ABC Pulls Jimmy Kimmel Off Air After FCC Pressure

82 pointsposted 7 hours ago
by sega_sai
(nytimes.com)

24 Comments

an0malous

6 hours ago

I’ll repeat what I said the last time this was posted before it gets flagged off the front page again: if you think government censorship is not on topic for a forum called “hacker news”, then you don’t understand what the word hacker means or its origins and you’re just appropriating a word to make your entrepreneurship forum sound cool. Freedom of speech and freedom of information are central to the hacker ethos and its BS to keep selectively flagging posts that are inconvenient for the tech industry under the false pretense that political discussions don’t belong here.

docdeek

4 hours ago

The topic of censorship is definitely relevant. However, HN submission guidelines suggest that if it’s something that you’re going to be reading about in the mainstream press or catching on the TV news, it’s probably not for this forum.

jedberg

6 hours ago

Big discussion about it yesterday, but something new today is the FCC pressure, and that is what would be interesting to the HN crowd.

The government is using its power to regulate the electromagnetic spectrum as a way of getting political speech it doesn't like off the air. The President himself suggested NBC cancel their shows as well.

It's a blatant violation of the first amendment, using the government to censor speech. And it looks like not a thing will be done about it.

CamperBob2

3 hours ago

Not just "off the air," either. I'd be surprised if 1% of Kimmel's viewership receives the show over the air.

The distinction is vital. The FCC's stewardship of the public airwaves as a limited natural resource is the only reason we granted them this extraconstitutional power in the first place. When the airwaves aren't actually involved, the FCC should have no say whatsoever.

rdtsc

6 hours ago

> We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” the host said.

I've heard this before, but where did this originate? Did Jimmy just make it up or was he quoting some source? I heard the same thing but from people I interact with that this guy was crazy right wing nazi and killed Kirk because Kirk wasn't hard-line enough. But then the bullets said "Catch, fascist" so that was just super confusing. Are fascists calling each other fascists as a meme, or was the killer signing his name like "catch, <signed by> fascist".

tim333

23 minutes ago

The evidence is a bit fuzzy but it seems Tyler Robinson was kind of MAGA right earlier but in the last year moved to the left so he doesn't pigeon hole very well.

tw_wankette

6 hours ago

Many politicians use this diversionary tactic to accuse others of the very thing they're doing. In this case, the left was just trying to smokescreen its way out of responsibility. Expect to see it from the right.

IncreasePosts

6 hours ago

Is "the left" more, less, or equally responsible for Kirk's murder compared to "the right"'s responsibility for Melissa Hortman's murder?

rdtsc

5 hours ago

> Is "the left" more, less, or equally responsible for Kirk's murder

The real question is how did Jimmy become so sure it was a maga trumper.

His quote:

> MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them

Indicates it's not just a "maybe", "wouldn't be nice if it was..." it indicates he was pretty sure. So I am curious where did that originate. The clues like the markings on the bullets kind of point the other way. So did someone deliberately feed him bad news to make him look bad? Or just an innocent social media broken telephone scenario: "wouldn't be nice if ...", becomes "I bet that ..." which turns into "it's that..." and ends up with "we definitely know that ..." and then Kimmel picks up and bam! gets fired.

dgrr19

5 hours ago

If the right has been pushing the agenda that the left is fascist and "someone" has to stop them sure. That is what the democrats have been feeding their voters during and after the election. "Trump is a facist", etc...

CamperBob2

2 hours ago

Welp, it's looking like they aren't wrong.

Explain how you would react if Biden or Harris or somebody named Clinton said this, rather than Trump:

    President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested that 
    networks should lose their broadcast licenses if 
    their on-air talent is critical of him. “They’re 
    giving me all this bad press, and they’re getting 
    a license,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force 
    One when asked if Federal Communications Commissioner     
    Brendan Carr should go after other talk show hosts after     
    Jimmy Kimmel was suspended from the air. “I would think 
    maybe their license should be taken away.” [1]
Congress and the courts can put a stop to this the easy way right now, or We The People can put a stop to it the hard way later. I know which path I'd prefer. What about you?

1: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/18/trump-floats-stripp...

krapp

4 hours ago

The right has been pushing that agenda since the days of the John Birch society. But there is a lot more evidence that Trump and his supporters are fascists than there is for the vast left-wing conspiracy of violence they think ordered a hit on Charlie Kirk (probably from Hunter Biden's laptop.)

dgrr19

6 hours ago

yeah, being a gay furry doesn't have much to do with being right-wing afaik

water-data-dude

6 hours ago

I'd say it makes you less likely to be right wing overall (since the right is hostile to you), but yeah, I've known some very conservative furries.

Furries are people, and any group of people is going to have a lot of different views and beliefs represented amongst its members.

dgrr19

5 hours ago

highly unlikely some young guy who had a relationship with his roommate who is a transexual both being furries are right-wing. Also, highly unlikely a right-wing is going to shoot another right-wing because he is not "radical enough". Sure bud, if you want to believe so ;)

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF

5 hours ago

> highly unlikely some young guy who had a relationship with his roommate who is a transexual both being furries are right-wing

This is really not true. The current MAGA movement is rife with doublethink and it appeals strongly to people who feel outcast by society.

hagbard_c

5 hours ago

It originated as a form of collective narrative control, the source of which is thus far unknown. It was based around the fact that the killer's parents live in a 'red' area and quickly followed up with photos of the killer together with his family at gun shows, the killer wearing a Halloween costume in which he was supposedly riding around on Trump's neck (which I do not see as a pro-Trump statement but that aside). This narrative control was picked up by nearly all of the big actors in the legacy media and in some form still lingers. Kimmel is (or was, that remains to be seen) part of the legacy media and just did what was required of him. The attempt at narrative control failed when clear evidence of the killer's left-leaning political stance and motivation for the assassination surfaced and ABC - still reeling from its other failed attempts at controlling the narrative, remember the edited Harris interview - clearly saw him as a liability and reacted accordingly.

rdtsc

5 hours ago

> It originated as a form of collective narrative control, the source of which is thus far unknown.

That's the part I am curious about. Some clues like the killer's parents I can see, but the bullet markings and riding on Trump's back doesn't point in that direction at all.

I think it would be interesting to study the origin of the narrative. In the most innocent interpretation it's a broken telephone starting with "wouldn't be nice if it was ...", to "I bet it was ...", to then "it was ..." and by the time it gets to Jimmy it's (sources familiar with the matter tell us) that "we definitely know...". But, I wonder if it was a bit more organized, as in people worked together to spread the story more effectively. However, that also means they didn't even think it through one step ahead when the police catch the guy, so that seems iffy.

cramcgrab

6 hours ago

I wonder if abc news publishes tech startup news and app frameworks like Y publishes political news?

user

6 hours ago

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user

6 hours ago

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