Kimmel shut down. BOYCOTT ESPN!!!

8,896 Views | 290 Replies | Last: 15 min ago by Anarchistbear
bearister
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Sinclair has always been giggle worthy. Morons.
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Eastern Oregon Bear
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bearister said:



Sinclair has always been giggle worthy. Morons.
I think Sinclair found some programming that will draw even fewer eyeballs than Kimmel. I do think Kimmel will get a short term ratings boost from the controversy.
ACC Bear
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Last week, after ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel infuriated conservatives with a monologue decrying the "MAGA gang" for "trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them," FCC Chair Brendan Carr railed against Disney on a podcast with Benny Johnson. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Carr seethed. "These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead."

Kimmel was fired by Disney, leading to an outpouring of support for the First Amendment that was heartening on one level, infuriating on another. Lame-duck comic Stephen Colbert unironically announced "We are all Jimmy Kimmel," and 400+ Hollywood celebrities signed an ACLU letter in Kimmel's defense, with Senators like Connecticut's Richard Blumenthal citing an "unprecedented act of government censorship."

It wasn't unprecedented. A close analog to the Kimmel situation was already moving through courts in a high-profile First Amendment case called Berenson v. Biden. Just like Jimmy Kimmel, former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson was "jawboned" off a public platform. He was identified by a combination of White House officials and pharmaceutical executives as a voice they wanted to remove from Twitter for criticism of Covid-19 vaccine. Also just like Kimmel, Berenson was actioned just after a high-profile government official made a televised complaint, in this case a July 16, 2021 appearance by Joe Biden:



Berenson was locked out of his account for the first time hours after Biden's appearance. Weeks later, he was suspended for good. Not that it matters, but while Kimmel was threatened for inaccuracy, Berenson's problems stemmed from being too accurate about the mRNA Covid vaccines, about everything from studies showing surprising inefficacy to potential links to myocarditis that even Biden's CDC eventually acknowledged. Critics have gone after other Berenson statements, but the ones that got him in trouble were exactly what the Founders had in mind when they thought about speech: true statements made in opposition to an official propaganda campaign. The last straw was this accurate tweet from August 28, 2021:
Quote:

It doesn't stop infection. Or transmission. Don't think of it as a vaccine. Think of itat bestas a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS. And we want to mandate it? Insanity.

Berenson's removal marked the end of a five-month campaign that involved current and former high-level officials from Pfizer and multiple government agencies. Onetime Biden official Andy Slavitt commemorated Berenson's silencing by posting a screenshot of Berenson's locked account. That tweet is still live:



What does this have to do with Kimmel, who's been reinstated by Disney and returns to the air tonight in what will be hyped as the greatest First Amendment comeback since the Pentagon Papers? A lot.
First, Google just made a remarkable admission in a letter to House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, admitting it was censored during Covid. "Biden administration officials, including White House officials," the firm wrote, "conducted repeated and sustained outreach" regarding "user-generated content related to the COVID-19 pandemic that did not violate its policies." The firm added it was "unacceptable and wrong" when "any government" attempts to dictate content decisions. There were additional complaints about the "onerous obligations" of European laws like the Digital Services Act (Racket will have more on this soon).

Even though Berenson's case is built around Twitter and not YouTube, Google's admissions leave no doubt about the "repeated and sustained" censorship of that era, which everyone seems to be forgetting. While people like Kimmel and Colbert were swimming in bucks pumping out grotesque vaccine propaganda, the primary victims were people like Berenson.

"It's just more evidence," Berenson says of the Google news. "The companies can say they acted independently, but they're acknowledging they felt pressure."

More importantly, this case is alive and in the hands of the Trump administration. If new speech converts want to pressure this White House, this is one place to do it.

Just a few months before Brendan Carr's outburst, Biden-appointed Judge Jessica G. L. Clarke of the Southern District of New York handed down a ruling in Berenson's case that should have shocked speech advocates. On July 14th, Clarke dismissed the private defendants, writing:
Quote:

Plaintiff lacks standing to assert a First Amendment claim against Slavitt because Berenson cannot obtain equitable relief or Bivens monetary damages against him.

