President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, is a longtime opponent of Big Tech.
Carr wants to do away with many of the protections afforded to large social media platforms under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The provision gives online platforms some protections from legal consequences for third-party content posted on their sites and is one of the defining legal doctrines of the internet. Large platforms like Meta, YouTube, X, and TikTok allow users to post freely on their websites because they know that they can’t face any legal repercussions. For example, if a user on X libels someone, the individual might be held accountable, but the platform would remain immune from any civil or criminal suits.
There are a few exceptions to the law for things like copyright violations or pomoting sex work, or if a platform knowingly participates in breaking the law. Platforms would also face liability if they promised to moderate certain types of content but then failed to do so.
No ‘industry in which a greater gap exists between power and accountability’
Carr outlined many of his views on how the FCC ought to operate in Project 2025, the 950-page document written by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation that some believe serves as a policy blueprint for a second Trump campaign.
“The FCC should issue an order that interprets Section 230 in a way that eliminates the expansive, non-textual immunities that courts have read into the statute,” Carr wrote in the Project 2025’s section on the FCC.
During the election campaign, Trump distanced himself from Project 2025, claiming he had never heard of it. However, even if Trump may not have been familiar with Project 2025, appointments like Carr’s show there is at least some level of ideological alignment between the two.
A lawyer by training, Carr joined the FCC in 2012. Trump appointed him a commissioner in 2017. President Joe Biden then reappointed him to the same role, where he was confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Throughout his section of Project 2025 Carr excoriates Big Tech, claiming that “reining” it in should be the FCC’s top priority. “It is hard to imagine another industry in which a greater gap exists between power and accountability,” Carr wrote.
Supporters of Section 230 say that it protects individuals’ right to express themselves freely on the internet. Meanwhile, critics of the provision say it shields Big Tech companies from any form of liability at a time when their platforms are pervasive in American life and riddled with misinformation and disinformation.
The repeal of Section 230 would represent a wholesale change for how big tech platforms operate. Companies would have to become much more judicious in which content they allowed and promoted on their platforms. Craigslist’s behavior after a 2018 law carved out an exception to Section 230 for platforms that facilitate prostitution offers some indication. Once the law passed, Craigslist removed its “personals” section altogether even though its purpose wasn’t to connect sex workers with clients.
In Project 2025, Carr cited as supporting evidence a 2020 statement from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in which he outlined his belief that Section 230 had overreached its original purpose. “Courts have construed Section 230 broadly to confer on some of the world’s largest companies a sweeping immunity that is found nowhere in the text of the statute,” Carr wrote.
Trump and Biden support repealing Section 230
Eliminating Section 230 is a rare issue in Washington that has bipartisan support. Both President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump have supported removing the provision.
President Joe Biden is a staunch advocate of repealing the rule. During the 2020 election Biden campaigned on repealing Section 230. Then while in office he continued to push for the policy.
“We need Big Tech companies to take responsibility for the content they spread and the algorithms they use,” Biden wrote in a Wall Street Journalop-ed in January 2023. “That’s why I’ve long said we must fundamentally reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects tech companies from legal responsibility for content posted on their sites.”
Trump also favors doing away with Section 230. During his first term in office Trump drafted an executive order meant to significantly narrow the protections of Section 230.
“Twitter is doing nothing about all of the lies & propaganda being put out by China or the Radical Left Democrat Party,” Trump tweeted in May 2020. “They have targeted Republicans, Conservatives & the President of the United States. Section 230 should be revoked by Congress. Until then, it will be regulated!”
While members of both the Democratic and Republican parties do support repealing Section 230, they often do for different reasons. Democrats are particularly concerned with Big Tech’s lack of accountability, while Republicans believe that Big Tech platforms unfairly censor conservative viewpoints. Repealing or reforming Section 230 would also prohibit tech platforms from removing content without informing the user, which Republicans say is often done to unfairly target them.
Carr took a similar approach in his Project 2025 writings, saying that he wanted to limit a platform’s ability to unilaterally remove content. “Congress should do so by ensuring that Internet companies no longer have carte blanche to censor protected speech while maintaining their Section 230 protections,” Carr wrote.
Despite support from both sides of the aisle, progress on the issue has been slow. In 2023 Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a vocal critic of Big Tech, acknowledged that it was both parties that were responsible. “As a Republican, I would love to blame that on my Democrat colleagues,” he told CNNat the time. “But the sad fact of the matter is, Republicans are just as much to blame, if not more.”
Though a breakthrough is in sight now. There is a House bill from the Energy and Commerce Committee that aims to sunset Section 230 over the next 18 months.
