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The First Amendment had nothing to do with ending the Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine had First Amendment carve outs, even: a station could air whateve

The First Amendment had nothing to do with ending the Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine had First Amendment carve outs, even: a station could air whatever opinion it wanted so long as it correctly labeled it an editorial opinion. (As opposed to just treating all opinions as facts and blurring all the lines between news, editorial content including opinions, and entertainment.) Such regulation could be legally applied to the internet. It may need a different agency to enforce it as the FCC only ever had the most control over broadcast airwaves (though the FCC still has some control over cellular bandwidth and broadband cabling and could use those as leverage), but basic regulations like "ads need to properly labeled; news needs to be properly labeled; editorial opinions need to be properly labeled" could absolutely still exist within the rights of the First Amendment. (The first Amendment is a nuanced thing and primarily designed between you a citizen and your government, every other kind of relationship is mostly just assumed beyond that, and some of it depends on whether you agree with the Citizens United decision that corporations are citizens and money is speech, which is a massive rabbit hole.) If there was a US Congress that wanted to regulate it, they absolutely could. The difference between 1949 and today has nothing to do with the First Amendment or technology changes and almost everything to do with a lack of will to properly govern with good regulations (and capitalism with no guiding hand regulation sinking to lowest common denominators for clickbait and attention seeking).

sclarisse 4y ago
You are either talking about something unrelated to the original fairness doctrine (somewhat misleading) or you are flat out wrong about extant jurisprudence regarding the highest law of the land… or both. In either case you seem oblivious to the fact that the Supreme Court has already explicitly said that there are First Amendment concerns with the first amendment. In Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC for instance, they said that the doctrine “has the net effect of reducing rather than enhancing speech” and would be illegal save for the limited spectrum, as “a license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a radio frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens.” Contrast Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo where a roughly equivalent newspaper regulation was found unconstitutional because competition is free to deliver their views via their own newspaper and it is not a special monopoly power to be licensed. If a “will to properly govern” is involved then it will take far more than “good regulations,” it will take major substantive changes to the nation’s Constitution, with all that entails. It will not happen because the citizens of the nation still like that amendment and fear they will be exposed to abuse without it.

sclarisse 4y ago

You are either talking about something unrelated to the original fairness doctrine (somewhat misleading) or you are flat out wrong about extant jurisprudence regarding the highest law of the land… or both. In either case you seem oblivious to the fact that the Supreme Court has already explicitly said that there are First Amendment concerns with the first amendment. In Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC for instance, they said that the doctrine “has the net effect of reducing rather than enhancing speech” and would be illegal save for the limited spectrum, as “a license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a radio frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens.” Contrast Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo where a roughly equivalent newspaper regulation was found unconstitutional because competition is free to deliver their views via their own newspaper and it is not a special monopoly power to be licensed. If a “will to properly govern” is involved then it will take far more than “good regulations,” it will take major substantive changes to the nation’s Constitution, with all that entails. It will not happen because the citizens of the nation still like that amendment and fear they will be exposed to abuse without it.