This seeming throwaway line packed a wallop, as a frustrated Berenson wrote on his Substack in July.
"Clarke found that my core First Amendment claims are barred not because I couldn't prove the White House censored me or I was injured as a result," he said, "but because the Supreme Court has not allowed for money damages against the federal government for First Amendment violations."

He was referring to so-called Bivens actions, which allow citizens to sue for federal rights violations only in certain circumstances (until now, not on First Amendment grounds). Paired with the problem of ordering injunctive relief in a speech case the analogous action for Kimmel would be forcing Disney to re-hire him, which would create a new speech violation Clarke essentially ruled that since people censored via third parties aren't entitled to relief, his case has to be dismissed.

It was bad enough that everyone in media missed this ruling when it happened, including me, but now? Berenson has been hopping mad since the Kimmel brouhaha kicked off, and has a right to be, since his case speaks directly to the Kimmel issue, and former colleagues still won't shine a light.

"It's a flaw in the law and it doesn't just apply to me. It's wrong philosophically that you can't get damages from the federal government for a violation of your First Amendment rights," Berenson says. "And it would have been the same thing for Jimmy Kimmel."

When he won last year's election, Trump took over for the Biden defendants in Berenson's case. After Clarke's decision, Trump defendants are the only ones left in the case. It wouldn't help with the gaping loophole that now appears to exist with third party censorship, but it would set a cost for violating speech rights. The administration's hesitancy to make good with Berenson is at best curious, and Judge Clarke's own mysterious failure to dismiss with regard to the Trump administration opens the door for a message to be sent.

For adminstration critics who'll cheer their next-gen Lenny Bruce on ABC tonight, why not also push Trump to make a meaningful gesture toward the First Amendment by settling with someone he doesn't even hate?



If the ACLU can get Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Ben Stiller and 400 other stars for Kimmel, they really can't organize twenty signatures for a case right down the fairway of their historical mission? Sadly, it's obvious why it won't happen:

When Kimmel was fired by Disney, commentators rushed to speculate about a suit, with Politico going so far as to say Kimmel "should have strong odds at the Supreme Court." Politico's ostensible point was that unlike the Murthy v. Missouri Supreme Court case, in which defendants like NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya were sent back down to the lower court because (as Politico put it) "they could not link anything the federal government did to the suppression of their speech," Kimmel had a great shot. As University of Chicago law professor Aziz Huq put it, "the evidence of 'specific causation'" with Kimmel was "plain to see."

Berenson has a better case than either Kimmel or the Murthy defendants. The Supreme Court claimed the Murthy defendants failed to prove a "substantial risk of future injury that is traceable to the government defendants" in other words, even if plaintiffs like Bhattacharya could prove they were suppressed, they couldn't "trace" the suppression back to specific government action. Berenson doesn't have that problem. The last reporter to have access to the Twitter Files, he obtained documents that firmly demonstrated causation and eviscerated the "traceability" problem that sank Murthy. This is one of the reasons why it's important to get a settlement. If someone with such extraordinary access to the scene of the crime can't win, who can?

As bad as the Murthy evidence was, the Berenson material was worse. As reported by David Zweig, Twitter head of Government Affairs Lauren Culbertson wrote, "one of the first meeting requests from the Biden White House was about COVID-19 misinformation" and "Biden's staff focused on vaccines and high-profile anti-vaxxer accounts, including Alex Berenson."

Berenson wasn't an "anti-vaxxer." He favored mRNA treatments for people over 70 and suggested people between 50-70 make a choice based on "on personal risk factors." To the Biden White House, he was a threat precisely because he wasn't crazy. As an email from White House Digital Policy Director Rob Flaherty to Facebook read, the White House knew "the problem does not fit in 'microchips'-land," but in the "'skeptical'… What actions are being taken on 'skepticism'?"

