The speech police: Chairman Brendan Carr and the FCC’s news distortion policy

FCC invokes 1960s-era policy to punish media after decades of minimal enforcement.

See full article...

 

[irnoob]

I tried warning you last administration that this would happen and you just laughed at me, calling me a freeze peach absolutist. Now the shoe is on the other foot and things are even worse. You could have stopped this.

 

[Scary Devil Monastery]

I still encounter people who believe that Muslims, “woke cancel-culture”, trans children, and immigrants are the most dangerous things America faces.

This was always a lie.
Look around, swing voters. Look at your stock market and your government. Look at Bezos, Musk, and Zuckerberg. Look at the unmarked vans spiriting away college students. Look at the book bans and the threats directed at law firms.

Ask yourself again: what is the greatest threat to America?

In a deep deadpan voice: Democrats and the godless libs, obviously.
That's the only answer you'll get from the malicious shitheels wearing that red hat.

The third of americans who voted for Trump for a second time are lost. Abandon all hope there. They will see their chosen leader drag them and their loved one across broken glass while starving their children and denying them all comfort and remain staunchly loyal.
Some of them will end up dying of exposure and/or starvation in cardboard boxes under a bridge...and their final act in life will still be to look at the homeless liberal or poc next box over and chuckle in undisguised glee because their box has more holes in it.

The third which couldn't be arsed to vote are almost as hopeless. It will take a formative event - like a 1920's recession or finding out that stuff they took for granted, like being able to feed their children, is no longer a given - before they'll dimly realize that they need to step up to the plate as well.
And even then they'll likely blame others for not picking up the slack while they themselves were abandoning fundamental knowledge of realpolitik and advanced citizenship.
Their default state is that they do not recognize the difference between a normal politician who is black, female, and/or otherwise not exactly their cup of tea...and an outright outspoken fascist who's surrounded himself with zealot dark enlightenment libertarian yarvinites, christian doom cultists, neo-nazis and the dog damn KKK.

Do not count on two thirds of americans to recognize the threat Trump and MAGA represent to america even if it were to become a legal mandate for school children to shoot and kill some dusky immigrant before graduation.

 

[Scary Devil Monastery]

They are NOT conservatives. Conservatives believe in the rule of law, in personal freedoms. The GOP has moved beyond that.

This is a brave new world.

Maybe you need to consider again what it says about US conservatives that they all voted for this. Persistently. For decades. Nixon, Reagan, GWB and Trump showed the hallmarks of what it meant to be an american conservative - namely that the only thing which matters is that you need to vote for the oppressive fascist.

The last time american conservatives were different than this was when FDR was in power and those who believed in law and personal freedom all left the GOP and moved in with the democrats.

 

[Scary Devil Monastery]

“Here” does not include Scotland.

I have an ongoing bet with myself as to when the scots will have themselves an independence referendum which actually has them up tent and divorce from the UK and rejoin the rest of Europe.

I've promised myself that when they do I'll go on one of those whiskey tours and hoist a dram with a cheerful "Sláinte" while waving a scottish flag at every stop.

 

[Scary Devil Monastery]

We seem to be in agreement.

I have no sympathy for the GOP. I am not trying to rebrand them to soften their image. I am just pointing out they are not really a conservative party, and have been trending away from conservatism for the past 25 years of so. Trump has taken them to the next level.

I suppose there has always been an ebb and flow to the GOP's fascist leanings. Look at Joe McCarthy and events like Japanese internment.

Let's call them what they are because labeling them them as "conservatives" doesn't really capture just how damaging they are. There is nothing conservative about what they are doing.

In the US currently there is an fascist party and there is a pro-democracy party. To brand them differently distorts the danger to the Republic.

Let's address the last bit first.
The problem with the current parties is that there are only two of them;

One which represents fascism and is filled with anyone who for the sake of That One Policy (guns, anti-choice, religion or kill teh gay) willingly accepts all else.

And the other party is the entire normal political spectrum, from hard-right Reaganism to "extreme left-wing" Social democracy.

One party always votes for Dear Leader. The other can't even decide on what to order for dinner without a three month spirited debate which then ends by ordering the only thing all can agree on - a glass of lukewarm water and a cracker.

