Jimmy Kimmel's Cancellation Was About Far More Than What He Said
It has much more dangerous implications for a free society.
The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily represent the views of my employer or any associated individuals or organizations.
People clutching their pearls and feigning outrage over something someone said on TV that they dislike must think we're still in the middle of the 20th century.
There are literally hundreds of TV channels, dozens of streaming platforms, thousands of YouTube creators, and more podcasts than there are people. If you're not happy with someone's comments on any of these platforms, I'm sure you can find others who share your views elsewhere. It's astonishing that in the year 2025, we are still so concerned about what someone says on network television.
All of this to say there is no legal or even practical justification for the government to threaten broadcast licenses or pressure companies to cancel programming over speech it dislikes, even if it believes that speech to be false. The First Amendment protects all kinds of untrue speech, and the Supreme Court has ruled that there must be "breathing space" for false statements and hyperbole that are "inevitable in free debate."
And make no mistake, this latest move is as blatant government censorship as it gets. And yet, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.
Conservative pundits seem to be entirely ignoring the role the Federal Communications Commission played in this cancellation and are acting as if what happened to Jimmy Kimmel is just a normal business decision, where an entertainer faces consequences from their employer for saying something beyond the pale on TV.
The headline of an Op-Ed in the Washington Examiner read, “Kimmel cancellation isn’t ‘cancel culture.’ It’s consequence culture.” Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports, said, “when a person says something that a ton of people find offensive, rude, dumb in real time and then that person is punished for it that’s not cancel culture. That is consequences for your actions.”
But what happened cannot be justified with the argument that ABC/Disney would have cancelled Jimmy Kimmel anyway for these remarks. Or that they were looking for an “excuse” to fire him.
Those rationales left the building when FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened licensed ABC affiliates with the statement: "we can do this the easy way or the hard way." This is now a textbook case of government jawboning — informal government pressure to shape or suppress speech in an attempt to avoid traditional constitutional scrutiny.
Some celebrations of the firing were much more aware of the government pressure involved, like this post from YouTuber Benny Johnson, “Thanks to FCC pressure and Nexstar and Sinclair pulling him from millions of homes, his platform is destroyed. He’s finished. Will never recover. This isn’t cancel culture. This is CONSEQUENCE culture.”
But this move goes beyond questions of cancel culture. The FCC’s implied threats create serious constitutional questions about the role of government, and they should make all of us nervous.
When a New York state official threatened enforcement action against the National Rifle Association because they disagreed with the organization’s political stances, the Supreme Court ruled, "Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors." If you didn't like the Biden administration pressuring social media companies to censor speech about COVID, you shouldn't be cheering this.
If you are celebrating Jimmy Kimmel's cancellation because you disagree with him or find him repulsive, none of that matters now. Officials in this administration are setting precedents that will no doubt be deployed against those on your "side" when the other party takes power. And every censorship attempt you champion now will diminish your credibility when you claim your side is being persecuted.
Government-stamped cancel culture will set things in motion that will be incredibly difficult to undo. And next time, your team will likely be the target.
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