In a Slack discussion the next day, Twitter employees described getting "one really tough question" from the White House "about why Alex Berenson hadn't been kicked off the platform." One employee noted official Andy Slavitt "really wanted to know about Alex Berenson" because of his impact on the "persuadable public." Subsequent contacts by former FDA Commissioner and Pfizer board member Dr. Scott Gottlieb inquired about Berenson's status and whether or not his statements earned "strikes" toward removal.

Biden meanwhile had already given his public speech about social media "killing" people and the White House separately issued statements about the platforms, saying, "They should be held accountable" for misinformation. Finally, on August 28th, Berenson was removed, leading to Slavitt's vile digital Gronk spike.

Noting that the Supreme Court under John Roberts has "reexamined the law and Constitution on many fronts," Berenson doesn't think the door should be closed on speech claims of his type. Judge Clarke, he wrote, "is right that until now the Supreme Court hasn't allowed those types of damage suits against the government. But that's an issue I would happily raise on appeal."

If nothing else, the Kimmel case fully revealed the prior era's speech hypocrites. Derek Thompson, who wrote a sleazy hit piece for the Atlantic about Berenson called "The Pandemic's Wrongest Man," all but admitted that the Biden administration censored people, but for better reasons:
Quote:

The Biden administration working with social media companies to throttle what they considered COVID misinformation might or might not have been legally principled, but it did at least pretend to have a substantive moral argument that was something like, "We don't want people to die and we're willing to take drastic steps to block information we believe might lead to their death."
The moral argument for the FCC and president going around telling media companies to fire their progressive talent or else risk the wrath of the state seems to be "we believe we were treated unfairly, and now we have power, so suck it, losers," which I understand as an emotional reaction, but… I haven't heard anybody even pretend that there's a deeper principle at stake here.

It's an open admission: our censoring was better than yours, and we'll go back to doing it when we have a chance. Can't that bluff be called?
oski003
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Unfortunately, liberals have their heads so far up each others' butts that they won't be able to comprehend this.
bearister
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"Brendan Carr railed against Disney on a podcast with Benny Johnson. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Carr seethed."

I think Carr has been waiting since he was 10 years old to use the same line that every playground bully used on him before taking his milk money (by the looks of him, probably his soda money). And yeah, he always gave it up the easy way.

I think Covid, vaccine and whatever other medical misinformation the Trump Administration wants to spray about should be allowed to the max. Best accelerant for the mechanics of Social Darwinism ever.
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sonofabear51
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I think Covid, vaccine and whatever other medical misinformation the Trump Administration wants to spray about should be allowed to the max. Best accelerant for the mechanics of Social Darwinism ever.


Absolutely
oski003
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sonofabear51 said:

I think Covid, vaccine and whatever other medical misinformation the Trump Administration wants to spray about should be allowed to the max. Best accelerant for the mechanics of Social Darwinism ever.


Absolutely


Instead we got Fauci's misinformation and Biden's CDC making poor recommendations where healthy college students were forced to get vaccinated. It was a circus and accelerant for liberal darwinism. They did all of the above while silencing opposing views via media control, which sets poor precedent for what happened to Jimmy Kimmel after he mislead the public.
bearister
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You guys are running the show now. Let's see if the Red states, that follow the medical advice of Dr. Bobby and his Flying Circus, become the health trend setters for the rest of the nation.

I'm glad the MAGAs are Bobby's Guinea pigs. Maybe he will be right after all and the diseases preventable by vaccination should never have been prevented because they make us stronger. Time will tell.
If he is wrong, some parents may feel raw about it and when they accuse him of creating vaccine hesitancy and confusion, Bobby shrugging his shoulders and saying, "Who me?" ain't gonna cut it….and Trump will throw that motherf@ucker under the bus, like he did Dr. Fauci, without blinking.
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bearister
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BearGoggles
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BearGoggles said:

DiabloWags said:

oski003 said:



The lefty insurrection is more violent than Jan 6.


140 police officers assaulted on J6.
One had an eye gouged out.
Another lost fingers.