However, the GOP are in fact very much conservatives. Always have been.
Both through design and practical history conservatism in itself has always been the defense of a paradigm where politics revolves around an in-group which is protected by the law but not bound by it and an out-group which is bound by the law and not protected by it.

And it becomes quite clear as to why this is so when you consider the origins of that ideology, its use in history, and why people who are in favor of civil liberties are always in favor of progressing past the status quo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism

 

[mihail_pramatarov]

The point being told to you is that there's no guarantee any ideology can't be used to justify atrocity.

Hell, in the real world everyone has to live in and try to ignore, the 'slippery slope' is supposed to be a thoughtful reminder not to push things that far, and avoid hypocrisy to maintain the moral high ground in the right-to-rule behind any government peaceful transfer of power, but all too often it keeps the victims' hands tied behind their backs when an ideology has had a century to become an oppressive cult.

American MAGA conservatism is just ramping up toward the nerve to kill 65k+ dissenters, they are just waiting for a 10 million Democrat March on the White House to do it.

They also don't have enough control of the military to ensure enough bootlickers won't disobey orders at the last second despite the existence and willingness to use drone technologies on US civilians.

You'll see a mass casualty event from US Maga in the next 10 years, then it'll be proven it's not just Communism in Eastern European countries but mostly the wealthy manipulating propaganda in ways beyond their understanding.

Consider how much the wealthy are lamenting Trump's economic protectionism now, they won the culture war and got rid of what they felt were social shackles they were forced to operate under to maintain their identities but were too fucking stupid to understand that without operating under those rules they handed the keys to an insane monster and will now lose their businesses over it. Everyone that is not working in the defense industry is at risk of this including the AI companies themselves if, and when, tariff protectionism causes a Great Depression shortly after the 2026 mid-terms in the USA.

The wealthy just aren't nearly as smart as they hope their wealth indicates they are, there simply isn't enough bandwidth in a human life to master enough of a well rounded education to BE that smart and still remain wealthy. It's why there are no ethical billionaires because they just aren't smart, empathetic people. If they're smart and empathetic they probably aren't rich for good reason.

For example consider how many atrocities in Asia between China, North Korea and India/Pakistan, not even considering Afghanistan, that all have had nothing to do with Communism being a murderous ideology in and of itself to force out capitalism or religion as controlling factors for governance.

And of all of the above, religion by far has done admittedly the most good for the world, but also the most evil, and as far as evil goes it's not even remotely close. It's about to do it again when MAGA drags it's capitalist and AI/crypto bro factions along for the ride.

Yet for good in the world, there's a lot of more recent inventions and liberal governing policies in the running improving quality of life more than religion if the economics of distribution could only be controlled to below at-market values.

The American phrase 'The Tree of Liberty must be watered by the blood of Patriots and Tyrants from time to time' is a distinct reminder of what it costs to rectify exactly the type of cult propaganda the US Republican Party has been pushing since America's first Civil War in the 1800's and the Reconstruction Era afterward. It's a reminder that words and democracy fail from time to time and there must be violent conflict to remind everyone every century or so why violent conflict is a REALLY BAD IDEA for all the world's economies because no matter how much the GOP tears apart the US economy, globalization isn't going away and neither are it's negative second order impacts on the poor and middle class in the US competing against rising middle class in other countries.

Protectionism is no protection against globalization either which is the core economic argument of MAGA cult behavior, they will commit as much violence as it takes to try to implement protectionism to attempt to recreate a manufacturing and agriculture dominated middle class in the Information Age and it will 100% fail while they need fascist Information Age allies.

Communism isn't unique in any of these regards whatsoever in terms of how it fails or the violence with which it ejects its political dissenters, that's a management problem not an ideology problem. It's also an inevitable part of every country's history to explode in violence every century or so to address income inequalities or political influence inequalities.

i dont think you understand communism. ideology is a micromanagement of a life of a subject. you are messing religion with religios cult. and the "...being told to you..." is not very ok way to talk to people ok.

 

[Selethorme]

If calling out your selective embrace of censorship sounds to you like a tired old "screed," perhaps that's because hypocrisy, no matter how artfully rationalized, eventually reveals itself as rather tedious. Whether under the influence of a bong or an LLM, I’d wager clarity still exceeds that of those who cheered content moderation until it inevitably swung back to bite them. Your chortle is noted, but the irony remains undiminished.

