After getting Jimmy Kimmel suspended, FCC chair threatens ABC's The View

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/09/after-getting-jimmy-kimmel-suspended-fcc-chair-threatens-abcs-the-view/

by duxup • 10 months ago

192 178 10 months ago

jmclnx2• 10 months ago

Off to the USSR we go unless Congress gets brave. Sadly I told people who came here from the USSR where I use to work 40 years ago we were heading towards being the USSR, but a bit different.

They said "no way", well here we are, well on our way. Just a different flavor of the same type of thing.

zzzeek4• 10 months ago

it would help if the billionaire / centimillionaire classes decided they didn't like what was going on.

clipsy2• 10 months ago

It’d be hectomillionaire, unless you’re referring to people with $10k.

zidad• 10 months ago

who do you think is orchestrating this?

repeekad• 10 months ago

I get multiple news notifications within minutes of all these things, that’s pretty different than unfettered authoritarianism where people don’t even know it’s happening.

If everyone is aware of what’s going on and we still elect these people, that’s more on us than them no?

labrador2• 10 months ago

I served in the Navy 40 years ago on a nuclear submarine opposed to the Soviet Union so I had an interest in learning about our enemy. People like Stephen Kotkin have said Stalin and those around him were true believers in communism, while the situation in America feels like early Putinism, which was about money and power. But the suppression of those critical of the regime is the same.

ajross10• 10 months ago

This is the way shakedowns work. Disney backed down on Kimmel because he's "just a comedian" or it's "just one show" or he was "failing anyway". So now they're marks. It's always easy to squeeze a mark for a second time than to shake down a fresh one.

The View is "soft news", it's a "minor talk show", it's "daytime TV". It's not like they're coming after This Week or World News Tonight. Right?

mlinhares• 10 months ago

Just shows that they want to cave, they’re not being forced, they can fight and win but they want to be threatened and cave. If we get out of this mess I hope these people are also made responsible for the outcomes as enablers.

cyberax• 10 months ago

2021: government asking Twitter to tell you that you're not a horse is an unconstitutional violation of free speech.

2025: it's doubleplusgood to threaten TV channels for wrongthink.

squigz3• 10 months ago

I'm sure there's some Republicans on HN. I'm curious why/if you think that, if the public pressuring companies to fire people for some things (what some people call "cancelling") is wrong, it's somehow more appropriate for the government to do it? Or is this just a matter of, "well, they did it for years, now it's our turn" for you?

(If you don't actually support this party, consider refraining from sharing your opinions of why Republicans support this. And for what it's worth, I don't think the downvotes for those actually sharing their opinions [in a productive way] are deserved, even if I disagree with them.)

Y'all really need to read the guidelines

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

gjsman-10002• 10 months ago

Simple. The Republicans remember when they were cancelled for not wanting to take a vaccination that was just invented months earlier; when they were deplatformed from Twitter constantly; when Reddit rejoiced at the death of one of their heroes; when "right wing violence is more common" became a meme as Minneapolis was literally burning. They watched a kid who they believed had a legitimate self-defense case get thrown the book in Wisconsin by a prosecutor called out by even the judge for brazen unfairness; with unprecedented levels of online hate rather than openness to discussion. They watched CNN accuse right wingers of exaggerating "mostly peaceful" protests with a car literally burning in the background. They stopped caring about your feelings, because you didn't care about theirs.

Jtsummers2• 10 months ago

They stopped caring about your feelings, because you didn't care about theirs.

Free speech is not about feelings. It's a principle, one enshrined in the US Constitution. If you don't believe in free speech, just say it. Say you don't want free speech, free assembly, free religion, and the free press. Don't cry about hurt feelings, though. That's what children do.

jcranmer• 10 months ago

There are actually quite a few Republicans, such as Karl Rove, who are irate at the current administration for its attacks on free speech.

But broadly speaking, and this truly transcends partisan divisions, there are very many people whose commitment to free speech only extends insofar as they like the speech being protected. It is actually quite rare to find somebody who will advocate "I think the speech you are saying is reprehensible, but I will stake my life on defending the right for you to say it."

bad_haircut72• 10 months ago

All attempts to justify it logically are in vain, deep down lots of people just want to smash the "others" - the lies are like a depth-first search for the shortest path to finding a point where they can finally just drop all pretense.

phkahler• 10 months ago

I don't think Republicans characterize it that way. I find myself right leaning, and while I like most of Trumps agenda, I often disagree with his tactics. I increasingly have to fact check stuff like this to see if he crossed a line. The problem is there's too much BS, summarizing, and mischaracterising going on. Direct quotes (sometimes requiring context) are needed to get to the bottom of things. It's exhausting. I will say, right or wrong the left brought this on - it is a response to their bad behavior.

christophilus2• 10 months ago

Most republicans I know despised Kimmel but think the government overstepped. I’m not a Republican, but I am conservative. I think these moves are inexcusable.

y-curious• 10 months ago

I think you should understand that a lot of R's vote along party lines and just felt that Trump would be the lesser of two evils. I would rephrase your question to ask for people that support this specific action, as opposed to membership in the party.

I am a Republican, not necessarily thrilled with how things are going, and I completely oppose forcing Kimmel out of a job for this. It is not only unconstitutional in my opinion, but also extremely petty.

giardini2• 10 months ago

I also am Republican and believe in free speech but I believe it was OK to fire Kimmel b/c he's an employee who serves at the whim of his employer.

