This, alongside the cancelling of Jimmy Kimmel today, raises all kinds of red flags. We're about to find out just how well the First Amendment holds up under an autocrat.
Just to clarify for anyone skimming: ABC faced pressure from FCC chair Brendan Carr after he said their broadcasting license was at risk from Kimmel's statements on Tyler Robinson, the alleged Kirk assassin.
Relatedly, Sinclair Media (which owns several ABC-affiliated broadcasting stations and has long been regarded as skewing very conservative) issued a statement suggesting that Kimmel could only be rehabilitated by apologizing and making substantial donations to Kirk's estate and to Turning Point USA.
I highly suggest watching the clip in question. Pod Save America just covered this and included the FCC's explanation for why they're going after shows like Kimmel. Really chilling stuff[0]
I don’t think FCC pressure was what led to this. Nexstar, which owns stations that are affiliates of ABC, made a choice to remove the show from their stations. Their reasoning has nothing to do with the government or first amendment. Here is what they said:
> “Mr. Kimmel’s comments about the death of Mr. Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located,” said Andrew Alford, President of Nexstar’s broadcasting division. “Continuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time, and we have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue.”
This decision and their public statement about it, coupled with social media pressure, led ABC to making a decision afterwards about the show.
I want to thank Nexstar for doing the right thing.
Local broadcasters have an obligation to serve the public interest. While this may be an unprecedented decision, it is important for broadcasters to push back on Disney programming that they determine falls short of community values.
I hope that other broadcasters follow Nexstar’s lead.
Amusingly, one of the replies quotes Carr in 2019 saying 'The FCC does not have a mandate to police speech in the name of the 'public interest.''
The implication here is that Nexstar wants a merger, which requires FCC approval. How does one get FCC approval under the current administration? Do them a favor and apply leverage to out a political opponent.
The merger is a good point. Assuming that the commissioners (not just Carr) were to participate in such a scheme. But this type of indirect regulatory pressure wouldn’t be new. Many tech companies implemented government directed online censorship (for example on COVID related topics) because they were worried about antitrust actions.
Edit: can’t reply to comment below me but that quote is referring to the instances where the company pushed back. It’s not saying they didn’t comply at all - they absolutely did on many instances, and Zuckerberg admitted guilt over it. See later quote:
> “I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today,” he said, without elaborating. “We’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.”
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).
> 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).
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.
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.
"“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.
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?
You're talking as if the rubicon hasn't been crossed. These aren't "red flags", they're concrete actions. It isn't the first amendment that needed to hold up, that is just a piece of paper. It's institutions like the Supreme Court that are supposed to stop these kinds of actions and they did not, since it's been stacked with those who uncritically support everything Trump does.
The United States is a fascist dictatorship. It's not turning into one, it has already happened.
When you say "red flag" that's usually meaning a warning indicating future danger ahead.
Those red flags were (literally and figuratively) raised on January 6, 2021. After the events of that date, everyone had all the information and warnings to know what kind of person Trump is (wannabe dictator willing to use violence to achieve his ends) and what kind of movement MAGA is. We all had the opportunity to vote after that date, and people still chose Trump / MAGA. Now we see blatant authoritarianism, illiberal government actions, and rising political violence.
It's not surprising that the same guy who tried to violently overthrow the government would also try to overthrow the Constitution. What's happening today was predicted by people paying attention. The constitution is literally not operative right now, as there's no one to enforce it -- not the DOJ, not the FBI not the Congress, not the courts, not the press, not corporations, not the army, and certainly not the President.
> J6 protestors that just showed up and were let in by police, arrested in front of their friends and families and sent to prison for years
J6'ers ransacked the Capitol building and killed a cop, we all watched it unfold live on TV. I'd love to read more on the debanking thing, I can't find anything that materially supports the claim that lots of people are being debanked for their political views.
> the government colluding with major social media companies to censor American citizens on anything that changes the government narrative
This is exactly what is happening right now with broadcasters and with those speaking out about Kirk. Trump and Kimmel have feuded for years. Why do you see this situation as justified (i.e. "Speech has consequences"), but when it's social media, you see big bad government suppressing speech illegally?
It's like we just tolerate it when it's our party in charge, otherwise we ignore it. I have no idea where that path leads us, but I can't fathom it's good.
J6ers didn't just ransack the building and kill a cop. Some of them were shouting "hang Mike Pence".
