Social media companies have become a “cartel” for suppressing information with which they disagree, and that agenda now is going to be getting the attention of Brendan Carr, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.
It was social media companies who played a role in promoting the wild and now-debunked claims of “Russia collusion” created by Democrats during Trump’s first campaign. They also were part of the suppression campaign that left Americans in the dark during the 2020 race about Biden family scandals documented in Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop.
During the 2024 race they amplified false claims by Democrats like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton that Trump was a “Hitler” and democracy would die on the day he was elected.
Now there may come a reckoning.
The New York Post reports that Carr has labeled Big Tech corporations a “censorship cartel” to eliminate speech of which they do not approve.
Trump has described Carr as a “warrior for free speech” and announced him as his pick to lead the agency.
Carr, only days before the decision announcement, had sent letters to Sundar Pichai of Google, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Tim Cook of Apple, demanding information about how the firms have dealt with NewsGuard, a for-profit “fact-checking” scheme that routinely claims that conservative outlets are more “risky” than those outlets that promote a leftist agenda.
Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft & others have played central roles in the censorship cartel.
The Orwellian named NewsGuard along with “fact checking” groups & ad agencies helped enforce one-sided narratives.
The censorship cartel must be dismantled. pic.twitter.com/Xf0sEYOUfv
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) November 15, 2024
Carr explained, “Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft & others have played central roles in the censorship cartel. The Orwellian named NewsGuard along with ‘fact checking’ groups & ad agencies helped enforce one-sided narratives.”
The tech chieftains were told to respond to the FCC by Dec. 10 on which of their products or services “partner with NewsGuard and whether they require online customers to rely on NewsGuard while using their services,” the report explained.
At issue could be Section 230 of federal law, which right now protects those corporations from liability over statements their users post on the tech sites.
Carr specifically points out that those protections apply only if companies are operating in “good faith.”
Further, he referenced an ongoing review of those tech site ideologies and agendas by the House Oversight Committee.
At least one member of NewsGuard’s “advisory committee” was among those who signed the “infamous October 2020 letter” from former intelligence community officials that falsely claimed details in Hunter Biden’s laptop were Russian disinformation.
NewsGuard has claimed it has nothing to do with blocking of speech.
But Zuckerberg already has admitted to Congress his company was pressured by the Biden administration into censoring content.
He told the House Judiciary Committee that Biden administration officials, including the White House, repeatedly “pressured” Meta to suppress information it disliked.
“This censorship cartel is an affront to Americans’ constitutional freedoms and must be completely dismantled,” Carr’s letter charged. “Americans must be able to reclaim their right to free speech.”
A report from Just the News noted that Carr also promised to work to end the agency’s advocacy for the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” agenda.
He explained, “The FCC’s most recent budget request said that promoting DEI was the agency’s second-highest strategic goal. Starting next year, the FCC will end its promotion of DEI.”
