President-elect Donald Trump has taken MRC’s advice and selected a free speech advocate with a record of taking on Big Tech censorship as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in a major blow to the anti-free speech Silicon Valley left.
Trump announced Nov. 17 that FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr would be his FCC chair pick, praising his “great work” as a “warrior for Free Speech” and “designating him as permanent Chairman.” Carr thanked the president for his appointment, “Thank you, President Trump! I am humbled and honored to serve as Chairman of the FCC. Now we get to work.”
Trump’s pick follows MRC President Brent Bozell’s endorsement of Carr to take the reins to help Trump implement his free speech vision. “It is imperative that the next FCC chairman is committed to restoring the public’s trust, increasing telecommunications access for all communities and protecting the fundamental right to free speech,” Bozell stated Nov. 8.
Bozell congratulated Carr following Trump’s announcement of his choice: “Congratulations to a true defender of free speech in America.”
MRC Vice President for Free Speech America Dan Schneider similarly celebrated Carr’s nomination as “the first piece played by Trump to restore free speech rights. The cavalry is coming!!!” Carr is a recipient of one of MRC’s inaugural 2024 Free Speech Awards.
Carr has already promised to stop the current FCC’s prioritization of woke Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion standards, and most particularly to “dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech rights for everyday Americans.”
Carr has a track record of taking on Big Tech. For instance, last week, he wrote a letter to the CEOs of Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google and YouTube) and Meta (Facebook and Instagram) ordering them to surrender records regarding collaboration with “Orwellian” government-funded website traffic cop NewsGuard, driving an “unprecedented surge of censorship” online.
Carr cited exclusive MRC Free Speech America research exposing the extreme leftist bias embedded within NewsGuard’s ratings system for media organizations. In December 2023, MRC discovered that NewsGuard gave “left” and “lean left” outlets a stellar average credibility score of 91/100, whereas “right” and “lean right” outlets were slapped with an abysmal 65/100 average score — a disparity of 26 points. MRC also found in 2022 that NewsGuard rated several Communist Chinese state media outlets higher than several U.S. pro-life and right-leaning outlets, as Carr also noted.
But Carr’s bona fides as a champion for pro-free speech and pro-American values don’t end there.
In September, Carr went on The Mark Levin Showin September to slam the FCC for arbitrarily deciding to waive a national security review of the foreign-backed purchase of radio giant Audacy by leftist billionaire George Soros, which would give him even greater control over Americans’ media diet than what he already has. In June 2022, Carr also wrote to Apple and Google to request that Communist Chinese government-tied TikTok be removed from app stores because it’s “a sophisticated surveillance tool.” In May, Carr bashed TikTok’s federal court argument, “TikTok wants this to be a case about the content of its speech. It is not. It is about TikTok's malign conduct - conduct the Constitution doesn't protect.”
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