"The Supreme Court has "many times held, in many contexts, that it is no job for government to decide what counts as the right balance of private expression - to 'un-bias' what it thinks biased, rather than to leave such judgments to speakers and their audiences." Nor does government have any "power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content."
"Even false speech is protected by the First Amendment. TheCommunications Act similarly denies "the Commission the power of censorship" or the ability to "interfere with the right of free speech." Yet the current FCC Chairman has asserted the power todo precisely what the Supreme Court and Congress have forbidden, and what former FCC general counsel declared the agency could not do: "act as a self-appointed, free-roving arbiter of truth in journalism.""
Chairman Brendan Carr has invoked the rarely used news distortion policy and broadcasters' public interest obligations to press complaints favoring Donald Trump's political interests. Seven former FCC commissioners, five Republicans, contend this use is unconstitutional because Supreme Court precedent and the Communications Act bar the government from deciding the proper balance of private expression or restricting speech based on message, idea, subject matter, or content. Even false speech is generally protected. The commissioners assert the FCC lacks power to act as an arbiter of journalistic truth and ask the Commission to rescind the news distortion policy, limiting enforcement to the narrow broadcast hoax rule.
Read at Nieman Lab
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