Approximately 5 million years ago back in october, Ajit Pai, chairman of the Federal Communications Council, promised to “move forward with regulation” to “clarify” Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a fundamental legal shield that protects online platforms from liability for certain types of content posted by users. However, apparently he quietly let time run out on those plans.
Now, less than three months later, Pai says he no longer plans to move on because, you don’t know, he’s running out of time. Drats. (Parents leaving the agency on January 20, before the new Biden administration can kick it)
“I do not intend to proceed with the announcement of a proposal to create rules at the FCC,” he said Protocol on Thursday, explaining that “there is simply not enough time to complete the necessary administrative steps in order to resolve the drafting of the rules”.
Of course, he may also have let these plans fail because the FCC had no legal authority to proceed with them first.
A meaningless executive order on social networks that President Donald Trump released in September tasked the FCC with controlling Section 230 and investigating sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube to discover the alleged anti-conservative bias. Trump’s demands came after an explosive tantrum – even for him – about social media platforms that check your posts.
G / O Media can receive a commission
If carried out, this reinterpretation of Section 230 threatened to break the Internet in every way. Finally in theory. That is, it would essentially configure the Republican-controlled FCC to remove Section 230 liability protections from any platforms that Trump thought were discriminating against conservatives, thus leaving those platforms vulnerable to litigation to moderate content posted by users. The problem is that the FCC simply does not have the power of A) regulate the internet to that extent or B) rewrite federal legislation whether you like it or not.
It is worth mentioning that with Democrats now in senate control, President-elect Joe Biden are you ready to fast track your nomination to the next FCC president and potentially reverse Father’s most controversial political decision: killing net neutrality protections that prevent Internet service providers from limiting access to online content or charging more for the use of certain websites.
Pai’s remarks were made during an interview on C-SPAN’s “The Communicators” program, scheduled to air this weekend, in which the president also strongly condemned Wednesday’s insurrection attempt in DC, which he left at least four people dead. He called the violent scene that broke out on Capitol Hill “outrageous and extremely disappointing for those of us who cherish American democracy”.
And while Pai refrained from publicly commenting on the president’s antics during his term, he rebuked Trump for spreading unfounded electoral conspiracy theories that shouldn’t have been “tolerated”.
“I think it was a terrible mistake to suggest that the election results, and particularly the process that culminated yesterday in the Senate and the House, could be altered in any way,” he said. “That was a terrible mistake and one that I don’t think should have been tolerated in any way.”
[Protocol]