President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, wants to refashion the broadband regulator into the nation’s speech police on social platforms.
As FCC chair, Carr would set the agency’s agenda on issues like broadband deployment, net neutrality, and telecom privacy. But since Carr was nominated as a commissioner in 2017 by Trump, he’s spent much of his time focusing on contentious internet speech rules that the agency has historically never played a role in. Without a massive regulatory overhaul from Congress or the courts, passing his agenda would be an uphill battle.
In a Sunday statement appointing Carr, Trump called him “a warrior for Free Speech” who will “end the regulatory onslaught that has been crippling America’s Job Creators.” Thanking Trump, Carr wrote on X, “We must dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech rights for everyday Americans.”
Carr authored the Project 2025 chapter on the FCC, writing that the agency needed to prioritize issues like “reining in Big tech” and “promoting national security.” Specifically on his to-do list, Carr says that the FCC should issue an order that reinterprets Section 230 to eliminate the “expansive” liability immunities it provides to social platforms. Section 230 is part of the Communications Decency Act passed in 1996, which protects internet companies from being sued over content that appears on their platforms and has given companies the ability to decide what content can or cannot be posted.
But there is no precedent for the FCC governing online speech, and experts tell WIRED that the agency has no authority to act on Trump and Carr’s speech prescriptions.
“This is a radical view that they can somehow do something about Section 230 at the FCC,” says Chris Lewis, president and CEO at Public Knowledge, a progressive tech advocacy group.
In his Project 2025 write-up, Carr specifically argues that companies should allow users to personalize their own content filters and that platforms should remove only illegal user-generated content. Carr has also forged a relationship with X owner Elon Musk, who has also suggested that platforms like his own should only take down unlawful content like child abuse imagery. (Carr appeared with Musk and Trump at a Tuesday SpaceX launch.)
“What he can do and wants to do is use his bully pulpit to bully companies that moderate content in a way he doesn’t like,” says Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, a digital rights advocacy group. “And if he continues to do that, he’s very likely to run smack into the First Amendment, which, contrary to misconception, is the real thing that protects online speech.” Section 230 protects social media companies from being sued over the content users post on their platforms, while the First Amendment explicitly bars the government from interfering in someone’s ability to exercise free speech. Over the summer, the Supreme Court ruled that a company’s moderation decisions are protected under the First Amendment.