On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “11th Hour,” MSNBC Legal Analyst Joyce Vance argued that “Democrats’ supposed weaponization of the FCC” “was an entirely different situation involving trying to prevent the spread of disinformation on social media platforms.”
Vance said, “Well, it’s an utterly fascinating situation, because it sits right at the intersection of the politics and the law. That’s maybe not the place that you want to be as someone who’s bringing a lawsuit, because it subjects you to a lot of troublesome sort of behavior in the course of the lawsuit, when you have an administration that’s willing to politicize the process, as this one has proven to be.”
She continued, “But on the legal side of the equation, Kimmel would have a strong argument. When the shoe was on the other foot, so to speak, and when Republicans were complaining about Democrats’ supposed weaponization of the FCC, which I think it’s important to say was an entirely different situation involving trying to prevent the spread of disinformation on social media platforms. But that being said, conservatives are very worried about what this could look like if this same sort of action is deployed against them. If Kimmel were to bring a case, if it were to make it all the way up to the Supreme Court, that would, of course, be years away, this could set new principles for when the government can and can’t intervene in broadcast licenses, in what can be said online, and what role the government can play in threatening networks and threatening individuals over their First Amendment-protected speech.”
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