Re:YouTube suspends Donald Trump's channel
by sblom on Wednesday January 13, 2021 @01:58PM
(#25766458)
There's no requirement for the over-the-air television networks to air Presidential addresses. They usually do, but there have been some notable cases where they have declined. I think FOX (not Fox News, FOX the broadcast channel) skipped out on at least one George W. Bush address and one Obama address.
That's what I'm afraid is going to end up happening. When I was a kid, Reagan would occasionally "pre-empt" normal prime-time TV to talk about whatever the hell was on his mind. It drove me crazy: he would suddenly be on every station and there was nothing else to watch. I asked my parents why he was allowed to do that and they'd say, "TV operates on public airwaves and the government owns the public airwaves". Well, as annoying as Reagan pre-empting the Cosby Show was back then, the "public airwaves" argument was used to justify a whole heck of a lot of worse government overreach that I really, really don't want to see come to the internet.