And a mob wanted to lynch our VP.
And was just seconds from "capturing" him.

This just goes to show how terribly partisan and out of touch with reality you are.



Please provide a credible link confirming that: (i) an officer had an eye "gouged out"; and (ii) an officer lost "fingers".



Hey @DiabloWags - are you so mesmerized looking at your butthurt face in the mirror that you forgot to answer these questions? I'm pretty sure you posted false and/or grossly exaggerated claims (not for the first time), so links are required here.

sycasey
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BearGoggles
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sycasey said:



Totally fair post. Trump's statements are highly problematic.

Given the most recent revelations and written admissions from Google, are you still going to claim that the Biden admin didn't engage in equally problematic behavior?





bearister
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Trump considers Fact Checking of his lies a form of censorship and Zuckerberg has promised not to do it anymore.

I have a question: Are there any Fact Checking organizations with a Right Wing bias that proclaim Trump's lies truthful or are all Fact Checking organizations simply inherently untrustworthy?

Perhaps the very act of checking the accuracy of a Trump purported statement of fact is seditious.

Fact check: Debunking 100 Trump false claims from his first 100 days | CNN Politics https://www.cnn.com/politics/fact-check-trump-false-claims-debunked

Fact check: Ten debunked lies Donald Trump has repeated in the last week alone | CNN Politics https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/29/politics/fact-check-trump-ukraine-inflation

Fact check: Trump litters UN speech with false claims about climate, inflation, immigration and world peace | CNN Politics https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/23/politics/fact-check-un-speech-claims-trump



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DiabloWags
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BearGoggles said:

BearGoggles said:

DiabloWags said:

oski003 said:



The lefty insurrection is more violent than Jan 6.


140 police officers assaulted on J6.
One had an eye gouged out.
Another lost fingers.

And a mob wanted to lynch our VP.
And was just seconds from "capturing" him.

This just goes to show how terribly partisan and out of touch with reality you are.



Please provide a credible link confirming that: (i) an officer had an eye "gouged out"; and (ii) an officer lost "fingers".



Hey @DiabloWags - are you so mesmerized looking at your butthurt face in the mirror that you forgot to answer these questions? I'm pretty sure you posted false and/or grossly exaggerated claims (not for the first time), so links are required here.




Lmfao.
Are you really this ignorant and tonedeaf?
DiabloWags
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BearGoggles said:

BearGoggles said:

DiabloWags said:

oski003 said:



The lefty insurrection is more violent than Jan 6.


140 police officers assaulted on J6.
One had an eye gouged out.
Another lost fingers.

And a mob wanted to lynch our VP.
And was just seconds from "capturing" him.

This just goes to show how terribly partisan and out of touch with reality you are.



Please provide a credible link confirming that: (i) an officer had an eye "gouged out"; and (ii) an officer lost "fingers".



Hey @DiabloWags - are you so mesmerized looking at your butthurt face in the mirror that you forgot to answer these questions? I'm pretty sure you posted false and/or grossly exaggerated claims (not for the first time), so links are required here.




Hey @BeerGoggles - are you really so BLIND and IGNORANT by your Trumper Devotion Syndrome (TDS) that you have NO CLUE about the injuries sustained by police officers on Jan 6th?

Did you really go to Cal?


Jan. 6 'Eye Gouger' Thomas Webster to Claim Self Defense

Capitol Police Union Reveals Cops Suffered 'Brain Injurie... - Newsweek

Officers maced, trampled: Docs expose depth of Jan. 6 chaos | AP News

Shocking new report details the injuries to police during insurrection by Trump supporters - Raw Story[url=https://lawandcrime.com/u-s-capitol-siege/eye-gouger-ex-cop-who-used-to-be-on-mike-bloombergs-security-detail-intends-to-argue-he-beat-up-officer-on-jan-6-in-self-defense/][/url]

"Between USCP and our colleagues at the Metropolitan Police Department, we have almost 140 officers injured," union chairman Gus Papathanasiou said in a statement released Wednesday.

