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.
