You talkin’ to me? New York City official wants to turn yellow cabs into speech police.

We have a jawboning problem in New York City.

Brad Hoylman-Sigal, the president of Manhattan borough, just wrote a letter demanding that Mayor Zohran Mamdani “summarily suspend” the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission’s partnership with the company Curb, which makes interactive TV screens for taxi cabs. Curb’s sin? Last year, it signed a contract with Newsmax to provide one-minute news updates for its taxi screens. 

Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat, is not happy. He believes the news outlet is too conservative for New York City taxis, saying it has a “history of misinformation and disingenuous reporting.”

Mamdani has not yet publicly commented on the request. Newsmax supporters claim Hoylman-Sigal’s letter amounts to nothing more than viewpoint discrimination. They’re not wrong. Hoylman-Sigal himself published a video in which he said about the media company, “Any news source that defends ICE shouldn’t be in New York City taxi cabs.” 

New York City cabs are privately owned, but the TLC issues licenses to cab owners known as “medallions.” As we explain in our letter to the TLC, any attempt to condition TLC’s contract with the city on dropping a news vendor because the news they play is too conservative is classic jawboning. 

Jawboning is when government officials use or threaten to use their authority to pressure private entities to suppress speech — which they cannot do directly. Such indirect censorship can chill protected expression, and the Supreme Court has reaffirmed under Bantam Books v. Sullivan and NRA v. Vullo that the First Amendment bars jawboning. Making the TLC censor its news? Fuhgeddaboudit!

When officials use jawboning — especially behind closed doors — to influence how others moderate or distribute speech, it raises serious constitutional issues because it can circumvent formal legal protections for free expression. 

The TLC said it reviews and regulates taxi television content based on clear standards, that the current Newsmax ads comply with those rules, and that riders can mute or turn off the screens while the agency continues to monitor compliance. We applaud the TLC for its resistance to jawboning attempts and encourage it to persist in doing so.

Perhaps Hoylman-Sigal should take some advice from the late George Carlin, who once said in response to a reverend who complained about something he didn’t like on the radio, “Reverend, there are two knobs on the radio. One of them turns the radio off and the other one changes the station.”

FIRE defends the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — no matter their views. FIRE’s proven approach to advocacy has vindicated the rights of thousands of Americans through targeted media campaigns, correspondence with officials, open records requests, litigation, and other advocacy tactics. If you think your rights have been violated, submit your case to FIRE today.