The murder of conservative political activist and author Charlie Kirk sent shockwaves through the United States because it showed how fragile freedom of speech is in the United States. A few days after Kirk's murder, comedian Jimmy Kimmel joked on his late-night show that Trump supporters were trying to paint Kirk's murderer as liberal to score political points. It does not matter that Kirk's murderer was indeed on the Far Left. The Trump administration did not appreciate Kimmel's jab. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Brendan Carr threatened ABC's network broadcasting license. One could argue that this move is hypocritical considering that in 2019, Carr said that "the FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the 'public interest.'"
A day later, ABC suspended Kimmel. The suspension was lifted a few days later. Kimmel came back on the air to talk about using anti-American tactics to suppress freedom of speech. While I do not appreciate threats from the FCC, I also have to question Kimmel's sincerity about freedom of speech when he cheered on the cancellations of President Trump from Twitter, Roseanne Barr, or Tucker Carlson. Whether Kimmel came around on the First Amendment and realizes that he took it for granted or his passion for freedom of speech only extends to himself and those who agree with him remains to be seen. Irrespective of whether Kimmel became a free speech advocate after being suspended, this suspension debacle brings up a question about freedom of speech and the FCC's role in broadcasting regulation.
For those of you who think that FCC censorship is some unprecedented move with President Trump, it truly is not. The government has exerted its top-down control of the airwaves since the 1927 Radio Act, which predates the creation of the Federal Communications Commission in 1934. Shortly after the FCC's founding, President Franklin Roosevelt used the FCC to target and silence conservative broadcasters who opposed his New Deal. That is one of the many reasons I dislike what FDR did during his presidency. If the modern Left cannot tolerate Trump criticizing journalist or using the FCC to imply ABC loses its license, then surely they cannot ignore how FDR wielded the FCC in an authoritarian manner. Regardless, the FCC's abuse did not stop with FDR.
In 1943, the Supreme Court ruled in NBC v. United States that the government can regulate network broadcasting practices to prevent monopolies and ensure that they served the "public interest, convenience, or necessity." We would never allow for the government to monitor our phone calls to determine if our conversations are fair, balanced, or responsible. Yet that is exactly what this court case allows the FCC to do with public communication.
While the "Fairness Doctrine" started in 1949, it was particularly used by Presidents Johnson and Nixon to target critics of their policies. Nixon was the most blatant abuser by using license challenges as leverage to get broadcasters to back off on criticizing Nixon. This Doctrine remained in place until Reagan eliminated it in 1987. These examples show that politicization of the FCC is not a recent phenomenon, but rather a recurring feature in FCC history. Because NBC v. United States has not been overturned, the FCC still retains those broad powers to this very day.
The same 20th-century mindset of media being scarce and the public needing gatekeepers also underlies what I discussed last month with taxpayer funding for such outlets as NPR and PBS. When airwaves were limited and national programming was costly, public media had a stronger case relative to now. However, in a world of podcasts, YouTube, and livestreams, the idea that the government should bankroll a certain media outlet is outdated. We did not need a state-approved version of "quality content" then, and we sure do not need it now. Regardless of whether it is through regulation or subsidy, the belief that speech needs Big Government to guide it is both misguided and dangerous, even more so in a digital age.
What makes the FCC more onerous is not simply what is being said, but it seeks to control how information flows in the digital age. The net neutrality debate is a prime example of the FCC exerting that control. What net neutrality ends up being is a one-size-fits-all mandate that degrades broadband quality, reduces innovation, and undermines the very decentralization that made the internet a haven for free expression.
Net neutrality is a government mandate requiring internet service providers (ISPs) to treat all online content equally, regardless of source, type of bandwidth demand. While presented as a way to level the playing field, it is a backdoor for the FCC to control online discourse. By dictating internet traffic be treated equal, the FCC statutorily places itself as the arbiter of what constitutes "fair" access. This is because the FCC has used "reasonable network management" in its 2010, 2015, and 2024 Open Internet Orders. Combined with vague definitions of what constitutes as "reasonable" with the precedent NBC v. United States ruling, it would give regulators the legal ambiguity and institutional cover to micromanage internet traffic under the guise of neutrality. Similar to how the FCC has suppressed dissenting voices on the radio and television, net neutrality opens the door for similar abuses on the internet.
If it was not enough that net neutrality has implications for the First Amendment, its impact on broadband service is equally disconcerting. This was something I explored in further detail last year. Net neutrality does not level the playing field or improve broadband services. Because it operates under the outdated Title II regulations, it wrongfully treats the internet as a public utility, which I argued in 2017. As a result, it discourages private investment in broadband and stifles innovation. Ultimately, net neutrality translates into slower and less reliable internet. Instead of government heavy-handedness, the internet needs a market-centric approach if we want faster and more accessible internet for all. Thankfully, the Sixth Circuit court reversed the Biden administration's most recent attempt at net neutrality. The fact that these court cases need to be have due to these power grabs show how much power has been granted to the FCC.
The FCC was created for a different world. We do not live with a media landscape that has limited bandwidth, top-down broadcasting, and government-engineered fairness. Our information ecosystem is fast, global, decentralized, and wildly abundant. Yet the FCC operates with a mindset that there are only three main television stations and Franklin D. Roosevelt still sits in the White House. Whether it is censoring content, dictating how ISPs route traffic, or overseeing digital speech, the agency treats the flow of information as something to be managed in a top-down fashion. This approach is a threat to both liberty and innovation.
This is not merely a matter of outdated bureaucracy using frameworks and regulations that no longer fit today's ever-evolving media landscape. It is a more profound issue on how government shapes speech. It does not matter if you agree with Kimmel or not. Political disagreements should be settled with speech and in the intellectual marketplace, not through state intimidation or licensing threats. While I have criticized Left-wing cancel culture extensively (see here, here, here, and here), this is a disturbing trend in the political Right adopting that same authoritarian impulse. Using the FCC to silent dissent is the exact sort of tactic that Charlie Kirk would have opposed and is probably having him roll over in his grave as we speak. The Right should not succumb to these tactics because free speech is one of those core values that we should uphold in a modern, democratic society.
It is not simply because the government is prone to abusing its power to regulate freedom of speech. The government has set the dangerous precedent that our freedoms, including the freedom of speech, is something that the government gives us, rather than being something they have no right to take away in the first place. Both the Left and Right need to remember that the power to silence your political opponents today could be used against their side in the future, and often more aggressively and with fewer restraints. The fact that speech has had this much oversight from the FCC is surreal. The FCC does not merely need reform. Whether it is because of freedom of speech concerns or practical ones, it needs to meet its demise to make speech free again and make sure everyone has high-quality access to broadband services.
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