Free Communication

For John, BLUF:  One of the reasons we have tensions within our democracy is that we don't trust the other side to protect our right to speak out.  As George Orwell said:  “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Biden’s FCC Commissioner Nominee Gigi Sohn Wants To Nuke Right-Leaning Broadcasters From Air

From Conservative Review, by Mr Jordan Boyd, 18 January 2022.

Here is the lede plus four:

President Joe Biden’s nominee for commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission hates Fox News and wants the federal agency to regulate conservative broadcasts because she disagrees with them.

The White House first announced Gigi Sohn as Biden’s FCC nominee in October.

“Gigi is one of the nation’s leading public advocates for open, affordable, and democratic communications networks,” the Biden administration claimed. “For over thirty years, Gigi has worked to defend and preserve the fundamental competition and innovation policies that have made broadband Internet access more ubiquitous, competitive, affordable, open, and protective of user privacy.”

Sohn’s inclination towards censorship and partisan regulation, however, torpedoed her chances of confirmation. Biden re-nominated Sohn at the beginning of the year but her chances of gaining Republican support are once again slim considering her history of criticizing and painting TV networks she disagrees with as threats to our democracy that need to be punished.

In one 2019 tweet, Sohn hinted that Fox News should be scrutinized because they “have played their own role in destroying democracy.”

I thought the headline and early paragraphs were a littly hysterical, but then I read on.  Frankly, her views on Fox would be OK with me, if they were coupled with strong support for the First Amendment and the importance for democracy of airing all views.♠  Sadly, that doesn't seem to exist in her public utturances.

I am happy to see her on the FCC, as long as she is willing to support the free speech rights of all Americans, as did the ACLU,♥ back in the day of demonstrations in Skokie, Illinois.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  "I wholly disapprove of what you say—and will defend to the death your right to say it.”  Voltaire
♥  Funnily enough, today is the day, back in 1920, that the American Civil Liberties Union was founded.  Happy Birthday, but I am not sending a gift.