"I have officers who were not issued helmets prior to the attack who have sustained brain injuries. One officer has two cracked ribs and two smashed spinal discs. One officer is going to lose his eye, and another was stabbed with a metal fence stake."

sycasey
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BearGoggles said:

sycasey said:



Totally fair post. Trump's statements are highly problematic.

Given the most recent revelations and written admissions from Google, are you still going to claim that the Biden admin didn't engage in equally problematic behavior?

I think the Biden admin's stuff was problematic, yes. I don't think it's equally problematic, unless someone can show me where in the evidence it shows that they directly threatened any private company with lawsuits or regulatory action (as Trump has clearly done) if they don't suppress certain content. I don't buy the conservative argument that Trump's stuff is "better" because it's happening out in the open. To me the brazen nature of it makes it worse; they don't even try to pretend like they're respecting free speech laws.

I also think that these tech companies are blowing in the wind and saying things to placate the current Republican power structure, and conversely in the past they said things to make the Dems happy when they had the power. "We took suggestions and made content decisions on our own" becomes "The Biden people were pressuring us!" when there's a new President. To be clear, I don't think the Biden admin should have done what they were doing, and I don't think the companies should have done the censoring. I also think all parties have an incentive to exaggerate how bad it was now when Republicans are in power and will probably change their tune again when Democrats are.

(Also, as an aside, I think we've also seen that these attempts to soft-censor don't work anyway. Kimmel's relevance was actually raised by the fact that Trump went after him so blatantly. The stuff the tech companies tried to suppress got out and became a dominant ideology despite their efforts. It's dumb! Don't do it!)
ACC Bear
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sycasey said:



LOL that Democrats suck so hard that you lost to this guy. Never stops being funny.
dajo9
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Kimmel's return causes his ratings to go up more than 25x the norm.
sycasey
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ACC Bear said:

sycasey said:



LOL that Democrats suck so hard that you lost to this guy. Never stops being funny.

For the last election, I can't really argue with that.
dajo9
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dajo9 said:

Kimmel's return causes his ratings to go up more than 25x the norm.


And that was despite almost a quarter of the country being blocked from watching by politically motivated right wing affiliate owners
BearGoggles
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DiabloWags said:

BearGoggles said:

BearGoggles said:

DiabloWags said:

oski003 said:



The lefty insurrection is more violent than Jan 6.


140 police officers assaulted on J6.
One had an eye gouged out.
Another lost fingers.

And a mob wanted to lynch our VP.
And was just seconds from "capturing" him.

This just goes to show how terribly partisan and out of touch with reality you are.



Please provide a credible link confirming that: (i) an officer had an eye "gouged out"; and (ii) an officer lost "fingers".



Hey @DiabloWags - are you so mesmerized looking at your butthurt face in the mirror that you forgot to answer these questions? I'm pretty sure you posted false and/or grossly exaggerated claims (not for the first time), so links are required here.




Hey @BeerGoggles - are you really so BLIND and IGNORANT by your Trumper Devotion Syndrome (TDS) that you have NO CLUE about the injuries sustained by police officers on Jan 6th?

Did you really go to Cal?


Jan. 6 'Eye Gouger' Thomas Webster to Claim Self Defense

Capitol Police Union Reveals Cops Suffered 'Brain Injurie... - Newsweek

Officers maced, trampled: Docs expose depth of Jan. 6 chaos | AP News

Shocking new report details the injuries to police during insurrection by Trump supporters - Raw Story[url=https://lawandcrime.com/u-s-capitol-siege/eye-gouger-ex-cop-who-used-to-be-on-mike-bloombergs-security-detail-intends-to-argue-he-beat-up-officer-on-jan-6-in-self-defense/][/url]

"Between USCP and our colleagues at the Metropolitan Police Department, we have almost 140 officers injured," union chairman Gus Papathanasiou said in a statement released Wednesday.

