The cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel Live! by ABC, in response to comments made by the Chair of the FDC, is an example of government coercion. The pressure put on ABC by Brendan Carr, and Donald Trump’s celebration of Kimmel’s departure were classic authoritarian manoeuvres and, given the central importance of the First Amendment in US Culture, deeply un-American.
My former colleague Suzanne Nossell, erstwhile CEO at PEN America, wrote a Los Angeles Times op-ed lamenting the “dark turn of American democracy.”
Some of us warned that this would happen. In response, I posted the following:
Continue reading “Re-Learning the Importance of Free Speech”I must say this feels like a hideous “I told you so” moment. Progressive free speech campaigners spent the last few years listening to our allies in social justice movement trot out mantras like “freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences” or “it’s not my job to educate you” and sharing that annoying xkcd comic about ‘showing you the door’ somehow not being a kind of censorship.
