The weird struggle between Donald Trump and broadcast TV

We’re only a few days away from one of the consequential presidential elections in our lifetimes. I believe we are able to all agree that there’s rather a lot about this election that’s deeply upsetting and a few elements which might be, frankly, surprising. However we’ve solely received a lot time on Decoder every week, so in the present day I’m specializing in one factor that’s actually stood out to me: Trump and the group of tech billionaires round him who’ve all began speaking about revoking broadcast licenses for TV networks like ABC, NBC, and CBS as a result of they don’t just like the information protection from these networks. 

Trump has been making threats like this since 2017, however in current days he’s been joined by Elon Musk, David Sacks, and others who’ve picked up on the theme and began speaking about how we should always take the wi-fi spectrum again from TV networks and use it for different stuff.

In a traditional world, this is able to be idle billionaire wishcasting. Spectrum entry is doled out by the Federal Communications Fee, there’s a lengthy and boring course of for reallocating it, and firms like AT&T and Verizon have armies of lobbyists who spend a whole lot of money and time getting what they need out of the method. On prime of that, punishing information organizations for his or her protection through the use of the ability of the federal government is a type of issues we now have a First Modification to guard in opposition to. 

You realize — the First Modification, fairly famously the primary one? The one which protects free speech by prohibiting the federal government from making speech laws or punishing folks for what they are saying? You’d assume Elon, the so-called free speech absolutist, would keep in mind that one. 

However it seems, there’s a lengthy and sophisticated historical past of the federal government regulating speech on broadcast platforms like radio and tv — and that historical past dovetails into lots of the issues we now have regulating tech corporations and social platforms.

I invited Verge senior tech and coverage editor Adi Robertson on the present to assist me dig into all this. I all the time invite Adi on to elucidate essentially the most bonkers issues, and that is actually no exception. It feels to me like a bunch of billionaires are simply not doing the studying and aren’t taking note of how something really works, so I needed Adi to assist me create a framework to grasp what’s happening. 

You’ll hear us get into an entire lot of prime Decoder territory on this one: we discuss concerning the Equity Doctrine, Part 230, monopolies, and naturally, a landmark Supreme Court docket resolution often called Purple Lion. It’s a wild experience.

We talked about a whole lot of information and a whole lot of actually wonky coverage on this episode. Listed here are some tales we mentioned, if you happen to’d wish to study extra:

• The Verge information to the 2024 US presidential election | The Verge
• FCC chair rejects Trump’s name to revoke CBS license over Harris interview | The Verge
• Florida official who resigned after letter to TV stations blames DeSantis’ workplace | MSNBC
• “To maintain it easy for the state of Florida: it’s the First Modification, silly” | The Verge
• How America turned in opposition to the First Modification | The Verge
• Why Sen. Brian Schatz thinks youngster security can trump the First Modification | The Verge
• How the Youngsters On-line Security Act places us all in danger | The Verge
• Right here’s a bunch of bananas shit Trump stated in the present day about breaking apart Google | The Verge
• Barack Obama on AI, free speech, and the way forward for the web | The Verge