Why were they shouting that? Because Pence wouldn't recognize the "alternate electors" as legitimate. That is, they (at least some of them) were literally protesting that Pence wouldn't cooperate with a scheme to steal the election. And they were breaking into the building where Mike Pence was, and where the Electoral College vote was. That - and not merely breaking into the building and doing vandalism - is the fundamental issue with J6.
You understand that the Twitter Files was an absolute nothingburger, correct? It showed that they needed a special database to keep track of the same requests from Republicans because they were submitting so much. There was no "collusion" as you put it.
The "hunter biden laptop" story is a dead horse that keeps being revived by the right wing fearmonger media which you're clearly very entrenched in.
"You understand that the Twitter Files was an absolute nothingburger, correct? It showed that they needed a special database to keep track of the same requests from Republicans because they were submitting so much. There was no "collusion" as you put it."
Even left-leaning AI can't hide the fact that you are horribly incorrect. I will let you do the research yourself.
"The "hunter biden laptop" story is a dead horse that keeps being revived by the right wing fearmonger media which you're clearly very entrenched in."
Actually, it's pretty well known that the laptop was real. You are the one 'entrenched' in left-wing media:
It is now widely confirmed by multiple sources, including federal prosecutor and media outlets, that the laptop that was the subject of a 2020 New York Post story did belong to Hunter Biden. It has been used as evidence in his 2024 criminal trial.
Key developments and verifications
FBI and Justice Department confirmation
In December 2019, the FBI seized the laptop from a Delaware computer repair shop via a grand jury subpoena.
-FBI investigators concluded in 2019 that the laptop genuinely belonged to Hunter Biden and had not been manipulated.
-During Hunter Biden's 2024 federal gun trial, the Justice Department's special counsel, David C. Weiss, introduced the laptop as evidence. An FBI agent testified about its contents, which were used to demonstrate Biden's drug use at the time of the firearm purchase.
-Several news organizations have reported on the authenticity of content from the laptop.
-The New York Times stated in March 2022 that it had obtained and authenticated some emails from a cache believed to be from the laptop.
Did you forget that Biden pardoned his entire family before he left office for past and future crimes?
Since when is AI an arbiter of truth? I never said the laptop didn't exist, just that the reaction by right wingers is consistently over the top. Hunter and the Biden family were investigated for years by Congress and all he got was a tax charge and a gun form charge.
> Did you forget that Biden pardoned his entire family
No, I didn't. After all the political witch hunts and a vengeful Trump DOJ coming into power, I don't blame him.
"Nothing you just said bears resemblance to the FCC-directed censorship we just saw today. Cite some sources if you think otherwise."
So if the government puts pressure on private individuals to censor, it's okay? The government put pressure on Apple, Google, and Amazon to ban Parler when it was thought that it was thought it was being used to plan J6 (oopsie, it ended up being Facebook, but that didn't matter because right-wing bad).
There's no difference between the government putting pressure on private companies to censor and the government censoring themselves.
I also would like to add that this is public airwaves. The government has always controlled public airwaves. You can still say all the sick shit you want on Podcasts, Youtube, and any other private platform and it won't be controlled by the government.
Biden literally had, and used, back door channels to compel private companies to censor speech online. These companies complied either due to ideological alignment or fear of regulatory attacks from the Biden administration. To the extent that the FCC (which is more than just the one commissioner) were to take some action, it may have been less of an issue than Biden’s explicit violation of constitutional rights, because the Supreme Court has upheld the FCC’s ability to regulate content to some extent.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Biden administration on June 26, 2024, in the case Murthy v. Missouri. The 6-3 decision rejected the argument that the federal government violated the First Amendment by coercing social media companies to remove posts related to COVID-19 and the 2020 election.
You’re misinterpreting the ruling. The ruling was that the states that brought the case (Missouri and Louisiana) didn’t have standing to bring the case forward, not that the Biden administration acted legally. The majority in the court said a plaintiff who was directly a victim of the censorship would have to bring the case, rather than states on behalf of unspecified citizens. In other words, the case was dismissed on a technicality without ruling on the merits of government censorship that is done via a private third party.
I'm not sure you could consider Antifa an "organization" even in its prime ~5 years ago. Is anyone protesting fascism going to fall under this umbrella?
That’s a feature for them. Are you against fascism? Congrats, your rights have been reduced. Pray they don’t reduce them further.
And with the neutering of lower courts to impose nationwide injunctions, they’ll get pretty far before we get a final judicial ruling, likely on the shadow docket.
