Trump's Pick To Run The FCC Has Told Us What He Plans: TikTok Ban, Space Broadband, And Section 230 Reform

President-elect Donald Trump has announced his choice for head of the United States Federal Communications Commission: a current commissioner, Brendan Carr, whom Trump appointed last time he was in there White House.

Carr's an obvious choice. Trump put him on the Commission (FCC) in 2017 and he has remained at the regulator ever since. His rulings have reflected the incoming president's policy priorities. He's also written a chapter outlining his views on future directions in the Project 2025 manifesto produced by conservative activists as a template for the upcoming Trump presidency.

"Commissioner Carr is a warrior for Free Speech, and has fought against the regulatory Lawfare that has stifled Americans' Freedoms, and held back our Economy," Trump announced on Sunday. "He will end the regulatory onslaught that has been crippling America's Job Creators and Innovators, and ensure that the FCC delivers for rural America."

Carr wasted no time after the announcement in making his planned policy objectives clear on X.

"We must dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech rights for everyday Americans," was his first comment after his planned appointment was announced.

The "censorship cartel" has been one of Carr's main themes for years. It refers to the idea that Big Tech companies are suppressing conservative voices and censoring views with which they don't agree. Days before the announcement of his appointment, Carr also published an open letter to the bosses of Alphabet, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft, declaring they had "played central roles in the censorship cartel," by employing the services of fact-checking site NewsGuard.

Carr wants to revisit Section 230 – the legislative provision that guarantees platforms immunity from litigation over most illegal content posted to their platforms.

"The FCC should work with Congress to ensure that antidiscrimination provisions are applied to Big Tech – including 'back-end' companies that provide hosting services and DDoS protection," Carr argued in the Project 2025 document. "Reforms that prohibit discrimination against core political viewpoints are one way to do this and would track the approach taken in a social media law passed in Texas."

Both Texas and Florida currently have laws in place requiring online platforms to accept comments from users, irrespective of whether they agree with the content or not. The Supreme Court was, however, less than impressed and has kicked back cases to lower courts while indicating that platforms like Meta might have first amendment rights that mean they can choose what content does and does not appear on their services.

Carr has called on Congress to clarify the rules. He also wants to see consumers given more rights to challenge moderation decisions and for "Big Tech" businesses to be transparent about their algorithms and allow appeals on moderation decisions.

However, this might backfire on Carr's boss, as Aaron Mackey, free speech and transparency litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), explained to The Register.

"We know that Trump's nomination of Carr to be the Chair signals that Trump approves of this general direction and motives," he explained. "But I think when the rubber hits the road in terms of what the actual rule making looks like, is there actually the political will to do these types of rule makings that, in fact, would increase liability on a platform that the President owns."

That's a reference to Truth Social – the social media service operated by Trump Media & Technology Group and majority-owned by the once and future president.

Another Carr position that may impact tech players is a proposal to make them contribute to the $9 billion Universal Service Fund, which Washington uses used to pay for comms infrastructure spending. Currently the funds are paid by telcos, but Carr feels tech firms should also contribute, since they see huge benefits from increased internet access.

That's an argument that has been made, and largely dismissed, in many other jurisdictions. Tech giants oppose it on grounds that they make big investments in submarine cables, and that their activities create demand for carriers' services.

He wants net neutrality to end

Carr has made no secret of his antipathy to net neutrality rules that require carriers to treat all traffic equally.

Even before he joined the agency, Carr was legal advisor to the previous head of the FCC, Ajit Pai, who led a successful push to abolish net neutrality.

When the doctrine was re-introduced last year, Carr made no secret of his opposition.

"When my FCC colleagues and I voted in 2017 to overturn the Obama Administration's failed, two-year experiment with Title II, activists and politicians alike guaranteed the American public that the internet would quite literally break without it," he said last year.

"They predicted that prices for broadband would spike, that you would be charged for each website you wanted to visit, and that the internet itself would slow down. Did any one of those predictions come to pass? Of course not."

Over the years Carr has even questioned the motives of net neutrality fans, arguing this is more about regulating telcos and stopping them from introducing differential access speeds to generate more revenue.

“The fight over net neutrality has never really been about net neutrality," he said in 2020. "That is the sheep's clothing. It has always been about rate regulation – a surefire way to kill innovation and scare off investment.”

Carr's contribution to Project 2025 hardly touches on net neutrality. But on his watch, it seems highly likely to be revisited.

Indeed, he's already found a justification for doing so: First Amendment rights that ISPs can exercise to allow them to run services as they see fit.

The EFF's Mackey thinks that argument has flaws.

"The EFF agrees that there is a First Amendment issue there, but if that's the case, then how do you square that with what happened over the [northern] summer when the Supreme Court clearly articulated that providers and services – like your Facebooks, your YouTubes – have First Amendment rights to decide what content they post and do not," Mackey explained. "The Supreme Court has sort of resolutely said that these platforms have First Amendment rights."

Opposition to China

If Chinese telco equipment makers were hoping for an easier time of things under Trump, they should think again: Carr believes the Middle Kingdom is a threat to the US.

In his Project 2025 chapter, Carr called for expansion of the government-funded rip and replace program to get Middle Kingdom kit out of US networks, on national security grounds. He thinks another $3 billion is needed to finish the job.

The incoming chair is also a big fan of banning TikTok, which he describes as "a serious and unacceptable risk to America's national security." Then-president Trump agreed when he was in office – signing an Executive Order on the topic – but now appears to have changed his stance and no longer supports a ban.

Elon's eyes are smiling

One area Carr has been working on for years on the Commission is trying to expand rural access to the internet, and now it seems he has a plan: call Elon Musk.

"One of the most significant technological developments of the past few years has been the emergence of a new generation of low-Earth orbit satellites like Starlink and Kuiper," states his Project 2025 contribution.

"This technology can beam a reliable, high-speed internet signal to nearly any part of the globe at a fraction of the cost of other technologies. The FCC should expedite its work to support this new technology by acting more quickly in its review and approval of applications to launch new satellites."

Given the billions telcos have taken from Washington to build networks they failed to deliver, Carr might be onto something there.

Lighter regulation of telcos is another goal – across issues including local government approval of infrastructure builds, revisiting spectrum allocation to hand it to the highest bidder, and allowing mergers and acquisitions across the sector.

Both Carr and Musk agree on one more thing: neither is remotely woke. "When it comes to the FCC's promotion of DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion], I have just one thing to say: Afuera! (Translation: Out!)" Carr posted on X. ®