Thread by @PMatzko

It's another example of a classic (and doomed) effort to deploy illiberal methods in order to protect liberalism.

But let me focus on the problems in just one paragraph of @emilybazelon's article.

https://twitter.com/MarietjeSchaake/status/1354077086055587842

It's rooted in what is--to be fair--the received understanding of broadcast regulation, a hazy idea of a past, golden era of equity, reasonability, and freedom in broadcasting.

But the government actions that are waved at by the author were actually responsible for major episodes of government censorship and the repression of political dissent, which affected people from across the political spectrum.

For example, under the FRC's "public interest" mandate, it immediately started blocking license applications from socialists; for instance, they tried to keep WEVD, named after Eugene Victor Debs, off the air. Only a major pressure campaign won them approval.

In 1933 WIBO & WPCC in Chicago lost their licenses to station WJKS in Gary partly b/c WJKS’s programming was “well designed to meet the needs of the foreign population” by “stress[ing] loyalty to the community and the Nation” & “instruct[ing] in citizenship and American ideals.."

So not that long ago, the public interest was readily defined by ethno-nationalism & radical exclusion. It was *obvious* to both progressives & conservatives of the time that it was appropriate to do so.

That should give liberals the willies, not inspire us to similar action!

Or take the gesture towards Congress passing "laws to foster competition...and public broadcasting."

One such law was a ban on cross-media ownership, so that, say, newspaper magnates couldn't own more than a handful of radio/tv stations.

Doesn't sound bad, eh?

But here's the real story. The first attempt at a cross-media ownership ban was explicitly pushed by FDR b/c he didn't like conservative newspapers being allowed to buy radio stations from which they could amplify their critiques of the New Deal.

In public, they could say that the ban was meant to foster competition; in private, they could acknowledge that it was about repressing political dissent against a four term President willing to pack any government institution that tried to get in his way.

That first attempt failed, but the cross-media restrictions eventually passed because of...[trumpets]...Richard Nixon. Nixon was angry that Katherine Graham, owner of the Washington Post, was investigating the Watergate scandal.

She couldn't be directly cowed via public interest since newspapers aren't under it. But Graham did own a couple of television stations. So Nixon's FCC got a cross-media rule done and forced her to divest of the most profitable stations.

politico.com/story/2014/08/…

All of this to say, if you don't know the true, sordid history of the public interest mandate in broadcast licensing, I get why you'd be tempted to suggest it as a template for internet regulations. But it had many bad, unintended consequences then and it would today as well.

I made it all the way through the thread without discussing the most incredible abuse of the broadcasting public interest mandate, the use of the Fairness Doctrine to censor dissenting right-wing (and left-wing) radio/tv in the '60s!

For moar: amazon.com/Radio-Right-Br…