See... that's the scam. You have in your mind a "They" that doesn't actually correspond to real people. Seriously: name the three "most wanted" antifa offenders you want to see jailed under this order. Can you name even one person that you think qualifies? Don't you think that's a little suspicious?
What this order is actually going to be used for is to indiscriminately jail protestors of any kind. And the point of that is to eliminate protest in general. Sure sure, you're imagining buildings on fire and the arsonists in chains. But what this is really designed to prevent is the March on Washington.
On the other hand, I see that my original comment has been downvoted and flagged, which definitely proves the point about extremism and the reality of antifa.
In the United States the terrorist designation process is legally limited to foreign organizations and not allowed for domestic ones because there is a fear that allowing that could be weaponized against Americans or political foes.
This is technically correct (the worst kind of correct, in an ideologically-motivated thread people flock to seek emotionally-validating facts. As opposed to regular ones).
Reuters OP: "It was not clear what legal weight Trump's proclamation carried... legal experts said such a step lacked a basis in law"
> "While U.S. law makes it a crime to provide “material support” to a foreign terrorist organization, there is no comparable law that makes domestic terrorism a federal crime, even though individual acts committed by domestic terrorists may be illegal."
Huh? This is just plain correct correct. Which is the normal kind of correct.
If you break laws and conduct terrorism then yeah, breaking the law is illegal. Because breaking the law is illegal. Does not change anything I wrote or make what I wrote 'technically correct'. The United States military now extrajudicially just executes people the President designates to die claiming they are 'drug terrorists'. There is no US mechanism for him to flag American organizations in this manner (currently). Probably again, the worst kind of correct thing for me to say.
I poorly expressed the sentiment that you very correctly described the law, as it exists; and that people did not want to hear it (as seen by your numerous downvotes).
I thought that there really wasn't an "Antifa" as such, that anyone could call themselves or their organization "Antifa".
But if there is an "Antifa", and it's made up of US citizens, under what law are they terrorists? Again, I may be misinformed, but I had understood "terrorist" as a legal designation was for non-US-citizens.
There are some people really obsessed with Antifa.
A week or two ago I browsed Eric S. Raymond's Twitter/X, and he keeps banging about it as some organisation that ruins everything. He also still keeps banging on about BLM in a similar fashion. Curious people. (also: don't do this; it's not good for your blood pressure – the guy is literally calling for segregation of "low IQ savages" now; he's gone full KKK).
Raymond has been like this for many, many years and it's probably best just not to pay attention. I don't think there's much broader social insight you'll be able to pull from whatever he's on about this week.
No, he wasn't quite this bad before. I spent some time reading up on what he was saying around ~2021 and there was racism, but not "these low IQ savages need to be segregated" levels of racism.
They didn't take the Jordan Neely verdict very well either. Someone joked right after the verdict on Twitter that we should brace for more riots. Whoever runs the account said that sounded like a good idea.
It's not, it never was in a meaningful sense. It's a poorly defined boogie man, an idea.
You know how the war on terror gives the federal government, the military industrial complex, the prison industrial complex, etc., a ton of power and tax payer money, for pretty much no effort or return on investment because you can't wage war with an ethereal idea? Do you know how it gives the government power to jail people it perceived as its enemies, sometimes without due process?
This is the same thing. Trump is looking for justification, manufactured consent, pretense, etc., to use this power against his political enemies who might happen to not be Muslim.
He's also trying to act strong in a time of weakness, while Putin laughs at Trump and does incursions in Poland, Trump knows he can't lash out at him, so he takes it out on his own constituents.
I am aware of the current US administration. But what's the point in denouncing an organisation which barely even exists today (as far as I can tell)? I don't see them denouncing the Communist Party USA, but I would see about as much point in that as in this.
It's a constant part of history wrt autocracy and securing power.
If, for example, I call you out for being a fascist (or even falsely accuse you of such) then I must be anti fascist and therefore a terrorist, an enemy of the state, someone that can be seized from the streets and cast into a black hole somewhere.
The particulars don't matter, be it Red Scare (and under the bed), Yellow Peril, Anti-Fa, et al. the playbook is familiar.
As if they needed more reasons to be authoritarian. They seem to be able to be that just fine without this, but I guess even they need some sort of reasoning, however flimsy, and more options to pick from probably does help them achieve their goals.