It isn't a free speech issue b/c the government didn't fire him. Nor do I think the government had much to do with Kimmel's firing.

I believe Kimmel displayed extremely poor taste in his choice of topics and wording, enough for any reasonable business to fire his ass. Maybe he can come back in a year.

zahlman9• 10 months ago

Not a Republican, or even an American, but I do have opinions about this (and I have heard from Republicans about it).

Basically, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45305810 has the right of it, for the most part.

But also: in my view, this isn't exactly "the government" doing it. It comes across that the major ABC affiliates already didn't like the show and have been looking for an excuse to get rid of Kimmel for a while. His show has been fading into irrelevance; if you exclude the videos with "Trump" in the title, the Youtube channel has been doing terribly of late relative to the subscriber count (over 20M). And even the Trump videos look lackluster next to the consistently popular documentaries on, say, Veritasium (which puts out science documentaries and has a similar subscriber count). At any rate, "pressure" like this isn't a 1A violation as far as I can tell; no law is being made by Congress.

And also, it does matter what the cause of action is. An allegation that your political opponents are trying to dodge responsibility for a serious crime committed by one of their own, is pretty heavy. Maybe you don't think that's worse than, say, insulting someone in a bigoted way; but the Republicans I've heard from seem to consider that the latter standard isn't applied consistently anyway. Which is to say: if they're getting called "Nazis" and "fascists" and there's no penalty for that, it seems like that ought to establish a standard whereby other insults of comparable severity are fair game.

One thing I've heard many times in right-wing political discourse, though I'm not sure of the exact phrasing, is "my rules applied fairly > your rules applied fairly > your rules as you apply them".

I don't think the downvotes for those actually sharing their opinions [in a productive way] are deserved

In my experience, the arguments very often come from a place of hurt and a genuine sense of being mistreated. It's hard for them to end up being shared very productively.

jimbob452• 10 months ago

Pure kayfabe. ABC needed any excuse to get rid of a show that no longer made sense in the modern era of streaming. NBC and CBS must be furious that they didn’t think of this first.

Edit: Ha I forgot that CBS actually did think of it first with Colbert’s show getting axed too.

2OEH8eoCRo02• 10 months ago

Stupid take. These shows are cheap to produce and still get good ratings. They're profitable. What are they being replaced with?

jimbob452• 10 months ago

You can’t resell old episodes. They only talk about news and celebrities relevant to each specific week. They’re instantly dated - no one is rewatching old episodes beyond a week. Even if there are some stragglers still watching them with their ancient cable TV subscriptions, they’ll be gone within five years and who wants to invest in a dying show with an expiration date?

hairofadog• 10 months ago

Back in 2022, when Musk was buying Twitter and the Biden administration was asking social media companies to moderate potentially harmful medical misinformation, it felt like every third comment here was someone hollering about free-speech absolutism. Where did all those people go?

HankStallone3• 10 months ago

It's different when they do it.

dralley• 10 months ago

While I don't much care for either Kimmel nor The View - this is ridiculously corrupt, authoritarian, thuggish, illegal and arrogant behavior and cannot be allowed to stand.

And shame on Disney for caving. Cowards who kneel down to kiss the ring in the face of blatantly illegal threats are not worthy of a position of public trust. And over a merger no less.

I can't think of a better moral justification to prevent a corporation from owning a bigger slice of the ecosystem than to know that said corporation will dispense of any and all integrity they may yet possess to do it.

mensetmanusman2• 10 months ago

An issue was that the right was being canceled for views not even 5 years ago and the same people complaining about Kimmel are having their exact quotes replayed justifying those types of cancellations.

From a game theoretic standpoint, tit for tat is exactly what’s supposed to happen to stabilize the situation. This has actually been proven by mathematicians that apply decision making theories to social structures.

kg• 10 months ago

The right was cancelled by the US government?

mrbombastic• 10 months ago

See if you can spot the difference. And i am not defending past cancellations, but there is a not so subtle difference in kind here that makes these kind of both sides arguments fall flat.

sylens• 10 months ago

You're conflating cancel culture, done voluntarily by private companies, with censorship, with the federal government through the FCC is dictating the outcomes of mergers and acquisitions based on compliance with speech restrictions.

HankStallone3• 10 months ago

Yes, much of the anger is coming from the petard-hoisting nature of this, and people who spent 2017-2024 trying to silence (or worse) everyone who disagreed with them and cheering on governments that tried to suppress "disinformation" and other speech they didn't like, having to come up with elaborate justifications why It's Different This Time.

UmGuys5• 10 months ago

This never occurred and you're completely full of it. No democratic government official ever pressured anyone to be cancelled.

gtirloni2• 10 months ago

I'm not a US citizen so take what I write below with a grain of salt.

I always thought the US to be a stronghold of democracy and free speech. I know, it's a naive view and we know how huge companies and corrupt politicians can subvert the system. But still, I thought it had a decent law system that, although imperfect like any other system, kept things from going back to the dark ages.

I don't believe that anymore after what I've seen this year. A few individuals can completely takeover the government, keep committing bigger and bigger crimes and nothing happens. All they get is outrage on social media, which they are happy to shrug off.

