President-elect Donald Trump has picked a Project 2025 author as the next chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the agency that regulates telecommunications.
Brendan Carr, who is currently one of five FCC Commissioners, wrote a chapter about the agency in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s controversial 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.
Newsweek has contacted the Trump transition team via email for comment.
So far, Carr is the second Project 2025 contributor to be named to Trump’s administration, the other being Tom Homan, who will oversee the administration’s planned mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. Dozens of officials from Trump’s first administration contributed to the document.
In Carr’s chapter, he sets out his four priorities for the FCC:
Reigning in Big Tech
Carr argues that the largest technology companies, including Meta (Facebook) and Alphabet (Google), use content moderation techniques including shadow banning and demonetization to censor conservatives on their platforms, without having to offer detailed reasoning for their motives.
Currently, tech companies have broad scope under the First Amendment to moderate their privately owned platforms as they fit.
This is further codified in Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which states that “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
Section 230 legally protects tech companies from being sued for hosting content its users publish. It also allows social platforms to moderate their services by removing posts that are obscene or violate the service’s own standards, so long as they are acting in “good faith.”
Carr argues that some of the immunities tech companies currently have under Section 230 should be eliminated and tech companies should be regulated further, to ensure that users are not being discriminated against, in part by making the companies offer a “transparent appeals process” for users to challenge their accounts being banned or demonetized.
Promoting National Security
Carr takes a hard line against Chinese tech companies, which he argues are affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party and are a threat to national security.
He supports banning TikTok because it “provides Beijing with an opportunity to run a foreign influence campaign by determining the news and information that the app feeds to millions of Americans.”
He also supports increasing federal funding to an existing “rip and replace” program for network infrastructure containing insecure Chinese technology.
He is in favour of closing loopholes and further regulating Chinese tech firms in a variety of ways to prevent them from accessing American markets.
Unleashing Economic Prosperity
Carr proposed a series of moves to allow the private sector to develop network infrastructure by modernizing and getting rid of outdated regulations.
He specifically mentions Elon Musk‘s satellite internet product Starlink as a technology the FCC should promote. He argues that the FCC should increase the pace it reviews and approves satellite launch applications for Starlink and Amazon‘s Kuiper (a competitor to Starlink) to ensure American companies control the future of space-based internet.
Ensuring FCC Accountability and Good Governance
Carr argues that the FCC should be more transparent about the decisions it makes. He argues that it currently engages in wasteful broadband spending policies and overregulates the communications industry. He argues that the agency should look at eliminating outdated regulations.
He believes the federal government should take a more hands-off approach to allow the private sector to innovate and compete in the communications sector.
Criticism Over Project 2025 Ties
Several left-leaning figures pointed out on social media that Trump choosing Carr to head up the FCC is further evidence that Project 2025 did reflect what his administration intended to do, despite Trump’s repeated attempts to distance himself from the document.
Left-leaning Fox News host Jessica Tarlov reposted Trump’s nomination letter on X, writing, “But none of them have anything to do with Project 2025.”
Another progressive user, @Angry_Staffer, who has 560,800 followers on X, wrote, “Another Project 2025 co-author. Go figure.”
Journalist Ahmed Baba, who has written extensively about Trump’s alleged ties to Project 2025, wrote on X, “Trump picked Brendan Carr, the literal author of Project 2025’s chapter on the FCC, to be Chairman of the FCC. Can’t say we didn’t warn you.”
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