Brendan Carr, the incoming Federal Communications Commission Chairman, has demanded answers from Big Tech firms about their involvement in what he described as an “censorship cartel” to suppress speech with which they disagreed.
Carr – who President-elect Trump dubbed a “warrior for free speech” on Sunday as he announced him as his pick to lead the agency – sent letters to Google’s Sundar Pichai, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Apple’s Tim Cook.
The letters were dated Nov. 13, days before Trump revealed his promotion from the FCC’s senior Republican commissioner to permanent chairman.
The Republican specifically sought information about the firms’ dealings with NewsGuard – a for-profit “fact-checking” firm that has run afoul of Congressional Republicans for allegedly targeting conservative outlets by labeling them as more “risky” than liberal outlets.
“Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft & others have played central roles in the censorship cartel,” Carr wrote in an X post last Friday alongside the letter. “The Orwellian named NewsGuard along with ‘fact checking’ groups & ad agencies helped enforce one-sided narratives.”
The Big Tech executives were told to submit responses 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.
Carr’s investigation could have implications for the future of Section 230 – the controversial statute that shields companies from being held liable for third-party content posted on their platforms.
In his letter, Carr notes that Section 230 protections only apply if companies are operating “in good faith.”
The Trump appointee referenced an “ongoing investigation” by the House Oversight Committee into NewsGuard.
NewsGuard’s advisory board includes at least one member who “signed the now infamous October 2020 letter from former 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,” Carr added.
NewsGuard denied wrongdoing and pushed back on Carr’s letter in a lengthy statement, asserting that its work “does not involve any censorship or blocking of speech at all.”
“The key claims in the letter about NewsGuard are false, citing unreliable sources,” NewsGuard said in a statement.
For companies like Google and Meta that also offer advertising services, Carr is also seeking information on whether they use NewsGuard or any other “media monitor or fact checking service” as part of their dealings with clients.
Carr alleged that the Big Tech firms were complicit in an effort, alongside the so-called media monitors, to “defund, demonetize, and otherwise put out of business news outlets and organizations that dared to deviate from an approved narrative.”
“This censorship cartel is an affront to Americans’ constitutional freedoms and must be completely dismantled,” Carr added in the letter. Americans must be able to reclaim their right to free speech.”
Meta declined to comment on Carr’s letter, but the company pointed out that NewsGuard is not one of its fact-checking partners.
In August, Zuckerberg admitted in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee that “senior Biden administration officials, including the White House, repeatedly pressured” Meta to “censor” content related to the coronavirus pandemic in 2021.
Zuckerberg added that he now felt it was mistake that Facebook suppressed The Post’s exclusive reporting about Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020.
Representatives for Google, Microsoft and Apple did not immediately return The Post’s request for comment.
Carr was first appointed as an FCC commissioner in 2017 during Trump’s first term in office. His current term runs through 2029.
“Commissioner Carr is a warrior for Free Speech, and has fought against the regulatory Lawfare that stifled Americans’ Freedoms and held back our economy,” Trump said in a statement on his selection as chairman.
“He will end the regulatory onslaught that has been crippling America’s Job Creators and Innovators, and ensure that the FCC delivers for rural America.”
Carr made waves ahead of the 2024 election after he publicly blasted NBC’s decision to allow Vice President Kamala Harris to appear on “Saturday Night Live” as a “clear and blatant effort” to skirt the Equal Time rule.