I know democracy and free speech are fragile things and we have to be constantly watching but I didn't imagine it would be this ephemeral in the US.

spicyusername2• 10 months ago

It's something that's been eroding for a long time, starting mostly with the Reagan administration in the 1980s and the political desire at the time to put an end to the New deal era style of big government from the 1930s and 40s.

There have been periods of pause, and even reverse, but two terms of the Trump administration trailing on the heels of the tea party movement in the 2010s have really done a lot of damage at all levels of US government.

By now, so many politicians, lawyers, and judges, are compromised it's going to take some pretty extreme changes to the way people are voting to make an impact.

I don't see that happening in the near future, even if I do see it happening in the long term.

vmg122• 10 months ago

This is twisting history and reality, big government is exactly what's happening right now. The FCC abusing its power to silence speech is big government. The government using its power over universities to control them is big government. This is the fruit of that tree.

danielvaughn3• 10 months ago

We're still a stronghold of democracy and free speech. That doesn't mean threats don't occasionally present themselves. In fact, it should be welcomed, as it gives each new generation the opportunity to re-affirm their commitment to free speech.

Free speech has been under threat at the academic and cultural level for a while now, especially in the 2010's. All of that was a good thing in my opinion, because a generation of college students were able to see firsthand what happens when we try and silence dissent.

This situation is admittedly more dangerous, as the federal government is attempting to suppress speech via governmental subsidies (as far as I can tell, I don't have all the facts).

But this is also an opportunity. It's a moment for those on the political left to see clearly why protecting speech is, in fact, a very good thing. So hopefully the sane people on both sides of the aisle can reflect on where we're at, how we got here, and how we get out of this situation. To me it's clear - we reject both explicit and implicit attempts to suppress speech we don't like, full stop. We don't kill people, we don't get people fired, we don't threaten to withhold funding. We need to collectively agree to do this across the board, for everyone in this country.

browningstreet• 10 months ago

This feels like a principled, fantasy response. We're not at the "shaking fists on podiums" stage of this issue.

etchalon5• 10 months ago

The only "free speech" that matters is whether the government is punishing you for it.

jauntywundrkind2• 10 months ago

There's supposed to be checks & balances, of Congress, the courts, and the President keeping one another in check.

But the GOP holds all three. Even the court system has fallen apart, with the Supreme Court using shadow dockets with no explanation, not establishing any precedent, just overriding lower courts to rule by fiat as they please. The GOP congress is utterly maga whipped, with only very rare signs of protest; deathly afraid of provoking Trump's ire.

Even still there's constant legal losses for the administration. But the shock and awe, the endless acting bad, in bad faith, doing bad things, and disrespecting the constitution, the liberties, the democracy: it's very grinding and very hard to see such pure malice against our history and rights and decency performed so ruthlessly so regularly.

labrador2• 10 months ago

It's been worse before in America and we've returned to normal, so I have hope as an American. See McCarthyism in the 1950's, when people like Kimmel were blackballed from working:

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

luddit32• 10 months ago

Maybe before social media. I have a hard time seeing how this country will self-correct.

martythemaniak• 10 months ago

What's really pathetic about the current situation is that McCarthyism was at least rooted in the fear that Soviets would bomb and kill people, which given Russia's conduct in Ukraine and other places was well-founded. The current authoritarian backsliding is because... woke? Truly the dumbest of timelines.

modzu• 10 months ago

since the 1970s democratic backsliding is the primary origin story for todays authoritarian regimes. look at turkey, russia, the philippines, venezuela, nicaragua, poland, hungary, india... theres a playbook. you can now add usa to that list. a good counter example is what happened last year in South Korea. the president declares martial law out of nowhere but before he could consolidate power the courts and the people resisted (not easily mind you, he had significant support) but the checks and balances held things together. but in the other examples you can see how when one of those checks fails it essily cascades into a chain reaction that can be hard to stop. that's what you're witnessing in the usa: taking congressional power to the executive, control of the courts, control of the media, using the national guard domestically to control dissent. well you get the idea. it already seems too late. there won't be some red line crossed where people get out their guns to defend their "freedom" if they haven't already noticed how eroded its become. theres still voting -- just like in all those countries above.

IncreasePosts3• 10 months ago

What you have here has nothing to do with the law, and has to do with power. Disney willingly pulled Kimmel off their own networks, because a major distributor of their content(Sinclair) threatened to not air it, which accounts for about 20% of the viewership of the show.

gtirloni2• 10 months ago

Why did Sinclair threaten to not air it?

throw0101a4• 10 months ago

Disney willingly pulled Kimmel off their own networks, because a major distributor of their content(Sinclair) threatened to not air it, which accounts for about 20% of the viewership of the show.

"This is a nice merger deal, shame anything should happen to it…" does not look like a recipe for a free will / willing action to be made.

For the record, the merger is with Nexstar, not Sinclair, but the point is the same:

* https://www.nexstar.tv/nexstar-media-group-inc-enters-into-d...

jpk• 10 months ago

A few individuals can completely takeover the government

That's not what's happening.

When most people serving in positions of government do so in good faith, most forms of government work, including the American one. When most people serve in bad faith, most forms of government do not work, including the American one.

The American system has checks in place to keep what is happening from happening, but those checks aren't working because those who would exercise them aren't doing so, as withholding those checks benefits them personally, at least in the short term. The underlying theory of the American system is that if you distribute power enough, one or a few bad actors can't seize total power.

