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Last week’s flap over Newsmax being carried on Taxi TV in New York City exposed the ugly impulse among some Democrats to police what citizens can see in public spaces. On January 21, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal sent a letter asking Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Taxi and Limousine Commissioner Midori Valdivia to pressure Curb, the taxi-screen provider, to drop Newsmax or face suspension of its city licensing agreement. The move was framed as concern over “misinformation,” but it reads more like naked political censorship than a public-safety measure.
The facts are simple and stark: Curb streams short Newsmax updates to roughly 15,000 screens nationwide, about 9,000 of which are in New York City, and the segments running in taxis have been described as one-minute news updates rather than opinion programming. Newsmax and Curb both pushed back, saying the taxi content is reviewed for compliance and consists of straightforward news segments, while the Taxi and Limousine Commission noted riders can mute or turn off the screens. Mayor Mamdani’s office declined to comment as the controversy unfolded, leaving New Yorkers to wonder whether politics will trump free expression.
What’s happening here is chilling in its intent. Elected officials demanding the removal of a media outlet from a privately owned platform because they dislike its perspective is textbook viewpoint discrimination, and it sets a dangerous precedent for the use of licensing power as a cudgel against dissenting voices. If the city begins conditioning medallion or licensure privileges on ideological conformity, private businesses and media companies will face an arbitrary political litmus test that has nothing to do with public safety or consumer protection.
Republican leaders and free-speech advocates rightly called out this effort as cancel culture masquerading as regulation. The proper response from city hall should have been to reaffirm neutrality: if content violates clear rules, enforce those rules transparently; if not, resist partisan pressure to pick winners and losers in the marketplace of ideas. Using government authority to silence a lawful, widely available news outlet corrodes trust in institutions and hands censorious politicians another tool to wield.
This episode is also a reminder that media consumers—riders in taxis or viewers at home—should have the final say about what they watch, not bureaucrats. The correct safeguard is competition and choice, not government fiat; if someone disagrees with a network’s coverage, the remedy is to tune out, not to enlist the state to shut it down. Curb and other platforms must stand firm against political bullying and defend their right to distribute lawful content.
City officials who value liberty should reject Hoylman-Sigal’s demand and make clear that licensing will not be weaponized to suppress viewpoints. New York can be a big, messy media market without descending into ideological gatekeeping, but only if leaders refuse to reward censorship. The nation should watch how this plays out—either New York defends a basic freedom, or it hands the censor’s pen to those who would erase inconvenient viewpoints.
