Why do incentives result in perceived malicious actions rather than just malicious actions or minor malicious actions?

On top of this no one has said corporations are filled with evil people.

This rationalization is cope. All US Corporations making "normal" decisions all the time isn't casually obvious. I would say that wherever there is an opportunity to exploit the customer, they usually do at different levels of sophistication. This may mistakenly seem like fair play to someone who thinks a good UI is a good trade for allocated advertisement space, when it's literally social engineering.

Corporations make decisions that more frequently benefit them at the cost of some customer resource. Pair that with decisions rarely being rolled back (without financial incentive), you get a least-fair optimization over time. This is not normal by any stretch, as people expect a somewhat fair value proposition. Corporations aren't geared for that.

> Even Hitler's actions can be traced through a perfectly understandable, although not morally condone-able, chain of events. I truly believe that he did not want to just kill people and commit evil, he truly wanted to better Germany and the human race, but on his journey he drove right off the road, so to speak.

Disgusting take. Don't simp for hitler. How am I having to type this in 2025?

Corporations don't have to be filled with evil people for malice to be rampant. All it takes is for one person in a position of power or influence who is highly motivated to screw over other human beings to create a whole lot of malice. We can all think of examples of public officials or powerful individuals who have made it their business to spread misery to countless others. Give them a few like-minded deputies and the havoc they wreak can be incalculable.

As for Hitler, if we can't even agree that orchestrating and facilitating the death of millions of innocent people is malicious, then malice has no meaning.

C. S. Lewis has written a great many excellent things, but his quote there strikes me as self-satisfied sophistry. Ask people being carpet bombed or blockade and starved if they're grateful that at least their adversary isn't trying to help them.

> It doesn't encourage the need to reason, examine any evidence, or examine any probabilities

Parent isn't advocating for assuming malice, or assuming anything really, but to reason about the causes. Basically, that we'd have better discourse if no axiom was used in the first place.

To your point, The Democrats, when back in power, could extend licensing issues into cableTV, etc... and attempt to fire Fox or Newsmax commentators... I would argue the Biden administration already attempted to do a form of this, as we saw with Facebook, Twitter, et al, the last administration certainly tried influencing the online arena.

I just think both sides do it, although on this forum it seems to trigger mostly the left side.

What they ignore is that local Fox affiliate stations who are also licensed by the FCC have a history of aligning with Fox News misinformation campaigns relating to covid, election integrity, Russia and Ukraine, Palestine, etc.

So no, the FCC licensed world is not left leaning, and these local affiliate stations should absolutely be held to the same standard.

https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/public-and-broadcasting#JOUR...

> Hoaxes. The broadcast by a station of false information concerning a crime or catastrophe violates the FCC's rules if:

> The station licensee knew that the information was false

There quite a few other rules, obscenity and violence and such. But they probably got Jimmy on the crime that was just committed + spreading false information.

https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/public-and-broadcasting#JOUR...

Note:

> Nevertheless, there are two issues related to broadcast journalism that are subject to Commission regulation: hoaxes and news distortion. Hoaxes. The broadcast by a station of false information concerning a crime or catastrophe violates the FCC's rules if [...] The station licensee knew that the information was false.

All Jimmy had to do, it seems, was to say "this is all a made up joke" and move on, instead of presenting whatever he was saying as information or news.

> If a station airs a disclaimer before the broadcast that clearly characterizes the program as fiction and the disclaimer is presented in a reasonable manner under the circumstances, the program is presumed not to pose foreseeable public harm.

> However, as public trustees, broadcast licensees may not intentionally distort the news. The FCC has stated that “rigging or slanting the news is a most heinous act against the public interest.” The Commission will investigate a station for news distortion if it receives documented evidence of rigging or slanting, such as testimony or other documentation, from individuals with direct personal knowledge that a licensee or its management engaged in the intentional falsification of the news. Of particular concern would be evidence of the direction to employees from station management to falsify the news. However, absent such a compelling showing, the Commission will not intervene.

Again, Jimmy didn't get sent to the gulag and didn't go to jail. He can still run a show on his own platform or a youtube channel or maybe Netflix will sign him up. Heck, after this, I'd say he would easily triple his view numbers if anything.

> Tomorrow: it's not like they executed him.

Yes threatening to pull the FCC license and canceling Kimmel's show is exactly like torturing, killing and imprisoning people in labor and death camps. We should all fell very sorry for poor Jimmy, we don't know how he'll even manage.

What is there to blink about if it was not a threat?

If I walk up to someone with a gun and wave the gun around and demand they give me their money or I'll shoot them, it does not matter if I was "serious" or not about the threat. If I tell a jury that I wouldn't have actually ever have shot the person, and that they just decided to give me their money because they didn't really need it so much, I'm not sure any jury would agree, unless I was a hell of a salesman.

Not as the federal government, because it explicitly lacks the freedom of speech citizens are ensured by the Constitution.

And absent a first amendment claim, the best defense they can come up with would be 'We were joking.'

Which, given the well-cited history of coercion by this administration (both in verbalized plans and actions), would be a hard defense to make.

What we are saying is that just by making the threat, the censorship has full and complete effect. They don't need to revoke the license to use the power of the government to influence constitutionalally protected speech. They just need to threaten.

This is illegal: "Nice business you've got here," the police officer says. "Shame that crime is on the rise. And we don't have as many officers to patrol. But give a donation and we'll take care of you. Don't and we'll stop answering your 911 calls."

Now replace with "We heard what you said about the mayor. Apologize or we'll stop answering your 911 calls."

The criticism of the "MAGA gang" was _not_ about their actions at the time of the Kimmel broadcast, it was very much about their immediate behavior as soon as the shooting hit the news .. the time when nothing was known, the time when the FBI head was making statements about suspects that were untrue, the time when the US head of state was declaring war on the left .. you know, the time when nothing was known about the political allegiance of the shooter .. or the lack thereof.

I'm an outside observer, from here it's clear that the US has fallen deep into an Us v Them K-hole and that the current administration is all too happy to turn up the heat on the divisions that render the nation asunder .. the chaos makes the heist all the easier.