But, there are just too many people in elected office right now who did not take their oath to uphold the Constitution in good faith. Namely, in Congress which has simultaneously demonstrated that it is unwilling to effectively wield the impeachment check, and is unable to do effective legislative work, leading to a latent desire for a stronger executive. In this circumstance, no form of government will hold up without a correction towards replacing all the bad-faith actors.

taurath4• 10 months ago

I always thought the US to be a stronghold of democracy and free speech.

Every single story and moral guidance I've ever been told from childhood, whether from movies, books, church, or culture in general is that people like those in power right now are the bad guys.

I no longer have any idea what people on the other side actually think. I don't think they know anymore either. I think they just want to exert power and control and revenge over their personal grievances and boogeymen, and seem to be under a constant bombardment of ideology to convince people to untether themselves from any moral restraint or connection with the out-group.

I am one of the scary minorities they use as a boogeyman, and their rhetoric about the group of people I belong to is so unattached from my daily life, the values that I hold, and my own attitudes that it would be comical if it didn't come out in sideways glances, scowls, and stares of people on the street. Nobody ever even bothers to ask, to even have a moment of conversation to see that there is a real person. I try to walk through life friendly, open, and interested in people. We walk around with conceptions of other people built for us, not ones that we have made ourselves.

The only thing that seems to help is to try to be offline as much as possible, to be in community with people and in real space.

jmclnx2• 10 months ago

In the Reagan years, money started to became more important than voters. Under Bush 2 and recent Supreme Court Decisions, bribes became legal. Per the Court they called them "tips".

So Congress people spend more time fund raising (taking bribes) than helping their district.

Nothing real has gotten done in many districts for multiple decades. Real wages, when compared to inflation, and has been falling for decades. When I was very young, laws where passed that actually helped people. As a very young kid, I remember waking up as a kid with coal flakes on my window sill due to its use in the mills. That ended in the 70s.

Now, to get more money the laws that cleaned up the environment are being cancelled, why, rich are "tipping" congress people.

The US is done, time for civilization advancement to be carried on by another Country. Hopefully the EU can get its act together.

rsynnott• 10 months ago

The US system was strongly dependent on everyone basically behaving themselves; it has very poor defences against people willing to break the rules.

mallowdram• 10 months ago

Time to toss symbols and words. When everyone is the same thing that everyone's accusing one another of being, then signaling is done. We've reached the symbolic impasse that arbitrariness only enforces.

There's nothing coherent statement-wise coming out of the political leadership of all parties. That explains everything. No one is communicating. The news says nothing. All that matters is actions. And without a system of explanation for those actions, the species is dead.

Listen to the experts:

“...by getting rid of the clumsy symbols ‘round which we are fighting, we might bring the fight to an end.” Henri Bergson Time and Free Will

"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less," said Humpty-Dumpty. "The question is whether you can make the words mean so many different things," Alice says. "The question is which is to be master—that is all," he replies. Lewis Carroll

“The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.” Philip K. Dick

vmg122• 10 months ago

It actually sickens me how many people that supposedly cared about liberty just completely switched their schtick overnight. I'm not surprised that some of these people were two faced liars, I'm just surprised by the sheer scale and the shamelessness of it. It's like I'm living in a world surrounded by aliens.

blooalien• 10 months ago

"It's like I'm living in a world surrounded by aliens."

...

etchalon5• 10 months ago

It's neat to learn who had actual principles and who was just borrowing some because they were upset they couldn't use the N word.

hn1986• 10 months ago

Libertarians in name only

UmGuys5• 10 months ago

It should not surprise you. They hold no position. In fact the positions they do hold are mostly lies (as we can see small gov, debt reduction, law and order). The only policies that are real are the evil ones: deploying military against civilians, transforming ICE into brutal terrorists, bankrupting the country through tax cuts, etc ... The GOP strategy has been to break the government, claim it doesn't work so they can defund it, foment fear and hatred, and flat out reject Democracy. Why? Because their policies are abhorrent and hateful and only help by a few rich "Christian" natrionalists.

Sparkle-san• 10 months ago

ABC is owned by Disney, which owns many subsidiaries. The one thing they and their shareholders care about is cold, hard cash. If you don't agree with what they're doing, then consider speaking the loudest way you can, with your wallet.

Disney owns:

- Hulu

- Disney+

- ESPN+

- National Geographic

- Pixar

- Marvel

- A whole lot more

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

takeda• 10 months ago

And the parks.

_DeadFred_2• 10 months ago

The company Nexstar the helped put the pressure on so they could get their special exemption (exemption to rules in place so that companies like Nexstar don't get too much power) own the online politics site 'The Hill'.

https://www.nexstar.tv/networks/

_DeadFred_2• 10 months ago

And to add, if you want to give comment to the FCC on the merger waiver at the center of this the period is over but the FCC people's in charges numbers are up for direct comment:

https://www.fcc.gov/transaction/nexstar-tribune

jjangkke• 10 months ago

Overton Window shift basically. One side used cancel culture relentlessly for even the smallest slights. Now the other side is using the very same tactic. Many people who have kept out of the extremes have now shifted towards the right and those who ignore the shift are finding out the hard way.

I advise HN users who aren't aware of what's happening, read up on what Overton Window is and why its dangerous to continue posting the way you have without infosec.