>Yes they still show up in masks and black outfits at events in particular cities (Portland and Seattle in particular), disrupting others’ legal activities, and intimidating people
Most of his content is literally just showing evidence in photos and videos of what is happening. The reason critics of him always deflect to some kind of character attack is because they know the evidence is damning.
> There is an alternate universe out there in which we never have to ponder, let alone read, “Unmasked,” provocateur Andy Ngo’s supremely dishonest new book on the left-wing anti-fascist movement known as antifa.
[. . . ]
> The right is always reminding us that ”facts don’t care about your feelings,” so let us set out some facts. Ngo writes that the “numbers and influence” of right-wing extremists “are grossly exaggerated by biased media,” while antifa poses “just as much, if not more, of a threat to the future of American liberal democracy.” He frequently references [2020’s] anti-racism protests, conveniently eliding the point that 93% were peaceful, according to a study from Princeton. A brief published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, hardly a lefty outfit, found that antifa had a “minor” role in what violence did occur, most of which was driven by local, autonomous actors, and that the organization’s threat was “relatively small.”
> January 6th administered the coup de grâce to Ngo’s already teetering thesis. It should not have taken this long, however. Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security warned last October that “white supremacist extremists” would remain the “most persistent and lethal threat” to the American homeland.
The LA Times is itself is biased, which makes sense given its location and audience (https://www.allsides.com/news-source/los-angeles-times-bias). But this article is frankly well beyond the typical lean left bias of the LA Times, annd it is just dripping with that bias - for example by flippantly claiming that the shake thrown at Andy Ngo by antifa, which gave him a head injury, must have been a “vegan blend heavy on cashew butter”. Funny perhaps, but far from credible. Let’s also not ignore that the author of this article is also author of at least one book and many articles criticizing the right, and is therefore not a balanced source in general, not just on this topic.
My suggestion - if you’re genuinely curious about this topic, go watch videos of antifa in cities like Portland or Seattle and decide with your own eyes what you want to believe.
Yes, I heard you the first time, you believe he’s a “solid journalist.” So it goes. I have no intention of convincing you otherwise. However, others may appreciate some context to your (also biased, obviously) account.
Any kind of proof? Because at this stage, you're reminding me of the scene in the Monty Python film "Life of Brian" when poor old Brian keeps denying that he is the messiah only to be told by his followers that "Only the true messiah denies his divinity".
We may as well go ahead and get the People's Front of Judea banned as a terrorist organisation.
If someone said "The earth is round and anybody who says it isn't doesn't know what they are talking about" would you still challenge their intellectual honesty in this way?
There are plenty of smart people who don't know the facts about a thing but who still chime in with their uninformed opinion.
Unfortunately for us all, a lot of folks who are actually fairly smart have some pretty heinous and poorly informed ideas about the world. One of the reasons why I find this form so interesting to observe is that just because someone can do okay understanding linear algebra or analyzing static systems or configuring load balancers doesn't mean that they have one bit of understanding or useful intuition about morals, ethics, history, or politics.
[edit]
Ironically, I think I generally agree with you that there is no organization, but I believe that person to whom you are responding doesn't know what they are talking about.
The little actual info I know on "antifa" is they were just small groups who share some ideology and protest ... and most of those people aren't active doing much at all, let alone anything objectionable.
As far as the right wing media stories they tell, that is a fairy tale that does not exist.
I think it's not just HN. There's a lot of gaslighting and denial when it comes to American politics, specifically the real-world version versus the Hollywood version.
You're not wrong, but the same can be said for some militia groups and religious organizations. I think the problem people have is the selective use of this weapon to specifically target certain organizations and not others.
It's hard to justify that antifa is a problem and the people behind January 6th weren't. People were convicted of crimes and then pardoned. As long as we define what constitutes a terrorist organization and it is equally applied to all groups, I think a lot fewer people would have a problem with it. I know I would.
In the USA you can't declare domestic organization terrorists. This is to prevent the government from weaponizing such declarations against political opponents. You might want to understand our government, laws, and political protections before cheering on something like this.
FYI the United State just starting extra judicially using the US military to execute people on random boats in the name of fighting terrorist organizations. And now you are cheering them on taking steps to have the same authority they claim allows them to do that on US soil?
I'm not sure if they meet the requirements for being a terrorist group or if I agree with them being considered terrorists, but I just want to point out the name of the organisation isn't a valid argument in favour of them, the actions of the organisation matter a lot more than the name, for example on many occasions they've used violence to prevent people from political speech (is that antifascism or fascism?)
reply