[ExI] F.C.C. Chair Threatens to Revoke Broadcasters’ Licenses Over War Coverage

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> 
Sent: Sunday, 15 March, 2026 10:25 AM
To: spike at rainier66.com
Cc: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] F.C.C. Chair Threatens to Revoke Broadcasters’ Licenses Over War Coverage

 

On Sun, Mar 15, 2026 at 9:48 AM <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:

>>> Why do they need broadcaster’s licenses?  Just go over to TwitterX where there is a lot bigger audience.

>>…So after reading the article that's all you have to say? I thought you were a libertarian, where is your outrage? 

 

> Libertarians realize that broadcaster’s licenses are unnecessary and unjustified in the first place.  No government owns bandwidth. 

 

 

>…So let's see, according to you because libertarians believe the government doesn't own bandwidth, anybody should be able to put a 50,000 watt transmitter on air right in the middle of the cell phone Wi-Fi band and neither the government or anybody else should stop them. We've seen this phenomenon before, to avoid uttering the slightest criticism of He Who Must Not Be Named you must contort yourself into bizarre topological shapes that look as if they must be very painful. 

 

John K Clark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK good point on cell phones.  We can even extend the stay-out zone to police radio and other emergency service radio bands.

 

Where I was going is to point out that broadcasting is not nearly as important as it once was.  All (I do mean all) news broadcasters have at some point proven themselves unreliable sources of news, and even if accurate most of the time, they are compelled to offer a mostly self-consistent narrative.  We don’t want a narrative, we want to hear all views.  Not both sides.  All sides (there are more than two sides.)  This is the brilliance of social media.  There is no self-consistent narrative to be found there.  It is up to the news consumer to read and figure out what is real and what is an illusion.

 

None of this has anything to do with POTUS or government.  It’s nothing personal, just business.  Broadcasting costs money (a lot of it.)  Posting stuff to social media does not.  Hiring people to research stuff costs big money.  Amateur researchers are free.  Broadcast corporate news agencies are finding themselves more and more in the position of competing with free.  We are seeing massive layoffs in the industry, as the audience realizes corporate broadcasting is not necessary.  It is a thing of the past.  We no longer need them.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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