"I have officers who were not issued helmets prior to the attack who have sustained brain injuries. One officer has two cracked ribs and two smashed spinal discs. One officer is going to lose his eye, and another was stabbed with a metal fence stake."



As someone who loves to nitpick other people's posts, you should be accurate in what you claim. No ones eye was gouged out and no one lost fingers. Full stop - you were wrong - and rather than admit it you're now pointing to other claims/injuries.
BearlySane88
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bearister said:

You guys are running the show now. Let's see if the Red states, that follow the medical advice of Dr. Bobby and his Flying Circus, become the health trend setters for the rest of the nation.

I'm glad the MAGAs are Bobby's Guinea pigs. Maybe he will be right after all and the diseases preventable by vaccination should never have been prevented because they make us stronger. Time will tell.
If he is wrong, some parents may feel raw about it and when they accuse him of creating vaccine hesitancy and confusion, Bobby shrugging his shoulders and saying, "Who me?" ain't gonna cut it….and Trump will throw that motherf@ucker under the bus, like he did Dr. Fauci, without blinking.


You better keep ingesting those artificial food dyes also then.
BearlySane88
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dajo9 said:

Kimmel's return causes his ratings to go up more than 25x the norm.


Rubber neckers, like watching an accident on the freeway.
ACC Bear
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dajo9 said:

dajo9 said:

Kimmel's return causes his ratings to go up more than 25x the norm.

And that was despite almost a quarter of the country being blocked from watching by politically motivated right wing affiliate owners

Dumbocrats love their left-wing agitprop. That's all they expect from their celebrities and their politicians.





BearGoggles
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sycasey said:

BearGoggles said:

sycasey said:



Totally fair post. Trump's statements are highly problematic.

Given the most recent revelations and written admissions from Google, are you still going to claim that the Biden admin didn't engage in equally problematic behavior?

I think the Biden admin's stuff was problematic, yes. I don't think it's equally problematic, unless someone can show me where in the evidence it shows that they directly threatened any private company with lawsuits or regulatory action (as Trump has clearly done) if they don't suppress certain content. I don't buy the conservative argument that Trump's stuff is "better" because it's happening out in the open. To me the brazen nature of it makes it worse; they don't even try to pretend like they're respecting free speech laws.

I also think that these tech companies are blowing in the wind and saying things to placate the current Republican power structure, and conversely in the past they said things to make the Dems happy when they had the power. "We took suggestions and made content decisions on our own" becomes "The Biden people were pressuring us!" when there's a new President. To be clear, I don't think the Biden admin should have done what they were doing, and I don't think the companies should have done the censoring. I also think all parties have an incentive to exaggerate how bad it was now when Republicans are in power and will probably change their tune again when Democrats are.

(Also, as an aside, I think we've also seen that these attempts to soft-censor don't work anyway. Kimmel's relevance was actually raised by the fact that Trump went after him so blatantly. The stuff the tech companies tried to suppress got out and became a dominant ideology despite their efforts. It's dumb! Don't do it!)

Super interesting that you can't simply say both are bad. Trump has to be worse because . . . ? And then, after making Jimmy Kimmel a free speech martyr, you throw in "but soft censorship doesn't work" so no big deal.

Regarding dem efforts/threats to censor social media:

Here are the dems threatening to remove Section 230 protections with the "Health Misinformation Act" due to "health misinformation" (i.e., because social media wouldn't censor covid posts):

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/22/1019346177/democrats-want-to-hold-social-media-companies-responsible-for-health-misinformat?utm_source=chatgpt.com

More examples of Dem demands here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/21/hamas-israeli-x-musk//?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Klobachur here: https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025/09/an-obligation-klobuchar-says-congress-must-do-more-to-rein-in-hate-speech-online-00566595

And then there's this.



And to my earlier point about your Supreme Court arguments re standing.

sycasey
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BearGoggles said:

sycasey said:

BearGoggles said:

sycasey said:



Totally fair post. Trump's statements are highly problematic.

Given the most recent revelations and written admissions from Google, are you still going to claim that the Biden admin didn't engage in equally problematic behavior?

