The FCC Wants Final Cut
The government does not need to burn books when it can threaten licenses. Why bother with an inquisitor’s bonfire when a regulator’s raised eyebrow can do the trick?
That is the modern First Amendment problem. Censorship no longer arrives only as an outright ban. More often, it comes dressed as “oversight,” “public interest,” or “compliance”—all perfectly respectable words, right up until they become tools of political pressure.
Recent actions by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) against Disney-owned ABC have sparked a high-stakes legal fight. This is not merely a technical dispute over “equal time” rules or corporate diversity policies. It points to a troubling pattern of censorship by proxy: government officials leaning on private actors to suppress or reshape speech the government disfavors.
By pushing back, ABC is defending more than its own editorial independence. It is helping hold the line for the “marketplace of ideas.”