of those censored content creators back onto their platform...
You and I are in complete agreement in comparing the Biden and Trump administrations. Trump speaks his mind in all caps on Twitter; Biden (and precursors) are much more pernicious by being secretive and establishing lasting infrastructure -- backroom deals, installing ex-intelligence people throughout the media and tech industry, back-channel government funding for dozens of organizations that then pursue the administration's goals under the guise of the private sector. (Thanks for the link too. I've been following discovery and court proceedings with interest since the Twitter Files.) You're right that the two approaches don't compare in severity, danger, or damage.
The point I was trying to make with my initial reply is if it's wrong when one administration does it, then it *must* be wrong when another administration does it. Jawboning is jawboning. No if's, and's, or but's. If we don't call out our people then we lose the high ground and the other side will cry whataboutism when we call out their people -- but more importantly, the folk in the middle won't listen to us either. Polarization (continues to) get worse as result.
Yea but as we have seen with kimmel's reinstatement this episode of jawboning doesn't even measure up to the censorship of Alex Berenson during the Biden years let alone the hunter Biden laptop or other censorship atrocities during weekend at bidens presidency
If badly quoting a mob movie has a chilling effect, what is the level of chilling when someone is murdered in broad daylight for speech?
Your legal positions may be consistent, but your public claims and outrage levels are miscalibrated. I agree with you about Carr’s “jawboning” but only on principal. I care about free speech because I care about truth. Pretending Kimmel’s statement wasn’t an egregious lie isn’t helpful. Ignoring the practical asymmetry of the left’s domination of legacy media, related institutions, and (at least until recently) tech, isn’t honest. The social media censorship in Murthy was very effective in silencing disfavored opinions and distorting reality. There is essentially zero chance that legacy media will suddenly become proTrump, instead of virulently biased against him. So I will stand with you on principle only. I wish you had a better grasp of the practical situation. The fact that the left is more subtle in its censorship makes it harder to challenge legally, and more dangerous, not less.
But Kimmel wasn’t fired for having an opinion. (Turns out he wasn’t fired either).
He was fired for telling a provably egregious lie about the worst political assasination in over 50 years, slandering 1/2 the country in the process and reportedly refusing to recant when asked to do so.
It's a shame that, despite all this work and the work FIRE has been doing on campus for more than two decades, that increasing numbers of students embrace violence as viable method to shut down speech with which they disagree. It appears the problem is ingrained in young people before they get to college. With the administration trying to put a stake through the heart of public education and to sanitize our nation's history, I doubt things are going to improve soon.
We need to meet kids where they are when they're a lot younger--and we need to teach them about this nation's fundamental values and the importance of the rule of law--if they're going to appreciate the value of free expression in any meaningful way.
How do we acknowledge—without prejudice--that Charlie Kirk’s free speech rights were killed, murdered, obliterated, never-ever-never to be restored—killed--by a person whose philosophy Jimmy Kimbel sympathizes with. And then now we are supposed to view Jimmy Kimbel as the hero of free speech because his “right” to his “opinion” that the real murderer was by a person who disagreed 100% with Jimmy Kimbel’s philosophy when in fact it was by the actual killer with a philosophy in 100% agreement with Kimmel’s sympathies?
Answer: As Americans there are four things we know:
1 the right to free speech can be extremely hard to protect as in the above case, but it must be so protected,
2 Jimmy Kimbel’s free speech right is re-storable (Charlie’s most definitely is not),
3 three, we should be using this opportunity to divest the Government of its hold on the Airwaves that it licenses, by selling its ownership to the highest bidders for say $38 trillion dollars and use that to pay off the national debt and,
4 four, that Jimmy Kimbel—who knowingly lied—is—at minimum--a prick and may even be evil.
I agree FCC should not make threats as it did and that issue should be addressed on its own. I’m not so sure, as you state, Kimmel was fired for “having an opinion.” I wonder if Disney felt the services they were paying Kimmel for (comedy that entertains a wide audience) were not what he was delivering. Does Disney have a right to suspend an employee who is not doing the job to the employer’s satisfaction? If Disney said on Wednesday, “Hey Jimmy, you need to dial it down tonight on the show we are paying you to work on.” And he replied, “No! I’m going to go on the show that you are paying me to do and double down!” Does the company have a right to make a business decision to suspend? Does Kimmel still have his free speech to make comments on social media, YouTube, or other outlets? Can he start a new show or did he make the decision to sign a “non-compete” clause in his contract which he agreed in advance would prohibit him from doing another talk show for a period of time? In short, is FIRE sure it has all the facts in this dispute? I wonder if we will find out more that complicates the story.
granted the fcc chair carr's comments on a podcast (easy way or hard way) are not what free speech advocates want to hear.
however: "The decision to preempt ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ was made unilaterally by the senior executive team at Nexstar, and they had no communication with the FCC or any government agency prior to making that decision," a Nexstar spokesman said.
so, if we take this spokesperson at his word, the trump admin, did exactly what to undermine free speech?
compared to biden's systematic threatening of social media + moving dem leaning personnel from the fbi/cia/national security agencies to the legal and 'safety' groups inside big tech to censor americans throughout covid - trump's fcc actions look like nothing more than bluster.
remember when the ny post was kicked off of twitter for the hunter biden laptop story + how the fbi/intel groups tried to pre-debunk the story w/ big tech despite having the laptop for 1+ yr prior and verifying the details? when trump was kicked off twitter for questioning election integrity after the first ever wide use of mail in ballots?
i think carr's and bondi's comments are abhorrent and ignorant of the principle of 1A, but the trump presidency has some catching up to do if it wants to contend w/ the 1a violations of the autopen / weekend at bernie/biden's presidency.