I love that you give away your whole dishonest shell game here. Content moderation is not censorship. The two simply do not mean the same thing Multiple people have already explained this to you.

overlook the inconvenient truth that platforms like Facebook were hardly acting out of pure private enterprise. Rather, they bowed under relentless pressure and "guidance" from NGOs and agencies that are effectively extensions of government will,

This is just an outright lie that even the conservatives on SCOTUS didn't buy. Zuckerberg kissing up to Trump after he was literally threatened with life in prison on no charges is not a rebuttal. NGOs are not extensions of government will, as much as I think they'd love the power boost that would mean. They're advocacy organizations.

I tried warning you last administration that this would happen and you just laughed at me, calling me a freeze peach absolutist. Now the shoe is on the other foot and things are even worse. You could have stopped this.

Nope.

 

[scrimbul]

i dont think you understand communism. ideology is a micromanagement of a life of a subject. you are messing religion with religios cult. and the "...being told to you..." is not very ok way to talk to people ok.

You're yammering words that describe conservatism in the USA for the last century, regardless of its subtle flavors the end result is the same.

You DO realize you can get the same end results with fascism or communism, but you're picking nits about whether it's worse to micromanage your population or lie to them, yes?

You do realize in the country you saw communism being implemented as a hostile takeover the overall population was much lower than the USA's 330 million and the territorial governmental arrangements right up to the implementation of Communism were likely not anywhere near as decentralized, yes?

There's multiple ways to skin a cat to get to the actual end point: Authoritarianism and culthood for it's own sake to implement the personal whims of the cult leader.

It doesn't matter that you witnessed it with Communism at all while North Korea currently exists for example, and they certainly are more fascist than communist even if they started Communist. It's just semantics to dress up the actual evil.

The GOP has been no different for a century since they were known as the Southern Democrats before switching parties to the Republican Party.


--------

However in the same vein, the slippery slope ceases to apply when the peaceful transfer of power no longer applies. You CAN apply authoritarian measures to benevolent intentions and end up with a positive result in the end, but you had better be damn sure your opponent is evil enough to warrant it before trying because whitewashing enough history even as the victor to justify the atrocity is ugly business, which is the actual point that matters for your anecdote. Not a single thing to do with Communism. You can substitute Communism with any religion or other '-ism' political ideology to achieve the same results and atrocities.

In the end as a free-thinking individual, you gather enough information to make a choice among the best of bad decisions or you burn out your personal life trying to build a movement for something better if a best 'lesser evil' doesn't exist. That's every single adult's decision in every modern democracy or autocracy in every country since the Industrial Revolution. It is THE defining political duty of every definition of 'citizenship' and applies even when democracy is absent.

 

[Hmnhntr]

If calling out your selective embrace of censorship sounds to you like a tired old "screed," perhaps that's because hypocrisy, no matter how artfully rationalized, eventually reveals itself as rather tedious. Whether under the influence of a bong or an LLM, I’d wager clarity still exceeds that of those who cheered content moderation until it inevitably swung back to bite them. Your chortle is noted, but the irony remains undiminished.

Ah, but you overlook the inconvenient truth that platforms like Facebook were hardly acting out of pure private enterprise. Rather, they bowed under relentless pressure and "guidance" from NGOs and agencies that are effectively extensions of government will, entities you once applauded as noble warriors against "disinformation." This blurred distinction between private moderation and state censorship was precisely the slope I warned against. It's hardly "ridiculous" to call out hypocrisy when your standards seem to shift with political convenience.

So, in your mind, there's no difference between the government asking social media platforms to control Covid misinformation (with no threats made or hostile actions taken) and the FCC breaking decades of precedent and considering stripping a platform of its broadcasting license for editing an interview? With other elements actively calling to take action against platforms 'biased against Trump'?

I tried warning you last administration that this would happen and you just laughed at me, calling me a freeze peach absolutist. Now the shoe is on the other foot and things are even worse. You could have stopped this.

And when exactly did the last administration use the FCC's power to attack a platform? Or go against decades of precedent to hold a platform to an arbitrarily high standard? Or take literally any action to suppress speech?

