Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Brendan Carr on Friday called on big tech platforms to dismantle the “censorship cartel,” charging that American democracy depends on it. Carr states that the tech Masters of the Universe, in conjunction with “the orwellian-named NewsGuard,” fact checking groups, and ad agencies, have enforced “one-sided narratives.”
“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,” Carr wrote on X/Twitter.
Carr wrote to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Apple CEO Tim Cook about how their platforms have “worked — often in concert with so-called ‘media monitors’ and others — to defund, demonetize, and otherwise put out of business news outlets and organizations that dared to deviate from an approved narrative.”
The FCC Commissioner said that these big tech platforms participated in a “censorship cartel” that also included in advertising, marketing, and “so-called ‘fact-checking organizations'” and the Biden-Harris administration.
Carr’s reference to advertising agencies is related to GARM, which organized a marketing blackout against X/Twitter for daring to embrace free speech. It was shut down after Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against it.
“The censorship cartel is an affront to Americans’ constitutional freedoms and must be completely dismantled. Americans must be able to reclaim their right to free speech. Indeed, our democracy depends on freedom of expression.”
Carr noted that “for now” he is trying to obtain information from big tech to inform their work to promote free speech. He emphasized that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives big tech platforms legal immunity from hosting content and removing content they find objectionable, is only given when big tech operates in “good faith.”
The FCC commissioner also demanded information about the big tech platform’s work with the “Orwellian named Newsguard,” the establishment pro-censorship group establishing a news blacklist against conservatives. Breitbart News has reported extensively on NewsGuard and its critics, including constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley.
Carr explained:
But Newsguard’s own track record raises question about whether relying on the organization’s products would constitute “good faith” actions within the meaning of Section 230. For one, reports indicate that Newsguard has consistently rated official propaganda from the Communist Party of China as more credible than American publications. For another, Newsguard aggressively fact checked and penalized websites that reported on the COVID-19 lab leak theory. For still another, the Small Business Committee and multiple Media Research Center studies detail numerous instancese where Newsguard apparently does not apply its own rating system in an even-handed manner. The list goes on.
Carr added that Newsguard’s credibility is undercut because its advisory board retains at least one person that signed the now “infamous” October 2020 letter from intelligence community officials that flamed the false claim that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation — a letter that itself fueled a wave of censorship.
Emphasizing the importance of NewsGuard to the censorship cartel, Carr demanded the CEOs to answer four questions about how their companies work with the news blacklisters:
To help inform FCC action, please provide me with the following:
1. A list of every one of your products or services (if any, including advertising) that use or rely on any NewsGuard product, service, or ranking.
2. A list of every one of your products or services (if any) that enables any of your users or customers to use or rely on any NewsGuard product, service, or ranking.
3. If you offer an advertising service, provide details on the use of any media monitor or fact checking service, including NewsGuard, that you may utilize.
4. If you use third party advertising or marketing agencies to enable advertising within or with your products, please identify the advertising or marketing agencies you work or partner with.
The FCC commissioner demanded to a response from the tech CEOs by December 10.
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.