You think you are posting only on HN but your posts are actually being distributed on other platforms by people who are very angry.

Users on Bluesky thought they were posting on Bluesky but they only found out too late, after they got fired because their political posts were being shared elsewhere.

There have already been few HN users who have been targeted for their radical views and have paid the price.

For your sake, please don't ignore this message.

lupusreal3• 10 months ago

That's my take. Its worse this time because it's coming from the government, but in a sense that makes it actually an opportunity to fight it in court (and they absolutely should.) In any case, the rules of engagement have been clear for years: if we don't like you, then we're coming for your livelihood.

etchalon5• 10 months ago

It's not "worse because it's coming from the government".

The fact it is coming from the government is what makes it terrifying.

mariusor• 10 months ago

I think it hits quite different when the canceling is done by a gaggle of oversensitive Karens as opposed to by members of the government.

josefritzishere• 10 months ago

This is not normal.

sghiassy• 10 months ago

Historically speaking it might sadly be :/

aeon_ai2• 10 months ago

We need a third party, because this is just the pendulum swinging away from one cancel culture to another.

b0sk• 10 months ago

Don't be naive. There was no jawboning from the previous administration to networks to cancel someone -- especially someone who always made fun of the President.

However, this is a a classic example of violation of 1A. (I agree that the thing that was probably in the grey area was they asked Twitter to remove certain COVID-19 medical disinformation tweets -- But, come on, many people were consuming horse dewormers for COVID and dying. )

The right's cancel culture is a violation of constitution because it's the government that's doing the cancelling.

aeon_ai2• 10 months ago

Ignoring or at least dismissing the similar acts on the left highlights the reason that a third party is necessary.

It’s clear Trump is attempting to capture the institution, and I’m not equivocating, but this has been an escalating ping pong back and forth over the last two decades.

I’d rather live in a unified country. Unity comes from breaking out of the polarization

luddit32• 10 months ago

This is not cancel culture. It is a violation of the First Amendment.

thefourthchime• 10 months ago

The actual quote from the FCC chair:

"When you look at these other TV shows, what's interesting is the FCC does have a rule called the Equal Opportunity Rule, which means, for instance, if you're in the run-up to an election and you have one partisan elected official on, you have to give equal time, equal opportunity, to the opposing partisan politician,"

This is classic Trump era politics. Bully people with a tangential connection to a obscure law. That way it has an air of legality. Well it meanders through the courts. In the end it doesn't matter if it gets ruled down or not. This gives you time to be rule as a de facto authoritarian.

xyzelement3• 10 months ago

I love my liberal principles but this is totally expected.

Ideally we live in a world where Kimmel isn't canceled but neither is someone like Roseanne Barr. But that world hasn't existed for a while.

In a prisoners dilemma both sides win by cooperation. Once a side "defects" - the other side is a sucker not to. The ship on lamenting this stuff has sailed.

pm90• 10 months ago

Barr wasn’t cancelled by threats from the Government.

IncreasePosts3• 10 months ago

Neither was Kimmel - the real threats came from the ABC affiliates who threatened to not air his content.

xyzelement3• 10 months ago

That's a nuance without consequence. Barr is a random example that came to mind.

The larger point is that it's been very difficult for a while to be a conservative in media, or academia or in the workplace, due to the ease with which you were canceled. The reason people stick with principles because it helps them and the other side - it's a high ground maneuver.

But once you feel like you are consistently deprived of all the benefits of that principle, you are no longer inclined to uphold it.

So in general I would expect conservatives to now attack via pathways they were previously above. The fact that people are surprised they are getting fired for celebrating Kirk's murder is one sign of how benign the conservatives had been about that stuff. I think that's over now.

reop2whiskey2• 10 months ago

tens of thousands were

http://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/weaponizatio...

jauntywundrkind2• 10 months ago

The government didn't step in to threaten ABC over Barr spouting off derogatory racist trash. They weren't jawboned into doing it. They just didn't want to be associated with a trash person.

whalesalad• 10 months ago

Jimmy Kimmel being "cancelled" has nothing to do with Jimmy. He is the canary in the coal mine. The real issue is that the federal government is using their power and might to withhold FCC licensing from groups that they do not agree with. The FCC->ABC situation is what is alarming, has nothing to do with Jimmy.

Same shit happened with CBS/Paramount.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07JQr5W3970

yread• 10 months ago

Who was the president when Barr's show was cancelled in 2018? Some woke guy?

biophysboy2• 10 months ago

Beyond the obvious state censorship issues here, its worth noting that Kimmel's monologue on Sep 15 appeared before add'l evidence (texts, discord chats) came out about Tyler Robinson's incoherent beliefs. This means that Kimmel's implied accusation (Tyler was MAGA) was a real possibility at the time, rather than willful misinformation.

convolvatron• 10 months ago

I took his statement to be deeper than MAGA vs liberal.

Regardless of the spin, the view that political opponents are existential risks to the republic and thus demand to be killed for the good of all of is what he was suggesting that is shared.

biophysboy2• 10 months ago

Yes, this is more or less how I read the statement, but I can see why others had a less charitable reading. I don't want to nitpick it too much, because its a pretextual charge during a tense moment.

nielsbot• 10 months ago

The Kimmel case is a straightforward protection racket.

