ICLE White Paper Warns FTC, FCC Are Weaponizing Power Over Speech Markets
PORTLAND, Ore. (May 11, 2026) — The Trump administration took office pledging to end federal censorship and government weaponization. But a new white paper from the International Center for Law & Economics (ICLE) argues the administration has instead redirected coercive government power through the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC), targeting the intermediaries that shape modern speech markets.
The white paper, “Censorship-by-Proxy: Jawboning in the Marketplace of Ideas,” arrives as ABC has reportedly accused the FCC in a new filing of trying to restrict political candidates from appearing on programs like The View—a move the network argues would violate its First Amendment rights. The dispute underscores the paper’s central warning: government pressure can distort editorial decisions even without direct censorship.
ICLE Senior Scholar of Innovation Policy Ben Sperry argues that the administration has not restored the marketplace of ideas. It has simply installed a new set of censors with a different vision of acceptable speech. The paper examines how the FTC and FCC have targeted advertisers, fact-checkers, payment networks, broadcasters, and other intermediaries to reshape the incentives that drive content moderation and editorial decisionmaking.
“The Trump administration came into office promising to end federal censorship, but the record tells a different story,” Sperry said. “The FTC has pursued advertising agencies, investigated fact-checkers like NewsGuard and Media Matters, pressured Apple over its Apple News editorial choices, and warned major payment networks about alleged debanking—not to protect the marketplace of ideas, but to reshape it in the administration’s preferred direction. The FCC has done the same with broadcasters, using the threat of license consequences to pressure affiliates over disfavored programming. This is jawboning, and it is just as constitutionally troubling when this administration does it as when the last one did.”
The white paper explains why multisided platforms are especially vulnerable to such pressure. Social-media platforms, broadcasters, advertising networks, and payment systems connect users, advertisers, merchants, banks, creators, and audiences. Pressure applied to one side of the platform can ripple across the entire ecosystem, allowing officials to influence speech indirectly while avoiding the appearance of censorship.
The paper calls for reforms grounded in the First Amendment and the rule of law. Courts should revisit Red Lion and Pacifica, which give broadcasters weaker First Amendment protection than other media based on outdated assumptions about media markets. Congress should also narrow the FTC’s and FCC’s broad discretionary authority, which invites abuse regardless of which party controls the White House.
To arrange an interview with Sperry, contact Jim Fellinger at [email protected]. Download the full white paper here.
About ICLE
The International Center for Law & Economics is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center working with a roster of more than one-hundred academic affiliates and research centers from around the globe. ICLE scholars promote the use of law and economics methodologies to inform public policy debates.