Jimmy Kimmel wasn't being silenced. He doesn't have a right to a late night talk show. Disney is free to end that agreement within the bounds of their contract. Being fired for social media posts isn't being silenced. Employment is for the most part at will. Getting deported for protesting the Gaza war isn't being silenced. Visas come with limitations, and the US government has the authority to revoke your visa if you break those rules. /s
You seem to think there's a bright line of "silenced" vs "not silenced". In reality there's many ways of limiting and restricting people's expressions. Some are generally considered acceptable and some are not. When huge swaths of communication are controlled by a handful of companies, their decisions have a huge impact on what speech gets suppressed. We should interrogate whether that serves the public interest.
The federal government was literally pressuring ABC to take Kimmel off the air. Even Ted Cruz and other prominent republicans said that was a bridge too far.
The federal government was literally pressuring YouTube to remove certain COVID content that did not violate its policies. It's said explicitly in the story.
What I'm trying to get at is it's possible to stifle people's freedom of expression without literally blocking them from every platform. Threatening their livelihood. Threatening their home. Kicking them off these core social media networks. All of these things are "silencing". And we should be wary of doing that for things we simply disagree about.
This is such an important idea. I'm afraid that most people do not think beyond "bad opinions should be legally suppressed" and unfortunately that includes many of the purported guardians of our social morals.
Is that a meaningful distinction? If they had offered instead to show strong favoritism to Disney for suspending Jimmy Kimmel would that have made it okay? I think it's wrong for the federal government to pressure Disney in this way regardless of the means.
There is a huge difference between “soft power” and using the bully pulpit and bringing the full legal force of the government and taking away a broadcast license. This was a bridge too far for conservative politicians.
The other distinction you seem to be ignoring is that the Biden administration was doing it because of public health concerns. Trump and the FCC was doing it because a comedian said meab things aboit him and a devout racist.
What favoritism did the Biden administration show? They still went after Google for being a monopoly.
Unlike Trump who only had his administration approve the Paramount deal after accepting a $15 million bribe in public
You seem to think there's a bright line of "silenced" vs "not silenced". In reality there's many ways of limiting and restricting people's expressions. Some are generally considered acceptable and some are not. When huge swaths of communication are controlled by a handful of companies, their decisions have a huge impact on what speech gets suppressed. We should interrogate whether that serves the public interest.