By Burt Glass
Almost three out of four Americans (73%) across political lines agree that the First Amendment should protect private speakers, like media companies and talk show hosts, from government censorship so their speech is virtually unrestricted, except for inciting violence.
That’s a key finding in a new Media & Technology Survey by Boston University’s Communication Research Center, conducted in the wake of government pressure to remove Jimmy Kimmel from his late night show after he made politically charged remarks related to assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Support was strongest among Democrats (87%), but by nearly five-to-one, Republicans agreed rather than disagreed with the statement (64% vs. 13%).
“These findings suggest that FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr’s recent threats against ABC over Jimmy Kimmel’s remarks – which are jawboning, or what one think tank calls ‘censorship by proxy,’ where the government coerces private actors to suppress speech – would be unpopular not only with the American public generally, but with Republicans, too,” said Morgan Weiland, an assistant professor of communication law at Boston University’s College of Communication and lawyer who writes and teaches about free expression and digital media technologies.