I think the Biden admin's stuff was problematic, yes. I don't think it's equally problematic, unless someone can show me where in the evidence it shows that they directly threatened any private company with lawsuits or regulatory action (as Trump has clearly done) if they don't suppress certain content. I don't buy the conservative argument that Trump's stuff is "better" because it's happening out in the open. To me the brazen nature of it makes it worse; they don't even try to pretend like they're respecting free speech laws.

I also think that these tech companies are blowing in the wind and saying things to placate the current Republican power structure, and conversely in the past they said things to make the Dems happy when they had the power. "We took suggestions and made content decisions on our own" becomes "The Biden people were pressuring us!" when there's a new President. To be clear, I don't think the Biden admin should have done what they were doing, and I don't think the companies should have done the censoring. I also think all parties have an incentive to exaggerate how bad it was now when Republicans are in power and will probably change their tune again when Democrats are.

(Also, as an aside, I think we've also seen that these attempts to soft-censor don't work anyway. Kimmel's relevance was actually raised by the fact that Trump went after him so blatantly. The stuff the tech companies tried to suppress got out and became a dominant ideology despite their efforts. It's dumb! Don't do it!)

Super interesting that you can't simply say both are bad. Trump has to be worse because . . . ?

Because your argument is clearly intended to cast me as some kind of hypocrite, so I feel the need to explain why I think the current action is a step beyond. That's it.

I don't support the rest of it, so I don't feel the need to continue revisiting this argument.
ACC Bear
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Quote:

And then there's this.



Nothing braver than a California state senator who has ****-all to do with stopping mergers cosplaying at being a federal regulator.

That said, breaking up these large media conglomerates would be a great thing. All this consolidation is bad for speech and only good for creating needless monopolies.
bearister
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*I think the last 30 seconds of the video is actually an audition for a role in a movie and all the auditioning actors were given the same line to deliver.
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DiabloWags
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6 MILLION VIEWERS.

4x an average broadcast viewership.

And thats with 20% of the ability to watch the broadcast gone.

THANK YOU DONALD CHUMP!

LMFAO.





sycasey
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BearGoggles said:

sycasey said:

BearGoggles said:

sycasey said:



Totally fair post. Trump's statements are highly problematic.

Given the most recent revelations and written admissions from Google, are you still going to claim that the Biden admin didn't engage in equally problematic behavior?

I think the Biden admin's stuff was problematic, yes. I don't think it's equally problematic, unless someone can show me where in the evidence it shows that they directly threatened any private company with lawsuits or regulatory action (as Trump has clearly done) if they don't suppress certain content. I don't buy the conservative argument that Trump's stuff is "better" because it's happening out in the open. To me the brazen nature of it makes it worse; they don't even try to pretend like they're respecting free speech laws.

I also think that these tech companies are blowing in the wind and saying things to placate the current Republican power structure, and conversely in the past they said things to make the Dems happy when they had the power. "We took suggestions and made content decisions on our own" becomes "The Biden people were pressuring us!" when there's a new President. To be clear, I don't think the Biden admin should have done what they were doing, and I don't think the companies should have done the censoring. I also think all parties have an incentive to exaggerate how bad it was now when Republicans are in power and will probably change their tune again when Democrats are.

(Also, as an aside, I think we've also seen that these attempts to soft-censor don't work anyway. Kimmel's relevance was actually raised by the fact that Trump went after him so blatantly. The stuff the tech companies tried to suppress got out and became a dominant ideology despite their efforts. It's dumb! Don't do it!)

Super interesting that you can't simply say both are bad. Trump has to be worse because . . . ? And then, after making Jimmy Kimmel a free speech martyr, you throw in "but soft censorship doesn't work" so no big deal.

