OPINION:
President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Brendan Carr as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is welcome news for Americans who cherish the God-given right to freedom of speech.
Mr. Carr, whom Mr. Trump labeled a “warrior for free speech,” serves as a commissioner at the FCC, which means he will not have to receive Senate confirmation and can begin his term as chairman as soon as the next administration assumes power. In other words, he can hit the ground running and implement much-needed reforms without being dragged through the mud in an ugly confirmation fight. And make no mistake, Mr. Carr has his work cut out for him.
Created in 1934, the FCC “regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories.”
Unfortunately, the FCC has been derelict in its duty of properly and fairly regulating several communication mediums in recent years, most noticeably with regard to the internet and social media.
Like it or not, the 1996 Communications Decency Act tasked the FCC with ensuring that freedom of speech and viewpoint diversity are protected online. Specifically, the FCC administers Section 230, which was designed to protect internet providers from liability concerning material posted to websites by users as long as this is done “in good faith.”
Commonly referred to as the good Samaritan provision, this part of Section 230 was originally intended to encourage a diversity of political viewpoints while protecting Americans’ unalienable right to freedom of speech on the then-novel technology of the internet.
As most Americans are well aware, however, Big Tech has woefully disregarded the letter of the law in recent years as major social media platforms have engaged in censorship, shadow banning, post throttling, etc.
Mr. Carr has clarified that he intends to address this injustice directly while ensuring that the internet returns to its original iteration as a bastion of free speech.
In a letter to the leaders of Google, Apple, Meta and Microsoft this month, Mr. Carr stated: “Over the past few years, Americans have lived through an unprecedented surge in censorship. Your companies played significant roles in this improper conduct. Big Tech companies silenced Americans for doing nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights.”
“This censorship cartel is an affront to Americans’ constitutional freedoms and must be completely dismantled,” Mr. Carr wrote. “Americans must be able to reclaim their right to free speech. Indeed, our democracy depends on freedom of expression.”
Mr. Carr is 100% correct. Big Tech censorship is an affront to the Constitution and obviously conflicts with the values that have made the United States the world’s beacon of freedom for the past two centuries.
With Mr. Carr in charge of the FCC, I am confident that the tide is turning and that we will soon see a return to a robust digital discourse in which all Americans are free to state their opinions and viewpoints.
Even better, I think the days of social media platforms stifling news stories such as the Hunter Biden laptop bombshell are numbered. In his letter, Mr. Carr made specific reference to NewsGuard, which he describes as “a for-profit company that operates as part of the broader censorship cartel, … effectively censors targeted outlets … [and] works with web browsers, including Google’s Chrome, Apple’s Safari, and Microsoft’s Bing.”
As someone who grew up in the mid-1990s, when the internet began taking shape, I vividly remember how exciting the dawn of the digital age was in those years. Back then, the internet was commonly called the information superhighway and was viewed as a revolutionary medium in which everyone had an equal voice. There were no gatekeepers; freedom of speech reigned supreme.
In recent years, the rise of Big Tech and the advent of monopolistic social media platforms dealt a devastating blow to the dream of an open internet where anyone could chime in. Of course, this nightmare was even worse when we realized that the federal government played a significant role in censorship.
The good news is that it seems the worst is over. Americans sent a clear signal on Nov. 5 that they reject censorship. The tables have turned in favor of those who treasure the right to free speech, which is an absolutely wonderful development.
• Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is editorial director at the Heartland Institute.
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