Michael Berry

Michael Berry

Michael Berry has drunk homemade moonshine from North Carolina with Robert Earl Keen, met two presidents with the same last name, been cussed at by...Full Bio

 

House Dems Pressure Cable & Streaming Outlets To Cancel Fox, Newsmax & OANN

To the left dissent cannot be tolerated & must be squashed.

Fresh off of victories in getting Alex Jones & Donald Trump deplatformed, some House Democrats have no set their sights on conservatives cable networks.

California Reps. Anna G. Eshoo and Jerry McNerney sent letters to AT&T, Verizon, Roku, Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Charter, Dish, Cox, Altice, Alphabet, and Hulu to pressure them into dropping those cable networks.

Eschoo and McNerney write:

“Experts have noted that the right-wing media ecosystem is “much more susceptible…to disinformation, lies, and half-truths.” Right-wing media outlets, like Newsmax, One America News Network (OANN), and Fox News all aired misinformation about the November 2020 elections. For example, both Newsmax and OANN “ran incendiary reports” of false information following the elections and continue to support “an angry and dangerous subculture [that] will continue to operate semi-openly… 
Yet, to our knowledge, the cable, satellite, and over-the-top companies that disseminate these media outlets to American viewers have done nothing in response to the misinformation aired by these outlets. 14 AT&T currently carries Fox News, Newsmax, and OANN on U-verse, DirecTV, and AT&T TV. 15 As a company that serves 17 million Americans,16 AT&T plays a major role in 2 the spread of dangerous misinformation that enabled the insurrection of January 6th and hinders our public health response to the current pandemic.”
They then include a list of questions to the companies and demand answers.  
One question they ask those companies is what steps are they taking “to monitor, respond to, and reduce the spread of disinformation, including encouragement or incitement of violence by channels your company disseminates to millions of Americans?”

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, responded to the Democrats letter by pointing out that it’s a “chilling transgression” of speech.

Carr wrote in a release, “the Democrats are sending a message that it as clear as it is troubling – these regulated entities will pay a price if the targeted newsrooms do not conform to Democrats’ preferred political narratives. This is a chilling transgression of the free speech rights that every media outlet in this country enjoys".

In statement to the Daily Caller, a spokesman for Fox News says “as the most watched cable news channel throughout 2020, FOX News Media provided millions of Americans with in-depth reporting, breaking news coverage and clear opinion…For individual members of Congress to highlight political speech they do not like and demand cable distributors engage in viewpoint discrimination sets a terrible precedent.”

Eshoo and McNerney sit on the House Committee on Energy & Commerce, which will hold a hearing on Wednesday entitled “Fanning the Flames: Disinformation and Extremism in the Media.”

Glenn Greenwald points out that the Democrats are going full authoritarianism now.

Today Fox News, Newsmax & OANN, tomorrow talk radio under the guise of the "fairness doctrine".


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