Nexstar, the owner of 39% of the local TV stations in the country, wants the FCC to change their rules to allow them to merge with [other conglomerate name I forget] to increase their local market ownership share to 80%.

(If you listen to what Kimmel said, he mainly mocked Trump.)

g42gregory3• 10 months ago

People are discovering that cancel culture goes both ways.

Neither one is good.

But let's not pretend that cancel culture has not been going for many years now.

Remember Fox News cancelling, their most popular at the time, Tucker Carlson Show?

vjvjvjvjghv2• 10 months ago

I think the problem is that the FCC is getting involved here.

g42gregory3• 10 months ago

Yes, they could have spent time, first creating an informal "communication safety" group between some Government agency and Disney/ABC. But I feel like this is splitting hairs.

hobs3• 10 months ago

I do remember that, and it turns out there's so many reasons to have fired TC that people had pages of listicles on why he could have been fired https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic... and none of them were cancel culture it turns out. Fox already lied and paid out hundreds of millions on dominion, it couldn't handle paying for any more lies.

g42gregory3• 10 months ago

Yeah, I am sure soon we be given good reasons why "they couldn't handle" JK either. Just scroll down the comments. See, ABC affiliates wanted him gone... :-)

TC has now an audience larger than the entire Fox News. Maybe JK will do the same.

pupppet• 10 months ago

Government threats led to Tucker's cancellation?

reaperducer2• 10 months ago

Republicans are demanding "equal time."

Cool. I look forward to hearing Whoopi Goldberg on AM talk radio.

yndoendo• 10 months ago

Repeal of the Fairness Doctrine created echo chambers. [0] Equal air time to different point of views of a topic turned into 100% or 99% network pushed point of view. This removed a standard person from having quality engagement to content designed an manipulated for personal gain by the networks. It was a good bridge to living together versus living divided.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_doctrine

reaperducer2• 10 months ago

It's sad that the head of the FCC is ignorant of what the FCC does.

The Fairness doctrine was eliminated in the late 80's by Republicans whose talk shows were taking over AM radio.

Later, the FCC took the position that it does not have the authority to regulate content. Only technical things like frequency allocation.

Now, suddenly the Republicans want to invoke the rules they killed because someone got their feelings hurt?

Man up, GOP.

Maybe turn off the TV and read a book, or go for a walk, or take up a hobby other than being angry at everything.

vjvjvjvjghv2• 10 months ago

I think cancelling The View is overall a benefit to humanity.

But the real question is: Are they going after Fox News, OANN now too? Plenty of biased shows there.

taurath4• 10 months ago

I don't have any idea where this will go, but the idea that our collective future is determined by the restraint of the people currently in power does not bode well.

giardini2• 10 months ago

The rioting, burning, shooting and killing is being done by the people out of power. Those people have no restraint apparently.

erulabs5• 10 months ago

A lot of things can be true at the same time:

- The FCC shouldn't be involved in content moderation, and the FCC Chair is obviously on an authoritarian power trip.

- What Kimmel said was wrong (assuming you believe Utah state investigators) and deeply irresponsible and inflammatory.

- Clearly the market was already deciding that Kimmel's show is irrelevant (Nielsen ratings quite clear on that).

- The FCC is only involved in content because of how TV broadcasting worked ~50 years ago (large swaths of RF spectrum allocated to certain license holders, only a few channels -could- exist due to technical reasons, thus fairness rules).

- ABC's distributors threatened to stop airing the network, which is what actually caused Disney/ABC to act, it's hard to say what impact the FCC Chairs comments actually had.

- The idea that the FCC needs to act to protect the TV Broadcasting systems is ridiculous, just let it all die, we're very far past the "public square" era of media.

- Had the FCC made no comment, and Disney pulled the show due to the distributors actions, it would have obviously just been "cancel culture but from the right", instead Brendan Carr wants to get in the headlines and so here we are.

It's all a perfect Scissor Statement. You can absolutely not care about Kimmel, you can think the FCC's TV licensing scheme is pointless and outdated, you can be 0% surprised Disney only cares about money and Carr is an idiot, and still you can get into a heated argument about this stuff. My own mother texted me "Free speech is dead" and hurah, now I get to do 3 hours of reading to say "it never really existed in broadcast television and also yes, this is bad, but not nearly as bad as you think" and boom now I'm the fascist.

"Sort by Controversial" is such a troubling timeline.

ajross10• 10 months ago

- What Kimmel said was wrong (assuming you believe Utah state investigators) and deeply irresponsible and inflammatory.

Was it really though? Paraphrased, Kimmel said that the killer was a republican. He had a republican background, but it didn't motivate the killing which didn't seem to have any particular ideology beyond (maybe) trans identity politics and/or edgelord memery. So yeah, that was wrong.

But if that's "irresponsible and inflammatory", then isn't it equally so to blame "democrats" or "the left", also groups with which Robinson has no documented affiliation? And we can all agree that this is happening pervasively on the right, at all levels.

The double standard here seems troublesome to me, and likely deliberate. Which, I'll add, what actually the point Kimmel was trying to make.

now I get to do 3 hours of reading to say "it never really existed in broadcast television and also yes, this is bad, but not nearly as bad as you think" and boom now I'm the fascist

You're not a fascist, but you do seem to be sort of an apologist. Doesn't the linked article directly refute the "not nearly as bad as you think" bit? It's happening again!

erulabs5• 10 months ago

Was it really though? Paraphrased, Kimmel said that the killer was a republican. He had a republican background, but it didn't motivate the killing which didn't seem to have any particular ideology beyond (maybe) trans identity politics. So yeah, that was wrong.

