In his first days back in office, Donald Trump is launching a campaign against freedom of speech. He has declared that MSNBC “shouldn’t have the right to broadcast” and called for the revocation of CBS’s broadcast license (even though there is no license to revoke at the network level). His extension on the TikTok ban sounded good at first, but he has suggested that its future presence in the USA may be contingent on its turning over 50% ownership to the United States (which seems to mean the government but isn’t fully clear). (Update: Recent reports indicate he’s shifted to wanting a consortium of US companies to acquire a majority stake, which at least wouldn’t be American socialism.)

We need to remember that current levels of freedom of speech in the United States haven’t always prevailed. It was only around 1960 to 1970 that the Supreme Court recognized their present broad status.
(more…)