Serving Commissioner Brendan Carr wants to “rein in” Big Tech and allegedly TV channels that don’t agree with Trump
US President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Brendan Carr as chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the independent agency responsible for regulating communications. He is currently the Carr is the most senior Republican Commissioner at the FCC, which is by Jessica Rosenworcel.
The FCC has five commissioners appointed by the president and confirmed by the US senate. The president choses one as the chair. A maximum of three commissioners from one political party can serve at a time.
Carr has been a member of the Commission since 2012 and previously served as the FCC’s General Counsel. He has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate three times and was nominated by both Presidents Trump and Biden.
The FCC is overseen by Congress. The President-elect has mentioned tighter White House control, in part to hand out penalties to TV networks that are unflattering about him.
“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 said.
Anti-Big Tech and Project 2025
Carr is not a Big Techco fan. He is a co-author of Project 2025, the right-wing plan for government reform that would expand presidential power and “impose an ultra-conservative social vision” according to the BBC. In Project 2025, Carr said the FCC’s main goals should be “reining in Big Tech, promoting national security, unleashing economic prosperity, and ensuring FCC accountability and good governance.”
Last week he wrote to Meta’s Facebook, Alphabet’s Google, Apple and Microsoft saying they had taken steps to censor Americans. He claims they have that “central roles in the censorship cartel” in a letter which accused fact-checking groups, website-rating organisation NewsGuard and ad agencies of helping “enforce one-sided narratives”.
Plan 2025 is also designed to tackle immigration, dismantle LGBTQ+ and abortion rights, and environmental protection, according to The Guardian newspaper.