Look I don't even pretend to know the truth. But the sitting governor of Utah, the highest authority on the investigation (which is being done by Utah state investigators), said the shooter had a "leftest ideology". NYT source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/14/us/kirk-shooting-suspect-...

Now its fine to not believe the governor, but I am not one of the investigators so thats as good as I can get unless I believe in a conspiracy by the state of Utah itself, which I think warrants evidence.

Personally I don't believe in "group X verbed Y", as I do not believe that groups can act. Liberals didn't shoot anyone, conservatives didn't shoot anyone; a single individual person shot someone. Group identity is not interesting to me, nor do I find it helpful. I do find it very inflammatory tho, and think is a deplorable thing to say to uninformed viewers at home.

By "not nearly as bad as you think", what I mean is, the FCC has always policed content on broadcast television. Shows have been cut mid-air due to foul language. We have never had "freedom of speech" on broadcast television. And, if you notice that it's not even clear the FCC took any action, that it was actually ABC's distributors who caused the ruckus, then this is bog-standard "cancel culture", which, while bad, is hardly the death of free speech. I'd be perfectly unbothered if broadcast television died completely, thus reducing the FCCs ability to control the media period.

Yes, I'd love to live in a world with less censorship, less stupidity, less government control, but that's not the world we live in, and its not the world we used to live in, either.

camel_Snake• 10 months ago

Paraphrased, Kimmel said that the killer was a republican.

He literally didn't though? Why does this mistake keep being made. Kimmel made 0 assertions about the shooter. He did make assertions about the President and his conduct, however.

hakunin3• 10 months ago

- What Kimmel said was wrong (assuming you believe Utah state investigators) and deeply irresponsible and inflammatory.

I agree that we should be disavowing violence.

The problem is that for 10 years democratic lawmakers and media figures are disavowing violence on both sides, while republican lawmakers and media figures are doing the opposite: stoking the flames, promoting the idea of civil war, telling everyone that the country is stolen from them, that immigrants are out to get them, that democrats are out to get them, etc. According to this rhetoric, democrats are to blame for all of this. When something bad happens and it's not democrats who caused it, they come up with a conspiratorial explanation for how it's still democrats.

So when one side keeps constantly disavowing, and the other side keeps constantly attacking, at some point disavowing becomes literally the wrong thing to do. You can't lay down your weapon while the other person just keeps hitting, and expect the hitting to stop.

What we are being shown repeatedly by republicans is that violent, divisive rhetoric actually leads to electoral victories, and grants free license to become "president for one side only" and do whatever that side wants. If democrats continue to disavow and apologize, they will end up simply extinct. This is why some democrats stopped doing that.

zahlman9• 10 months ago

for 10 years democratic lawmakers and media figures are disavowing violence on both sides, while republican lawmakers and media figures are doing the opposite

It was not a Republican media figure who made that video of herself holding "a mask styled to look like the severed, bloody head" of the POTUS.

Among the biggest-name political Twitch streamers, it's not the right-wingers who are being shown to have all sorts of clips calling for political violence, making threats that include brandishing firearms on stream, doxxing people etc. — all of which are blatant TOS violations, but which never seem to get them banned. From the evidence available to me, the CEO of Twitch seems to be quite friendly with the most egregious of those streamers.

So when one side keeps constantly disavowing, and the other side keeps constantly attacking, at some point disavowing becomes literally the wrong thing to do. You can't lay down your weapon while the other person just keeps hitting, and expect the hitting to stop.

I can assure you the other side feels the same way. There are even supercuts out there of Trump repeatedly disavowing violence that he was still accused of not disavowing.

thrownawayohman• 10 months ago

Man you are delusional. How many pols and their elk where clamoring for civil war because a YouTuber got shot that they _assumed_ was a leftist? How many of those same people said anything when a democratic state senator and their spouse was murdered, and another pair seriously wounded?

This is the type of nonsense that really bothers me with this site. It’s an attempt to “both sides” everything in a pathetic attempt at seeming logical.

delichon• 10 months ago

https://tinyurl.com/mtwkby87

What have you got against their elk?

kelnos• 10 months ago

What Kimmel said was wrong (assuming you believe Utah state investigators) and deeply irresponsible and inflammatory.

What Kimmel said[0] was fairly innocuous and not all that big a deal. What he said was actually true, in general, about conservative discourse, regardless of what the shooter's politics are.

Carr directly threatened ABC's broadcast license over protected speech, even in the context of the FCC's mandate and the rules around broadcast licensing.

Kimmel's ratings are irrelevant. Murdering someone with terminal cancer is still murder.

[0] There still seems to be a bunch of confusion and misinformation about what Kimmel said, so: "We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it." If you truly believe that's the kind of thing the FCC should be threatening a network's broadcast license over, I'm not sure it's possible to have a productive discussion with you about this.

soperj2• 10 months ago

I'm not sure it's possible to have a productive discussion with you about this.

My immediate reaction was similar, I'm not sure he's saying that it is wrong though, he said "can be".

zahlman9• 10 months ago

There still seems to be a bunch of confusion and misinformation about what Kimmel said, so: "We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it."

