Big Tech has shown the ability to deplatform Parler, Trump, and others. It’s past time for cable companies to show the same commitment to a functioning republic and eliminate from their cable packages the sources of disinformation and of promotion that underlie the attack on the capital. To do any less is to participate in advancing the insurrection in activities that will continue into the inauguration and beyond.
There is no question that Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax are committed to spreading false information to justify the attacks and fuel the hatred. They are manufacturers of outrage and primary sources of disinformation. They manipulate their audience into frothing, irrational, violent actors in the public square. The insurrection expects to continue, and there are reports of a weekend of events planned for DC and state capitals. The “reporting” on these events are in fact promotion of them. The cable stations are connecting their audience with the organizers of insurrection while inciting participation and generating support for the actions.
Cable companies collect monthly fees from customers and pays cable networks with those amounts. Customers rarely, if never, are allowed to choose which cable networks they prefer with any amount of precision. One is sold a package of networks. Thereby, persons who never support Fox news or even knows the existence of OAN are making monthly contributions to this propaganda against their preferences. Should buyers be compelled to support the “speech” of people participating in the overthrow of the republic and elimination of the democratic system? Cable companies make it so.
A cable company with integrity should drop all of these channels, for to continue them is to be an agent for the dissemination of propaganda, of sedition, and of insurrection. To maintain the current arrangement makes the culpable in the movement.
If they lack the loyalty to the nation to make this choice, may i offer at least this alternative — they must not compel customers to support political speech that is offensive to them. Drop all these propaganda channels from the packages and require customers to elect, at an additional fee, their inclusion on any customer’s TV. At least they won’t be getting my $2 a month and it would complicate their business plan enough to eliminate Newsmax and OAN at least.