Conservatism has largely been unpopular outside of rural townships, and the nation continues to undergo a process of urbanization as young people continue to move to cities. Normally, a healthy response to this would be to realign and target a more popular set of messaging and policy objectives. Instead the American Right has decided instead that this popularity (and the reflection in media) is a threat to its ability to continue serving a shrinking pool of wealthy benefactors.

It should come as no surprise that the moment they were handed the power, they began to push the boundaries of what is acceptable when it comes to censoring media they see as a threat. Republicanism doesnt work for anyone but the wealthy, it will do everything in its power here.

This is why I find Social Media regulation to be so dangerous.

We shouldn't give our[1] government too much leverage over any company that controls what people can say. If we do, we may be solving a very serious problem, but creating one which is even more serious. If the government can apply large fines to social media companies, and also has a large amount of discretion about which companies it prosecutes, it's very easy for them to make a deal where a company won't be prosecuted if they remove speech that the government doesn't like.

[1] Use whichever definition of "our" you like, the point is equally valid regardless of country.

This is higly abusive. Talks shows have been generally considered exempt from the Equal Time provision since the Regan administration. It it was applied consistently Fox News is basically violating it 24 hours a day.

[dupe] Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47049426

I think it’s funny that while GOP supporters are investing tens of $billions to take over popular broadcast and social media brands to privilege their point of view, Brendan Carr threatens to invoke the equal time rule, which would completely negate their structural advantage.

This is kind of like when conservatives spent years wrapping their advocacy in the banner of free speech, and then Brendan Carr announced that free speech is over, actually, because Jimmy Kimmel was mean. Oops! Nevermind.

> I think it’s funny that while GOP supporters are investing tens of $billions to take over popular broadcast and social media brands to privilege their point of view, Brendan Carr threatens to invoke the equal time rule, which would completely negate their structural advantage.

Why assume the rule would be applied fairly? Carr said they would not enforce it against right wing radio.

It's worth remembering that CBS is now run by a right-wing billionaire. It's the reason 60 Minutes stories that would anger the Republican administration keep getting pulled.

This is how a country slides into oligarchy. Quiet threats, regulatory scrutiny, tax audits, license reviews aimed at TV networks and newspapers until they decide it’s safer to stay quiet. And once the media falls in line, you have to ask what else is being forced into compliance behind closed doors, long before the public realizes what’s happening. What's next? Protesters swept up under sweeping surveillance and detention policies, speech narrowed in the name of "public safety", certain narratives becoming untouchable, etc.

You copy pasted this comment[0] then when I clicked reply it was slightly edited. What exactly are you doing?

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47050245

I've seen the same thing happen with support tickets — people edit them right after posting once they realize something was off. Looks like they caught a mistake or wanted to clarify before the thread moved on. Pretty common when you're typing fast and realize you got something wrong.

This. We are in very serious trouble people.

Could have just invited Ken Paxton if all he wanted to do was inform voters.

Dems haven't even had their primary yet. He'd have had to been open to all the other Dems, before even getting to the Republicans.

The equal time rule only applies during election season, and Texas doesn't have their primary until May. Paxton isn't running for anything right now, so inviting him wouldn't trigger equal time obligations. The Democrat Colbert wanted to interview is actively campaigning for the Senate race happening in a few months.

Use publicly owned airwaves, expect to have to abide by the campaign finance rules. Can't just donate excellent coverage to just one candidate.

It just says they have to give equal time, not prevent someone from coming on the show completely. But the other candidates have to make a request to be included and no-one made any requests.

Don’t act like this FCC’s actions should be taken in good faith.

Alright, then apply the rule to talk radio as well.

This is obviously true. The real challenge here is that this rule is only going to applied to one party.

Doesn't apply to late night shows.

They just now changed how they enforce the rules. Of course they have a legal pretense for their action; everyone has a legal pretense.

These rules have generally not been enforced this broadly because the expectation is that they wouldn't actually stand up to First Amendment scrutiny, should it make it to the Supreme Court. Of course, CBS is at no risk of suing the administration if Paramount wants any chance of buying Warner, so in this case they can restrict as they please.

I think you were downvoted for tone, but I think your general point is valid.

I am sure, however, that we have some lawyer folks on HN. Hopefully one of them can weigh in on whether or not this is accurate interpretation of the law as it is currently written.

I find the death of 2016 conservatism and the advent of the extremist, more violent and hateful republicanism very interesting. It's like how the minority of Left-leaning people who burn cars and shoot public speakers are what most on the Right see the entire democrat party as. Now the Right has their own form of that in those who scroll on Twitter and attack immigrants behind their backs. I feel like, within the next year or so, there will be a vast swath of former republicans who are so violently radicalized that they will do the same thing those protesting George Floyd's death in 2020 did. It's just interesting how cyclical it all is.

> It's like how the minority of Left-leaning people who burn cars and shoot public speakers are what most on the Right see the entire democrat party as.

That's the result of well known disinformation tactics by certain media in concert with police forces: wait or provoke a violent outburst in a otherwise peaceful protest, often triggered by carefully planned repetitive police charges, then be ready to film when protesters discharge their frustration against what they have nearby like shops windows and cars, make a enraging video out of it and show only that in prime time to families dining.

Not saying this is the case, but I heard an argument made about this on the other side. Saying the ICE situation is manufactured by the Democratic party by not playing ball like they did in the Obama times. Instead they encourage protests and and "wait or provoke a violent outburst" that's "often triggered by carefully planned repetitive" tactics like blocking ICE vehicles "then be ready to film when" an inevitable violent act happens then "make a enraging video out of it and show only that in prime time to families dining".

Again, not saying that's the case, I'm not from the US so I don't much care, but it's funny to me that both side accuse each other of the same strategy.

There's actually a decent body of research on agent provocateurs and protest dynamics—from COINTELPRO documentation to more recent work analyzing Black Bloc tactics. The challenge is distinguishing genuine infiltration from organic escalation. Most studies I've seen suggest both happen, but systematically separating them in real-time is nearly impossible, which is precisely what makes the tactic effective when it is deployed.

Turns out "both sides" only applies when you're not holding all the cards.

I'm not sure this is a fair comparison.

The radicals on the far-right control three branches of the federal government. The George Floyd protestors were barely able to influence their local boards.

Saw this exact FCC leveraging threat during the Nixon era. Worked then too—stations folded immediately. Equal time doctrine was always more about control than fairness once lawyers got involved.