The FCC should not be threatening ABC over this, but the statement is, on the available evidence, wrong, irresponsible and inflammatory. It's wrong because it insinuates that the killer was "one of them" (completely untrue per Utah state investigators), irresponsible because there was no good reason to believe it (the alternative narratives require some deep reading into cryptic fringe political groups) and because of the timing, and inflammatory because of the nature of the allegation (it's not a nice thing to say about anyone even when it's demonstrably true).

What he said was actually true, in general, about conservative discourse, regardless of what the shooter's politics are.

The statement cannot be evaluated for "truth in general" because it referred to a specific incident. If he'd wanted to assert something about what "the MAGA gang" generally does, he could have done so. But the point was specifically to tie into current events.

(I also don't really understand the objection. What, are conservatives not supposed to disavow political violence? Is everyone on the right supposed to accept responsibility for the consequences of every other right-wing political philosophy? Please be careful about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-group_homogeneity .)

jrmg• 10 months ago

Here’s a full transcript of the monologue - which is absurdly hard to find in all the coverage.

https://pastebin.com/25ZmRNwj

ajross10• 10 months ago

absurdly hard to find in all the coverage.

By design. If it was actually offensive Fox would be playing it non-stop. The offense has been excavated from inside an implication of a phrase in a nested clause in a sentence saying something unrelated.

Kimmel said (as part of an argument that republicans were playing politics by pointing fingers) that republicans were trying to prove that Robinson was not a republican , from which you have to infer that Kimmel meant to say Robinson was a republican.

throw0101a4• 10 months ago

- What Kimmel said was wrong (assuming you believe Utah state investigators) and deeply irresponsible and irresponsible.

Exactly which words were wrong/irresponsible/irresponsible? Do you have a video clip and timestamp of the specific statements?

- Clearly the market was already deciding that Kimmel's show is irrelevant (Nielsen ratings quite clear on that).

Quite the coïncidence that this is the second comedian that has been canceled, the first being Colbert. As Timothy Snyder, a historian on Central/Eastern Europe, the Holocaust, and totalitarians regimes, commented: General pattern in regime change: the comedy gets better and then it gets banned.

* https://twitter.com/TimothyDSnyder/status/196846639438465036...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Snyder

- ABC's distributors threatened to stop airing the network, which is what actually caused Disney/ABC to act, it's hard to say what impact the FCC Chairs comments actually had.

The owner of many ABC stations is looking to fulfill a $6.2B merger/acquisition:

* https://www.nexstar.tv/nexstar-media-group-inc-enters-into-d...

* https://deadline.com/2025/08/nexstar-acquires-tegna-local-tv...

They need to get FCC approval.

Instead of deciding the deal on its merits, the Trump administration has made it known if you rub its tummy you will get what you want (export policy isn't decided on (say) national security evaluations, but if you give money: Nvidia 15% export tariff, UAE buying $2B of Trump-family crypto).

Instead of procedural government decisions (i.e., rule of law), you get government decisions based on the temperament of the boss.

UmGuys5• 10 months ago

I disagree with your second point. I believe Utah, dislike Kimmel, and believe he said nothing wrong. In fact he pretty much stated facts with a sprinkle of his brand of comedy.

You're drifting into lalaland. It's very clear it was cancelled because of government action. Why are you making up weird stories. Everything has been reported.

For whatever reason you're trying to justifying government censorship. This article isn't about Kimmel it's about another show MAGA hates apparently. And the cult leader guy blew a hole threw your convoluted thesis yesterday when he openly admitted he disagrees with the first amendment.

somethoughts• 10 months ago

It feels a better strategy for all parties involved to have transitioned these shows to ABC's streaming properties (i.e. Hulu) and made them "exclusive" content for these platforms.

This would have put them out of the reach of the FCC (based on the FCC's initial spectrum is for public benefit for all claim) for now.

There is probably significant IP in both of these shows that could still have been monetized given brand familiarity. It would have been less than before but still something is better than nothing.

I don't have any data to back this up but I can't imagine a lot of people still use Over The Air TV. And the intersection of people who rely solely on OTA TV and are clamoring to watch Kimmel/View is probably even lower.

This also would probably have benefitted the administration in that it wouldn't have trigger as many alarm bells from a free speech perspective.

kcplate• 10 months ago

I don’t watch any of these shows, but I have seen videos of the View hosts having to read “Legal Notes” on air, often after commercial breaks to “clarify” or correct things that were just said on the show. Even one video where after the “note” the host attempted to clarify off the cuff even further…only to get an another note again right away to clarify the clarification.

My feeling is if I was a media company, and I had to employ lawyers to legal check conversations in real time on a talk show because my hosts were either so dumb to know when to avoid shooting their mouths off, or couldn’t control themselves…that show better be making a metric shit ton of profit otherwise I’d yank it and put up reruns of House on the Prairie.

notmyjob• 10 months ago

This saddens me. The view, despite its negative press, has helped countless housewives broaden their scope of concern from gossipy soap opera nonsense to current events and domestic politics. While they may not be good educators, they are moving the needle. It used to be unladylike to talk politics, at least for the uneducated class. Now we have daytime tv populism.

After getting Jimmy Kimmel suspended, FCC chair threatens ABC's The View

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