Comment: Kimmel's cancelation un-American, unconstitional

By Jason Bailey / Bloomberg Opinion

Few pieces of political writing are as widely misunderstood, misinterpreted and falsely disseminated as the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

For years, whenever a public figure has faced backlash and consequences for social media posts, public comments or even private statements that offended people, self-proclaimed defenders of free speech would insist that the First Amendment rights of their fellow Americans were being violated. Their argument was flawed because a groundswell of backlash over bad behavior — resulting in, say, a private company cutting ties with a controversial figure — is about the market, not about the government.

But I have good news for free speech defenders and cancel culture abolitionists: a clear-cut case of actual First Amendment infringement — the federal government abridging the freedom of speech of an individual and his employer — is playing out right now. The individual is Jimmy Kimmel, whose late-night talk show has been pulled indefinitely from ABC’s schedule, following threats from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr.

Those threats were prompted by comments Kimmel made in his opening monologue on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Monday night. “We hit some new lows over the weekend,” he said, “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.”

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-kimmels-cancelation-un-american-unconstitional/