In recent decades, the federal government has steadily expanded the reach of the regulations. A very good part of Jacob Sullum in Reasons of reasons points out that this power enables the government to exert informal pressure on companies in a way that limits freedom of expression:
Why is Paramount so enthusiastic to arrange this comic excuse for a lawsuit? Needless to say that it has nothing to do with the legal or logical merits of Trump’s complaint.
The New York Times Reports that Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount, “supports the effort to settle” because they “encourage billions of dollars about the sale of Paramount.” The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is now chaired by Trump appointed Brendan Carrhas the authority to ask that trade by refusing to approve the transfer of the temporary employment permits of CBS TV stations. . . .
Trump, for his side, to claim That the processing of the Harris interview is sufficient reason for the FCC to ‘remove the CBS license’. . . .
Trump can extort that result because of the outdated and constitutional dubious authority of the FCC on the content of temporary employment journalism, which the government treats differently than journalism spread through print, cable, satellite, internet or another non -verdardcast medium. That is just one of the many ways in which a president can try to punish or suppress speech that he does not like. Other levers of executive power are the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the IRS, Antitrust Management by the Ministry of Justice, Privacy and Financial Regulations and Presidential Support for new legislation. Trump even has suggested That the Ministry of Justice should be the press’ to ensure that it tells the truth, an idea that is legally unfounded and grim with the first amendment.
This kind of abuse of power comes from both sides of the political spectrum:
Trump and other Republicans rightly complained when the Biden administration persistent social media platforms to Suppress the speech These federal officials regarded as a threat to public health, democracy or national security. They argued, they argued, they argued, violated the first amendment because it carried an implicit threat of government delay against companies that refused to comply with. Nevertheless, in this case Trump is essentially doing the same by putting pressure on Paramount to soften his wrath by establishing a lawsuit that would certainly fail on his merits.
We have seen a recent recoil against the excesses of “Wakker ideology”. I welcome the weakening of the cancellation culture, dei and other counterproductive forms of social engineering. But I am worried that the recent recoil can lead to some people swing too far in the other direction. The fact that it should be legal to express offensive ideas does not mean that it is a good idea to do this. Responsibility comes with freedom. In recent months I have seen an increase in tweets that are in a very bad taste. The fact that the police were wrongly accused many people of racism or sexism does not mean that there is no such thing as intolerance. The following Aella Tweet suggests that she has seen a similar overreaction as the release of awake limitations:
In one Recent PostI encouraged people to think about how they would have behaved in an earlier period of history, say China in 1966 or Germany in 1932. Based on what I saw on Twitter, many people would have failed the test.