Regarding dem efforts/threats to censor social media:

Here are the dems threatening to remove Section 230 protections with the "Health Misinformation Act" due to "health misinformation" (i.e., because social media wouldn't censor covid posts):

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/22/1019346177/democrats-want-to-hold-social-media-companies-responsible-for-health-misinformat?utm_source=chatgpt.com

More examples of Dem demands here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/21/hamas-israeli-x-musk//?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Klobachur here: https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025/09/an-obligation-klobuchar-says-congress-must-do-more-to-rein-in-hate-speech-online-00566595

Actually, I will make one more point here:

I don't personally agree with the argument, but when it comes to combatting "misinformation" about vaccines and the COVID virus there is at least an argument for it. The government can argue there is a legitimate public-health interest in preventing bad information about these topics from taking hold. Again, to be clear, I don't agree with this course of action, and it has too many potential trapdoors in its implementation for me to think it would be effective (and indeed it wasn't), but there is an argument.

I don't see any legitimate public-interest argument for the government canceling a comedian's TV show, which yes, makes Trump's actions worse to my mind.
concordtom
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Donald Trump finally weighed in on Jimmy Kimmel's return to the air on Tuesday, with a not-so-veiled threat that his administration would still go after ABC.

Trump posted on Truth Social, "I can't believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled! Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his 'talent' was never there. Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who's not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE. He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we're going to test ABC out on this. Let's see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad Ratings."
Eastern Oregon Bear
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concordtom said:

Donald Trump finally weighed in on Jimmy Kimmel's return to the air on Tuesday, with a not-so-veiled threat that his administration would still go after ABC.

Trump posted on Truth Social, "I can't believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled! Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his 'talent' was never there. Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who's not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE. He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we're going to test ABC out on this. Let's see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad Ratings."
For Trump, it never was about Charlie Kirk. It was always about finding a way to collect $$$.

Not sure how I clicked on the smile icon. It wasn't deliberate.
BearlySane88
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Eastern Oregon Bear said:

concordtom said:

Donald Trump finally weighed in on Jimmy Kimmel's return to the air on Tuesday, with a not-so-veiled threat that his administration would still go after ABC.

Trump posted on Truth Social, "I can't believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled! Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his 'talent' was never there. Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who's not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE. He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we're going to test ABC out on this. Let's see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad Ratings."
For Trump, it never was about Charlie Kirk. It was always about finding a way to collect $$$.

Not sure how I clicked on the smile icon. It wasn't deliberate.


Wrong again. Charlie got Trump elected. It was absolutely about Charlie for Trump
Eastern Oregon Bear
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BearlySane88 said:

Eastern Oregon Bear said:

concordtom said:

Donald Trump finally weighed in on Jimmy Kimmel's return to the air on Tuesday, with a not-so-veiled threat that his administration would still go after ABC.

Trump posted on Truth Social, "I can't believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled! Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his 'talent' was never there. Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who's not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE. He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we're going to test ABC out on this. Let's see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad Ratings."
For Trump, it never was about Charlie Kirk. It was always about finding a way to collect $$$.

Not sure how I clicked on the smile icon. It wasn't deliberate.


Wrong again. Charlie got Trump elected. It was absolutely about Charlie for Trump
You think Trump cares about the people he used while getting elected? You don't know Trump very well.
BearlySane88
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Eastern Oregon Bear said:

BearlySane88 said:

Eastern Oregon Bear said:

concordtom said:

Donald Trump finally weighed in on Jimmy Kimmel's return to the air on Tuesday, with a not-so-veiled threat that his administration would still go after ABC.

Trump posted on Truth Social, "I can't believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his Show was cancelled! Something happened between then and now because his audience is GONE, and his 'talent' was never there. Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who's not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE. He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we're going to test ABC out on this. Let's see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. A true bunch of losers! Let Jimmy Kimmel rot in his bad Ratings."
For Trump, it never was about Charlie Kirk. It was always about finding a way to collect $$$.

Not sure how I clicked on the smile icon. It wasn't deliberate.


Wrong again. Charlie got Trump elected. It was absolutely about Charlie for Trump
You think Trump cares about the people he used while getting elected? You don't know Trump very well.


No, you just know the lies you're fed too well.
 
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