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 The First Amendment is explicit: “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” But as recent events show, government officials don’t need to pass a law to silence voices. They can pressure, cajole, and intimidate private actors into doing the censoring for them. That practice, known as jawboning, undermines constitutional protections while allowing officials to claim clean hands.

Two very different stories illustrate the danger.

In 2025, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr publicly called on ABC to punish late-night host Jimmy Kimmel for his jokes about Donald Trump. Carr used the language of regulatory threat: why should a company that relies on FCC licenses “platform” such content? No formal FCC action followed, but the message was unmistakable. A regulator with authority over ABC’s broadcasting licenses had implied there might be consequences for failing to rein in speech.

This is jawboning in its purest form: the government doesn’t ban speech, but it pressures private entities into self-censorship. The result is just as chilling as direct censorship — broadcasters and platforms conclude it’s safer to silence controversial voices than risk regulatory retaliation.

In 2022, The Onion filed a satirical amicus brief in support of Anthony Novak, an Ohio man arrested for running a parody Facebook page mocking his local police department. His parody worked too well: some people were fooled, and police retaliated by charging him under a vague “disrupting public services” statute.

The Onion’s brief argued that parody must be allowed to mislead, exaggerate, and ridicule, even if the powerful are embarrassed. To require disclaimers or allow thin-skinned officials to punish satire is to destroy the very mechanism of parody. “Parody functions by tricking people into thinking it’s real,” The Onion explained — and that function is constitutionally protected.

These two cases — one a late-night monologue, the other a small-town parody — converge on the same problem: public officials exploiting ambiguity to punish or suppress speech they dislike.

• Carr claims he was merely “speaking,” not censoring.
   
• Parma’s officers claimed they were enforcing the law, not retaliating against parody.
   

In both situations, officials wield plausible deniability while the effect on free speech is unmistakable.

Another shared lesson: speech today often flows through intermediaries — broadcasters like ABC or platforms like Facebook. Those intermediaries are highly sensitive to regulatory pressure, legal risk, and public controversy. A single threat or lawsuit is enough to make them overcorrect, silencing lawful speech.

Whether through jawboning or retaliatory arrests, the result is the same: citizens lose their ability to ridicule, critique, and challenge government power. And parody and satire, long recognized as vital “safety valves” in democracy, are especially at risk.

The Onion’s defense of parody and the Kimmel controversy both remind us that the First Amendment is not self-enforcing. It depends on vigilance — not only against outright censorship, but also against its quieter cousin: the pressure campaign.

If parody can be punished, and if regulators can quietly bully networks into self-censorship, then free expression is undermined even without a single law being passed. The First Amendment is strongest when it protects the ridiculous, the irreverent, and the inconvenient — especially when those in power would prefer silence.

We live in a moment where powerful institutions—government officials, corporations, broadcasters—are being pressured to silence dissent. The FCC, under the guise of “regulation,” is using threats and intimidation to muzzle voices it doesn’t like. And when companies like Disney cave to that pressure, it’s not just a late-night host who suffers. It’s all of us. Because every act of silence chips away at the protections of free speech and a free press—the keystone holding up democracy itself.

Our society depends on media that tells the truth, asks hard questions, and refuses to bow to bullies. When the press is intimidated into silence, the public loses its shield against authoritarianism. And make no mistake: the attack on Jimmy Kimmel is not an isolated incident. It’s a test. If they can silence one, they can silence all.

But here’s the thing: corporations like Disney don’t ultimately answer to the FCC. They answer to you. Their power is built on your dollars, your subscriptions, your loyalty. Without your support, their licenses are meaningless.

This site exists to remind you—and them—that consumer power is political power. That free speech is not negotiable. And that we, the public, are not spectators in this fight. We are participants, defenders, and stakeholders in the democratic experiment.

So welcome. Explore. Share. Speak out. Join us in holding corporations accountable when they betray the very freedoms that sustain them.

Because if we don’t draw the line here, they will never stop pushing it.