Max Boot calling for the FCC to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine to reign in Fox News Channel is what happens when a columnist writes with great passion and doesn’t bother to look up the specifics of what he’s writing

For starters, Fox News - and Fox Business News, One America Network, and NewsMax TV — are cable stations and do not broadcast over public airwaves.

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The Federal Communications Commission has little authority over cable channels. The FCC might have a little more authority over Fox News Sunday and other news programs that carried by the Fox Broadcasting Company.

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The FCC commissioners decided to revoke the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, a unanimous 4–0 decision involving two Republican commissioners and two Democratic commissioners.

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The FCC counsel concluded that the rule had become counterproductive, as broadcasters “had shied away from covering controversial issues in news, documentaries and editorial advertisements.”

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After the decision, Floyd Abrams, a lawyer who specializes in First Amendment cases, told the New York Times, “This is the beginning of the end of Governmental control over the content of what appears on television.”

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In short, Boot wants to _reinstate_ government control over the content of what appears on television.

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Again, the FD applied to broadcast networks because they used the public spectrum to get their signal from their station or broadcast tower to your antennae. Cable and satellite-television providers didn’t use public airwaves, so the FCC had less authority to regulate them.
Cable news existed at the time — CNN was founded in 1980 — but no one paid much attention to that network until Baby Jessica fell down the well.

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In the agency’s own words, “the FCC’s authority to respond to these complaints [of bias, inaccuracy, or poor coverage] is narrow in scope & the agency is prohibited by law from engaging in censorship or infringing on First Amendment rights of the press.”

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"Expressions of views that do not involve a 'clear and present danger of serious, substantive evil' come under the protection of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press and prevents suppression of these expressions by the FCC."
That phrase “clear and present danger of serious, substantive evil” comes from the Supreme Court case Terminiello v. City of Chicago…

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… which held that a city ordinance banning speech that “stirs the public to anger, invites dispute, brings about a condition of unrest, or creates a disturbance” was unconstitutional under the First and 14th Amendments.

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Take a moment to read Justice William Douglas, writing for the majority:

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Then again, “standardization of ideas by legislatures, courts, or dominant political or community groups” might be precisely what some people aim to achieve.

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Biden can “reinvigorate” the FCC all he or Boot likes, but the federal agency is not going to have the authority to start telling cable channels what they can and can’t say…

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…unless - deviating from the Morning Jolt text here - they want 5 to 9 Supreme Court justices kicking their keister up and down the bench in the near future, for egregiously violating the First Amendment.

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More from For later read

I shared this on my FB page and asked, can ya really blame him?

I was half kidding. I also assumed someone would think of what I did pretty quickly and waiting for the comment to mention what I assumed was obvious.

The timing. I was sure someone else had thought of it.


But no one did. 20+ comments in people discussed the morality or bad sense or libertarian perspectives. Someone even said I’m thinking about doing that. No one said what I thought was obvious. Have you thought of it? Is it obvious to you?

Here’s a clue...recognize it?


How about this?


The author discusses it with Mike Wallace in 1958
This response to my tweet is a common objection to targeted advertising.

@KevinCoates correct me if I'm wrong, but basic point seems to be that banning targeted ads will lower platform profits, but will mostly be beneficial for consumers.

Some counterpoints 👇


1) This assumes that consumers prefer contextual ads to targeted ones.

This does not seem self-evident to me


Research also finds that firms choose between ad. targeting vs. obtrusiveness 👇

If true, the right question is not whether consumers prefer contextual ads to targeted ones. But whether they prefer *more* contextual ads vs *fewer* targeted

2) True, many inframarginal platforms might simply shift to contextual ads.

But some might already be almost indifferent between direct & indirect monetization.

Hard to imagine that *none* of them will respond to reduced ad revenue with actual fees.

3) Policy debate seems to be moving from:

"Consumers are insufficiently informed to decide how they share their data."

To

"No one in their right mind would agree to highly targeted ads (e.g., those that mix data from multiple sources)."

IMO the latter statement is incorrect.

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The first ever world map was sketched thousands of years ago by Indian saint
“Ramanujacharya” who simply translated the following verse from Mahabharat and gave the world its real face

In Mahabharat,it is described how 'Maharishi Ved Vyasa' gave away his divine vision to Sanjay


Dhritarashtra's charioteer so that he could describe him the events of the upcoming war.

But, even before questions of war could begin, Dhritarashtra asked him to describe how the world looks like from space.

This is how he described the face of the world:

सुदर्शनं प्रवक्ष्यामि द्वीपं तु कुरुनन्दन। परिमण्डलो महाराज द्वीपोऽसौ चक्रसंस्थितः॥
यथा हि पुरुषः पश्येदादर्शे मुखमात्मनः। एवं सुदर्शनद्वीपो दृश्यते चन्द्रमण्डले॥ द्विरंशे पिप्पलस्तत्र द्विरंशे च शशो महान्।

—वेद व्यास, भीष्म पर्व, महाभारत


Meaning:-

हे कुरुनन्दन ! सुदर्शन नामक यह द्वीप चक्र की भाँति गोलाकार स्थित है, जैसे पुरुष दर्पण में अपना मुख देखता है, उसी प्रकार यह द्वीप चन्द्रमण्डल में दिखायी देता है। इसके दो अंशो मे पीपल और दो अंशो मे विशाल शश (खरगोश) दिखायी देता है।


Meaning: "Just like a man sees his face in the mirror, so does the Earth appears in the Universe. In the first part you see leaves of the Peepal Tree, and in the next part you see a Rabbit."

Based on this shloka, Saint Ramanujacharya sketched out the map, but the world laughed