"The FCC should promote freedom of speech, Brendan Carr, now the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, wrote in his chapter on the agency in Project 2025, the conservative manifesto that detailed plans for a second Trump administration. It's a view he's held for a long time. He wrote on X in 2023 that free speech is the counterweight it is the check on government control. That is why censorship is the authoritarian's dream."
"Despite the decision being, on its face, in opposition to free speech, Carr has used his position as chair of the commission, tasked with regulating communications networks, to go after broadcasters he deems are not operating in the public interest. Before he was named chair, Carr said publicly that broadcast licenses are not sacred cows and that he would seek to hold companies accountable if they didn't operate in the public interest, a vague guideline set forth in the Communications Act of 1934. He has advocated for the FCC to take a fresh look at what operating in the public interest means. He knows the agency well: he was nominated by Trump to the commission in 2017 and was tapped by the president to be chair in January. He has also worked as an attorney at the agency and an adviser to then-commissioner Ajit Pai, who later became chair and appointed Carr as general counsel."
Brendan Carr advocates promoting freedom of speech while using FCC authority to challenge broadcasters he views as not operating in the public interest. Carr frames free speech as a counterweight and a check on government control. Carr opposed government censorship of speech it dislikes and rejected a roving FCC mandate to police speech in the name of the public interest. Carr has called for a fresh examination of what operating in the public interest means under the Communications Act of 1934. Carr has deep agency experience, including roles as commissioner nominee, chair, attorney, adviser to Ajit Pai, and general counsel.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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