> so, if we take this spokesperson at his word, the trump admin, did exactly what to undermine free speech?
Unfortunately, jawboning undermines free speech by creating a chilling effect on everyone. The Seventh Circuit held that the constitutionality of government conduct turns on what the threat tries to accomplish, not whether it accomplishes it.
If the Trump folk had just kept their mouths shut, we'd all already have forgotten about the very forgettable Kimmel, we'd have stayed focused on remembering Kirk, and we wouldn't have a brand new legal problem to discuss.
beating a dead horse but the facts are finally being articulated in legal docs:
https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2025-09-23-letter-to-hjc.pdf
"This statement of facts is submitted on behalf of our client Alphabet Inc and its subsidiary YouTube..."
#8
biden admin officials conducted repeated & sustained outreach to Alphabet and pressed the company regarding certain user-generated content related to Covid19 that did not violate its policies.
# 9
"...administration's officials including President Biden created a political atmosphere that sought to influence the actions of platforms based on their concerns regarding misinformation."
now youtube is inviting all of those censored content creators back onto their platform...
You and I are in complete agreement in comparing the Biden and Trump administrations. Trump speaks his mind in all caps on Twitter; Biden (and precursors) are much more pernicious by being secretive and establishing lasting infrastructure -- backroom deals, installing ex-intelligence people throughout the media and tech industry, back-channel government funding for dozens of organizations that then pursue the administration's goals under the guise of the private sector. (Thanks for the link too. I've been following discovery and court proceedings with interest since the Twitter Files.) You're right that the two approaches don't compare in severity, danger, or damage.
The point I was trying to make with my initial reply is if it's wrong when one administration does it, then it *must* be wrong when another administration does it. Jawboning is jawboning. No if's, and's, or but's. If we don't call out our people then we lose the high ground and the other side will cry whataboutism when we call out their people -- but more importantly, the folk in the middle won't listen to us either. Polarization (continues to) get worse as result.
Yea but as we have seen with kimmel's reinstatement this episode of jawboning doesn't even measure up to the censorship of Alex Berenson during the Biden years let alone the hunter Biden laptop or other censorship atrocities during weekend at bidens presidency
If badly quoting a mob movie has a chilling effect, what is the level of chilling when someone is murdered in broad daylight for speech?
Your legal positions may be consistent, but your public claims and outrage levels are miscalibrated. I agree with you about Carr’s “jawboning” but only on principal. I care about free speech because I care about truth. Pretending Kimmel’s statement wasn’t an egregious lie isn’t helpful. Ignoring the practical asymmetry of the left’s domination of legacy media, related institutions, and (at least until recently) tech, isn’t honest. The social media censorship in Murthy was very effective in silencing disfavored opinions and distorting reality. There is essentially zero chance that legacy media will suddenly become proTrump, instead of virulently biased against him. So I will stand with you on principle only. I wish you had a better grasp of the practical situation. The fact that the left is more subtle in its censorship makes it harder to challenge legally, and more dangerous, not less.
I agree Carr was way out of line.
But Kimmel wasn’t fired for having an opinion. (Turns out he wasn’t fired either).
He was fired for telling a provably egregious lie about the worst political assasination in over 50 years, slandering 1/2 the country in the process and reportedly refusing to recant when asked to do so.
This vile creep is no martyr for free speech.
A lot of whataboutery is regurgitated talking points in an attempt at a AHA moment!
There’s usually not a lot of fact checking or thought in whataboutism!!
It's a shame that, despite all this work and the work FIRE has been doing on campus for more than two decades, that increasing numbers of students embrace violence as viable method to shut down speech with which they disagree. It appears the problem is ingrained in young people before they get to college. With the administration trying to put a stake through the heart of public education and to sanitize our nation's history, I doubt things are going to improve soon.
We need to meet kids where they are when they're a lot younger--and we need to teach them about this nation's fundamental values and the importance of the rule of law--if they're going to appreciate the value of free expression in any meaningful way.
The door is closing.
How do we acknowledge—without prejudice--that Charlie Kirk’s free speech rights were killed, murdered, obliterated, never-ever-never to be restored—killed--by a person whose philosophy Jimmy Kimbel sympathizes with. And then now we are supposed to view Jimmy Kimbel as the hero of free speech because his “right” to his “opinion” that the real murderer was by a person who disagreed 100% with Jimmy Kimbel’s philosophy when in fact it was by the actual killer with a philosophy in 100% agreement with Kimmel’s sympathies?
Answer: As Americans there are four things we know:
1 the right to free speech can be extremely hard to protect as in the above case, but it must be so protected,
2 Jimmy Kimbel’s free speech right is re-storable (Charlie’s most definitely is not),
3 three, we should be using this opportunity to divest the Government of its hold on the Airwaves that it licenses, by selling its ownership to the highest bidders for say $38 trillion dollars and use that to pay off the national debt and,
4 four, that Jimmy Kimbel—who knowingly lied—is—at minimum--a prick and may even be evil.