Thread by @PMatzko

It's worth noting that Senate Democrats on the Commerce Committee did something very similar in 1967, sending a letter to every radio station in the country asking which of them aired "Radical Right" broadcasters and notifying them of upcoming hearings on the Fairness Doctrine.

https://twitter.com/RachelAbramsNY/status/1363855620789522434

Indeed, the letter was so successful at intimidating stations into dropping right-wing programs, that the point man on the effort, Bob Lowe, told an ally that "The Senate simply was losing interest in the issue" since the broadcasters "were not gaining ground."

This cleared the way for the next item on the agenda, which was to create a nationalized, public radio network to counter-balance conservative broadcasters.

Which is how we ended up with Sen. John Pastore--who was a player in the effort to mute right-wing broadcasters earlier in the decade--holding the famous hearings with Fred Rogers less than two years later in the summer of '69.

It's not impossible to imagine something similar playing out today. A series of targeted hearings by Congress + informal jawboning by regulators convince online platforms to play ball and crack down on the offending accounts.

And while I wouldn't rate the prospects of various nationalized public square proposals as likely to pass muster, it certainly hasn't stopped folks from calling for it both here and abroad.

politico.eu/article/nation…

If you're interested in the subject, I talk about Senate Democrats and Bob Lowe in my book (though the Pastore / public radio material has to wait for a follow-up title).

amazon.com/Radio-Right-Br…

If you're a *real* history nerd, here's the report that Lowe produced for Commerce (note Pastore's presence as well as Magnuson, who kept a hand in the censorship effect via mentee Nicholas Zapple. (For whom the Zapple Doctrine is named.)

google.com/books/edition/…