 

[KGFish]

So, if I'm reading this correctly, they claim they sent Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, against direct court orders to the contrary, 'in error' (as they were specifically barred from sending him to El Salvador due to potential unfair treatment), but that:
1. The court cannot demand that he be returned, as that goes beyond the plaintiff's sought relief that the government request he be returned, and involves diplomatic action, which they have no jurisdiction over.
2. Furthermore, the court cannot challenge the removal to El Salvador anyways, as they cannot contest the execution of a removal order, which necessarily includes where he be sent.

All of this despite admitting that they were not allowed to send him to El Salvador in the first place, and only did so """in error""". So basically, "yes we did something illegal against court orders, but you're not allowed to contest it anyways, and even if you could we wouldn't be required to do anything except ask nicely".

They also go on to say that even if the validity of the removal order itself were contested, since Garcia was "charged with removability...and placed in removal proceedings...The removal order that was executed was thus a removal order..." So basically, the fact that he was charged and proceedings were initiated makes it a valid removal order.

Plus, they contest the court's claim that due process was violated and that no official determination that Garcia was a member of MS-13 was made, because an immigration judge/court determined that he was. It should be noted that immigration courts are part of the Executive branch under the DoJ, not part of the typical legal system under the Judicial branch, and that immigration judges are directly appointed by the Attorney General.

So, since they are saying that the removal order cannot be contested, period, even if it (or at least aspects of it) were performed in an illegal manner, and charging someone with removal makes it a valid removal order, and the process for assessing the cause for removal falls entirely within the jurisdiction of an immigration court.....then they could just remove anyone to anywhere, and as long as they were already out of the country, the court does not have any authority to do anything about it, and the Executive branch can, entirely on its own, remove someone from the country with no oversight or recourse.

Holy shit. I thought maybe the "blueprint for disappearing anyone [the government] wants" description was at least a little sensationalized, but this certainly seems to fit the bill. Can anyone with more legal knowledge clarify anything I may have misunderstood?

Nope. You didn’t miss anything. Actual lawyers are saying the exact same thing: due process is dead, and that means anyone, including citizens, can be disappeared.

 

[scrimbul]

So, in your mind, there's no difference between the government asking social media platforms to control Covid misinformation (with no threats made or hostile actions taken) and the FCC breaking decades of precedent and considering stripping a platform of its broadcasting license for editing an interview? With other elements actively calling to take action against platforms 'biased against Trump'?

And when exactly did the last administration use the FCC's power to attack a platform? Or go against decades of precedent to hold a platform to an arbitrarily high standard? Or take literally any action to suppress speech?

Both of them will lie using the Hunter Biden laptop story as cover and that is not as cut and dried an example as they would like.

If anything using those sorts of bad faith counter-examples should be as ban-worthy as any personal insult just to force their ideological gish-gallop to be filtered.

 

[Hmnhntr]

Both of them will lie using the Hunter Biden laptop story as cover and that is not as cut and dried an example as they would like.

If anything using those sorts of bad faith counter-examples should be as ban-worthy as any personal insult just to force their ideological gish-gallop to be filtered.

Especially since the government didn't even initiate any kind of legal proceedings in the laptop case. They just asked social media platforms to wait until the laptop's identity was confirmed before they let the story be spread as gospel truth.

 

[Bernardo Verda]

Especially since the government didn't even initiate any kind of legal proceedings in the laptop case. They just asked social media platforms to wait until the laptop's identity was confirmed before they let the story be spread as gospel truth.

Not to forget that the social media bias was actually a pro right wing bias, because (as shown by their own documents) the big social media outlets were explicitly exempting prominent "right wing" sources from being moderated.

 

[picklefactory]

If calling out your selective embrace of censorship...

I'm coming down on the side of bong hits. What I really want to know is: do you get into your vampire LARP outfit after the bong hit, or are you in character already?

Obviously, content moderation and censorship are not the same and the distinction is still there no matter how many adverbs you put between them.

 

[Bernardo Verda]

If calling out your selective embrace of censorship sounds to you like a tired old "screed," perhaps that's because hypocrisy, no matter how artfully rationalized, eventually reveals itself as rather tedious. Whether under the influence of a bong or an LLM, I’d wager clarity still exceeds that of those who cheered content moderation until it inevitably swung back to bite them. Your chortle is noted, but the irony remains undiminished.

