ABC says FCC waging a retaliatory campaign violating free speech rights

ABC sued the FCC, arguing the agency is waging a retaliatory campaign of censorship against the broadcast network, violating its right to free speech. ABC says the commission has wielded its regulatory power to punish and pressure the company through investigations and threats to strip local stations of their broadcast licenses.

Anna Gomez, FCC Commissioner: "It's extremely unprecedented. Never has the FCC gone after network content by targeting all of its local broadcast stations. And it's been over a half-a-century since the FCC actually called in any license for early renewal."

Anna Gomez: "No one believes that this is about Disney's diversity, equity and inclusion policies. Clearly, this is just a pretext to go after Disney because this administration does not like the content it's seeing on Disney, and Disney has refused to bow to the intimidation and to the pressure. I'm very heartened to see Disney stand up for its First Amendment rights and its editorial decisions and filing to challenge the actions that this FCC has taken."

Anna Gomez: "The FCC cannot target content based on this nebulous public interest standard. The problem with the way this administration is banding about the term public interest is they basically use it to mean anything this administration doesn't like. We are bound by the First Amendment and by the Constitution. There is no generalized exception to the First Amendment just because you're a broadcast licensee."