Disney’s collaboration with the Trump censorship regime
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Not that it’s relevant to the free speech issue, but it’s worth noting that Jimmy Kimmel didn’t even say anything negative about Kirk at all, let alone celebrate his assassination. He was fired…for pointing out that his assassination would be cynically exploited by people to advance pre-existing goals. Wonder what gave him that idea.
And the executives in question understand this:
The decisions by Nexstar and ABC to silence Kimmel, over relatively innocuous comments, is the latest sign of how terrified major corporations and media companies have grown of the second Trump administration. The president and his lieutenants have made clear that they’re willing to leverage the full weight of the federal government against networks and their parent companies, especially if TV personalities or comedians on the network say things that annoy Trump.
“They were pissing themselves all day,” one ABC insider tells Rolling Stone. In the hours leading up to the decision to pull Kimmel, two sources familiar with the matter say, senior executives at ABC, Disney, and affiliates convened emergency meetings to figure out how to minimize the damage. Multiple execs felt that Kimmel had not actually said anything over the line, the two sources say, but the threat of Trump administration retaliation loomed.
Some relevant context here is Bob Iger agreeing to a $16 million shakedown, even though every media organization that has said “see you in court” has prevailed over these frivolous suits. Avarice and fear are certainly playing a role here, but I don’t they alone can explain why Disney has again fallen in line so quickly. Threats not to approve mergers aren’t an existential threat to the corporation, and the people making these decisions are in no danger of ever having to work for a living. The biggest reason why so many institutions keep crumbling is that the people in charge of them are fundamentally more sympathetic to Trumpism than liberal democracy.
Time for another round of the TWITTER FILES!