Obviously, content moderation and censorship are not the same and the distinction is still there no matter how many adverbs you put between them.

 

[WuzziWoo]

In light of the past couple of months I notice the usual "but China, but Russia" retort lost a lot of popularity. The US now is on the path to get to the exact same place. Not irreversible but not enough people are doing enough to revert it.

A lot of us are trying. I have posted locally for rides to protests, but no luck. Too much time goes by and maybe I will just have to organize my own directly in my very small town and hope no one burns down my house (red state).

 

[gksm]

Another vindictive Trumpist loony. How does he manage to dress himself in the morning?

 

[Cherlindrea]

So explain to me why Fox News hasn’t been shutdown for the 24/7 stream of lies that it produces? Or what about the Sinclair agenda on their local affiliates all over the country, if we’re talking specifically about traditional broadcast entities? Oh right, it’s because of the first amendment, which Carr and the free speech gestapo seem to be pretending isn’t a thing when it comes to broadcasters telling the truth about the rampant corruption and ineptitude of this administration.

Seriously, the networks need to be telling Carr to fuck off with this nonsense because it’s a textbook violation of their 1A rights that would likely only have SCOTUS support from the ultra-corrupt Alito and Thomas, who seemingly haven’t met a precedent they aren’t happy to overturn, even when it’s their own.

What I would truly like to see is for any news network that's being constantly targeted by these fascists to point blank go on one of their news shows (it would be gloriously hilarious if it were Face the Nation or 60 Minutes) and lay out these complaints against them, the threats of licensing against them, and the fact that this complaint was resurrected by Carr without the complaint against the Fox affiliation being resurrected as well.

The bullying, extortion, blackmail, and authoritarian actions and rhetoric will not go away. Therefore, the best thing to do is to air it. Air it clearly and uniformly, so that when the silencing happens, it'll be very clear to all but the brainwashed what is occurring. You'll never be able to change or get through to the brainwashed, so that's a lost cause. At this point, it's everyone else (who are the majority--although it never feels that way anymore) that needs to have all these egregious violations of our Constitution laid out to them on a daily basis.

 

[Scary Devil Monastery]

What I would truly like to see is for any news network that's being constantly targeted by these fascists to point blank go on one of their news shows (it would be gloriously hilarious if it were Face the Nation or 60 Minutes) and lay out these complaints against them, the threats of licensing against them, and the fact that this complaint was resurrected by Carr without the complaint against the Fox affiliation being resurrected as well.

The bullying, extortion, blackmail, and authoritarian actions and rhetoric will not go away. Therefore, the best thing to do is to air it. Air it clearly and uniformly, so that when the silencing happens, it'll be very clear to all but the brainwashed what is occurring. You'll never be able to change or get through to the brainwashed, so that's a lost cause. At this point, it's everyone else (who are the majority--although it never feels that way anymore) that needs to have all these egregious violations of our Constitution laid out to them on a daily basis.

That would indeed be the best way to go about it.

Problem is, I doubt there are enough genuine journalists around with the balls to spit in the face of their own boss.
The media was the first thing purchased by the Murdochs and Kochs.

 

[mihail_pramatarov]

There's multiple ways to skin a cat to get to the actual end point: Authoritarianism and culthood for it's own sake to implement the personal whims of the cult leader...
The GOP has been no different for a century since they were known as the Southern Democrats before switching parties to the Republican Party.


--------

However in the same vein, the slippery slope ceases to apply when the peaceful transfer of power no longer applies. You CAN apply authoritarian measures to benevolent intentions and end up with a positive result in the end, but you had better be damn sure your opponent is evil enough to warrant it before trying because whitewashing enough history even as the victor to justify the atrocity is ugly business, which is the actual point that matters for your anecdote.

i think in the same lines of the cult leader and his exploits of ideology.
southern democrats that has to be some kind of oximoron, regarding Alexis de Tocqueville in his Democracy in America.
take pinochet and aliende. recently i saw a chilean movie, which depicted a very, very different picture of Aliende and left wing assassins.

 

[Darath]

What if we're the bad guys? No, it's the children Democrats that are wrong!

I assume they don't actually believe what they're saying there, but if they do it's some impressive cognitive dissonance.

They are hypocrites. In their heads, they think if I was in power I would do that and oppress the other side, so I assume they are doing it too.