In recent decades, the Federal government has steadily expanding the reach of regulation. A very good Jacob Sullum piece in Reason magazine points out that this power allows the government to put informal pressure on companies in a way that restricts the freedom of speech:
Why is Paramount so eager to settle this comical excuse for a lawsuit? Needless to say, it has nothing to do with the legal or logical merits of Trump’s complaint.
The New York Times reports that Shari Redstone, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, “supports the effort to settle” because she “stands to clear billions of dollars on the sale of Paramount.” The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is now chaired by Trump appointee Brendan Carr, has the power to queer that deal by refusing to approve the transfer of the broadcasting licenses held by CBS-owned TV stations. . . .
Trump, for his part, argues that the editing of the Harris interview is sufficient reason for the FCC to “TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE.” . . .
Trump can extort that outcome because of the FCC’s antiquated and constitutionally dubious authority over the content of broadcast journalism, which the government treats differently from journalism disseminated via print, cable, satellite, the internet, or any other nonbroadcast medium. That is just one of many ways that a president can try to punish or suppress speech he does not like. Other levers of executive power include the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the IRS, antitrust enforcement by the Justice Department, privacy and financial regulations, and presidential support for new legislation. Trump has even suggested that the Justice Department “should” be policing the press to make sure it is telling the truth, an idea that is legally baseless and starkly at odds with the First Amendment.
This sort of abuse of power has come from both sides of the political spectrum:
Trump and other Republicans rightly complained when the Biden administration persistently pressured social media platforms to suppress speech that federal officials viewed as a threat to public health, democracy, or national security. That pestering, they plausibly argued, violated the First Amendment because it carried an implicit threat of government retaliation against companies that refused to comply. Yet Trump is doing essentially the same thing in this case by pressuring Paramount to assuage his wrath by settling a lawsuit that was bound to fail on its merits.
We have seen a recent backlash against the excesses of “woke ideology”. I welcome the weakening of cancel culture, DEI, and other counterproductive forms of social engineering. But I do worry that the recent backlash might lead some people to swing too far in the other direction. The fact that it should be legal to express offensive ideas does not imply that it’s a good idea to do so. With freedom comes responsibility. In recent months, I’ve seen an increase in tweets that are in very poor taste. The fact that the woke police wrongly accused many people of racism or sexism does not mean that there is no such thing as bigotry. The following Aella tweet suggests that she has seen a similar overreaction to the loosening of woke restrictions:
In a recent post, I encouraged people to think about how they would have behaved in some earlier period of history, say China in 1966 or Germany in 1932. Based on what I’ve been seeing on twitter, many people would have failed the test.
Update: CBS finally released the transcript of the interview in question, which shows that the network did not misrepresent the interview. In a new Reason magazine story, Jacob Sullum suggests that Trump misrepresented the story:
The transcript validates the network’s argument that it was engaging in standard journalistic practice by using a more “succinct” segment of Harris’ response to the Israel question than the one that was featured in a preview on Face the Nation the day before. And it shows that Trump has not only absurdly exaggerated what happened (as is his wont); he has flagrantly misrepresented the nature of the editing and continues to do so.
READER COMMENTS
Mactoul
Feb 5 2025 at 11:04pm
The term Authoritarian connotes more than it denotes. If we are not anarchists, we accept some authority and any exercise of the authority may be labelled authoritarian.
But, in practice, the label is only applied to those that displease the those firmly entrenched in commanding heights of bureaucracy, universities and media. You won’t see British prime minister Stramer being labeled as such though he has been quite heavy-handed with the protestors that have dared to push policemen in a melee or have published posts that were not quite complimentary to the religion of immigrants.
IS Elon Musk a nationalist? He has batted quite strongly for skilled immigration. But he is guilty of wanting a strong, independent America, That is sufficient to damn him.
Scott Sumner
Feb 6 2025 at 7:36pm
“IS Elon Musk a nationalist?”
Have you seen the people he is supporting in Europe? Have you seen his twitter account?
Mactoul
Feb 7 2025 at 4:54am
Well, the term nationalist applied to Musk would mean American nationalist. The foreign policy may be anything. A nationalist might support a communist in another country or a libertarian (Likely Musk would support Millei).
Because, nationalism is always local. Hitler cared only for the German nation. He didn’t care for Polish nationalists, French nationalists etc etc.
steve
Feb 6 2025 at 4:41pm
This was our first real pandemic in the modern era. We had people like Berenson outright lying (I am not sure why the people at Reason are covering for him*) which actually led to people less likely to vaccinate. At a time when we still had hundreds/thousands of people dying a day. Under those circumstances, I am willing to cut the people communicating with the media companies a bit of slack. I will grant that it’s a thin line between jawboning and carrying out normal responsibilities. I would expect public health officials to inform media, not just social media, about appropriate facts and what were lies with harmful consequences. Having read a bunch of the supposedly intimidating emails that is mostly what it looked like happening, at least to me.
With the first vaccines they were, against the early virus, about 90% effective at stopping spread. It was with later versions of the virus and vaccine that it dropped into the 30%-40% region. At present we dont have herd immunity in the sense that you dont catch covid, however, at this point we have pretty good effect at preventing severe disease. At this point almost everyone has been vaccinated or had covid so we arent seeing the numbers of severe illnesses from covid like we used to see. Needless to say, Berenson was wrong about the vaccine killing people. (Sad to see Reason, a publication I have generally respected even if I dont always agree, sink to what was essentially a hit piece by promoting Berenson.)
Steve
TMC
Feb 7 2025 at 10:54am
There was so much bs thrown around both pro and con vaccination. I was happy to get the vaccine even if it wasn’t bulletproof. What medical intervention is? I’m over 50 so removing the worst consequences of covid was valuable to me. Of course it was a completely different calculation for those under 20 or 25 or so.
I understand being overcautious in the beginning, it is necessary until we understand the threat. But the lack of changing our approach as we learned more was damaging. Damaging to this response and damaging to future outbreaks. People don’t forget who abused their authority.
JoeF
Feb 7 2025 at 8:41am
So I read the Reason piece, and Sullum claims that “Like the Biden administration officials he despises, Trump is demanding that a private company kowtow to him—or else,” but the difference is that Trump is doing it publicly in a single lawsuit, while the pressure from the Biden admin was all through private channels and was much, much more widespread (see Taibbi). Sometimes comparisons are odious.
Jon Murphy
Feb 7 2025 at 9:01am
I don’t think that difference really matters here…
JoeF
Feb 7 2025 at 4:16pm
As quoted above (in this article): “That pestering, they plausibly argued, violated the First Amendment because it carried an implicit threat of government retaliation against companies that refused to comply. Yet Trump is doing essentially the same thing in this case by pressuring Paramount to assuage his wrath by settling a lawsuit that was bound to fail on its merits.”
I don’t think they are remotely the same. We are comparing a single possibly-frivolous lawsuit with years of private, backchannel coercion and suppression.
Jon Murphy
Feb 7 2025 at 4:22pm
So? That’s a difference of number, not substance.