Trump’s FCC Chair Pick Wants to ‘Dismantle’ Big Tech’s ‘Censorship Cartel’
Brendan Carr, current senior Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission , will also deprioritize DEI.
President-elect Donald Trump is continuing his fast-paced appointment process by naming Brendan Carr, the current senior Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the agency’s new chairman.
It is another excellent choice, as Carr plans to target the ‘censorship cartel‘ imposed by major tech companies in league with big government bureaucrats.
Brendan Carr, the incoming Federal Communications Commission Chairman, has demanded answers from Big Tech firms about their involvement in what he described as an “censorship cartel” to suppress speech with which they disagreed.
Carr – who President-elect Trump dubbed a “warrior for free speech” on Sunday as he announced him as his pick to lead the agency – sent letters to Google’s Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Apple’s Tim Cook.
The letters were dated Nov. 13, days before Trump revealed his promotion from the FCC’s senior Republican commissioner to permanent chairman.
The Republican specifically sought information about the firms’ dealings with NewsGuard – a for-profit “fact-checking” firm that has run afoul of Congressional Republicans for allegedly targeting conservative outlets by labeling them as more “risky” than liberal outlets.
Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft & others have played central roles in the censorship cartel.
The Orwellian named NewsGuard along with “fact checking” groups & ad agencies helped enforce one-sided narratives.
The censorship cartel must be dismantled. pic.twitter.com/Xf0sEYOUfv
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) November 15, 2024
Carr also plans to deprioritize the agency’s Diversity-Equity-Inclusion policy.
Brendan Carr, who currently serves as the senior Republican member of the FCC, posted a snippet of the agency’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2025 on X, which stated that its second-highest strategic goal is promoting DEI.
“The FCC’s most recent budget request said that promoting DEI was the agency’s second highest [sic] strategic goal. Starting next year, the FCC will end its promotion of DEI,” Carr wrote.
The only strategic goal listed before promoting DEI was pursuing a 100% broadband policy.
I am looking forward to the mainstream media asserting Carr is unqualified to hold this position. Carr’s career at the FCC began in 2012 when he joined as a legal advisor. He was then General Counsel from 2017 until he was appointed a commissioner later that year. His legal experience includes over six years at Wiley Rein LLP, a prominent law firm specializing in telecommunications and regulatory issues.
As a commissioner, Carr has been recognized for his efforts to promote high-speed wireless internet access, particularly in rural areas. He has also advocated for reducing regulatory burdens on smaller broadcasters while increasing scrutiny on larger tech companies. It is clear that he understands the needs of local broadcasters and the challenges posed by major technology firms.
Carr’s selection is on-brand for Trump 2.0’s priorities, particularly regarding technology regulation and free speech advocacy.
The National Association of Broadcasters praised Carr as “a steadfast leader in holding Big Tech accountable and supporting policies that will allow local broadcast stations to better compete with these behemoths and thrive.”
Carr has called on the FCC to loosen rules that limit the number of radio and TV stations a company can own in a single market and criticized the Biden FCC’s digital discrimination rule arguing it give “the federal government a roving mandate to micromanage nearly every aspect of how the internet functions.”
The FCC issues eight-year licenses to individual broadcast stations, not to broadcast networks.
In 2022, Carr, a strong critic of China, became the first FCC commissioner to visit Taiwan. He has been an advocate of the FCC’s hard line on Chinese telecom companies.
However, I must admit, I am looking forward to all the progressive head explosions over the fact that wrote a chapter about the agency in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a conservative presidency.
…Project 2025 was a contentious political issue in the presidential campaign. Democrats argued that the document is Trump’s true policy plan and he only distanced himself from it before the election because many of the policies are unpopular with voters.
Trump repeatedly tried to distance himself from Project 2025, saying he is unfamiliar with the policies and has “nothing to do” with them. However, his own platform shares broad policy similarities with the document.
Here are those “contentious” policies promoted by Carr.
Here are the 4 priorities for the FCC identified by Trump's pick for FCC Chair @BrendanCarrFCC in Project 2025 blueprint:
* Reining in Big Tech.
* Promoting National Security.
* Unleashing Economic Prosperity.
* Assuring FCC Accountability and Good Governance. pic.twitter.com/6tpmLlJZ14— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) November 19, 2024
Personally, I am looking forward to less Newsguard and more free speech starting in 2025.
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Comments
I recently read an article where the author tried to eliminate all Google-owned software and apps from his computer. It was practically impossible, which leads one to the conclusion that Google has a stranglehold that the Feds need to break up.
Google fiber was recently installed in my neighborhood. Google’s initial offer of $70/month got reduced to $30/month, which is competitive. Given Google’s history of suppressing access to dissenting views in its search engine, $30/month is an offer I have no reluctance to refuse.
Watch how good tech weenies are at slow-walking something for four years.
Slow, unresponsive, arrogant? Sounds like typical monopoly behavior. Pretty sure they would rather not face off with the Gaetz run DoJ antitrust division…
There is a big problem with upstream providers using their overreaching terms of service to try and censor downstream services. This goes back at least 30 years.
Any government employee who engages in activity that is aimed at curtailing citizens rights should be summarily fired and have their pension revoked.
this is what the tech folks are scared of.
we need more of it.
If a government employee abuses their position to abridge peoples civil rights, they belong in jail.
Carr has a huge job ahead of him. Hopefully, he won’t have to litigate before a leftist DC court.
I am going to wait and see how they plan on “reigning in” censorship. As much as I dislike it, there is nothing illegal about any tech company deciding what info they want on their platform. No different than NYT’s editorial board.
Of course it gets murkier if tech companies are doing the bidding of the govt in charge. Especially if some threat was involved. Although I don’t believe threats were necessary to get Google, Facebook, or Twitter to fall in line with a far left ideology. They were happy to do it.
The answer is what Musk did and what Gab attempted. More regulation is not the answer because regulation only helps the big boys. They have the lawyers and money to fight through red tape. They welcome regulation as it stifles competition. They were practically begging for a Biden-led govt to step in so they didn’t take the heat.
You simply cannot be anti-censorship and also want the govt to step in and tell private companies what messages they must include.
When the publisher is trying to pass itself off as a paper manufacturer, you can be fully anti-censorship.
It seems to me that an easy starting solution would be to properly define “platforms” for section 230. If you’re free and open (like using a telephone used to be), then you get protection. If you’re going to moderate (outside of actual illegal things like threats, conspiracy to commit a crime, and fraud) you don’t get the protection. How hard is this to understand?
Of course, it would help if all their users were intelligent, moral, respectful members of society…
Sorry, like every other private business they have free speech rights. Government shouldn’t be able to force them into speech anymore than the govt should be able to restrict speech.
Breaking up Google and Meta so all decisions are made by multiple organizations is better than trying to regulate speech–and more constitutionally sound. Sorry if I am not ecstatic about govt telling private corporations what speech they must allow. Removing 230 protections would result in MORE censorship, not less. Do you really think that making these platforms liable for content means they would actually allow MORE content?
IT would give them the choice of being content neutral or not to publish user content. Because their business model is based on user content, they will not choose the latter.
“IT would give them the choice of being content neutral or not to publish user content.”
Or put another way: Govt dictates what you must say or govt will put you out of business.
Lovely thought, Einstein
In what world do you live where social media can be sued for what they allow on their platforms translates into more content being allowed? Section 230 doesn’t mean what you think it means.
He might start by reversing that recent sale of multiple radio stations to George Soros.