Legal experts say pulling Jimmy Kimmel from air may amount to illegal 'jawboning'

"As First Amendment scholar Evelyn Douek watched the news unfold of ABC yanking Jimmy Kimmel from air, she was aghast: "The hypocrisy is enough to give one vertigo," she said. It's shocking to Douek, because she is a close-watcher of what's known as "jawboning," when regulators or government officials pressure private actors, like a social media company or broadcast network, to stifle speech."

"The libertarian Cato Institute calls the practice "censorship by proxy." For years, Republicans excoriated social media platforms over their belief that the Biden administration overly pressured Twitter and Facebook to remove Covid misinformation. It spurred a constant drumbeat of online attacks, Congressional subpoenas and hearings in Washington. Now, the Trump administration's Federal Communications Commission appears to have bullied ABC into dropping Kimmel, said Douek, a professor at Stanford Law School."

"FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who in 2020 called political satire one of "the oldest and most important forms of free speech," wrote on X on Thursday that broadcast stations have "long retained the right to not air national programs that they believe are inconsistent with the public interest, including their local communities' values." Gigi Sohn, a former senior advisor to the FCC under President Obama, wrote on X that Kimmel's suspension is the result of decades of media consolidation."

ABC removed Jimmy Kimmel from the air and CBS canceled Stephen Colbert, actions that observers tie to pressure from the Federal Communications Commission. The practice of urging private companies to suppress speech, known as jawboning or "censorship by proxy," previously drew Republican ire when applied to social platforms over Covid misinformation. The recent targeting of broadcast hosts has intensified free-speech concerns that federal power is being used to muzzle political commentary. Media consolidation and financial incentives can enable or accelerate such content removals, amplifying worries about the erosion of expressive protections.

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