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1:13

going to punish you for it. Brendan Carr

1:15

isn't a household name yet, but

1:17

he should be. As chair of

1:19

the Federal Communications Commission, he's quietly

1:21

positioned himself as one of the

1:24

most dangerous figures in the Trump

1:26

administration's ongoing war on free speech.

1:28

Carr has repeatedly used his government

1:30

position to intimidate journalists, punish media

1:32

outlets, and pressure tech companies into

1:34

cracking down on free expression. And

1:36

he has done all of this

1:39

while building his profile as a

1:41

free speech influencer on X. If

1:43

left unchecked, Carr's censorship crusade could

1:45

fundamentally reshape our information ecosystem and

1:47

have massive consequences for anyone seeking

1:49

to speak freely without fear of

1:51

government retaliation. I'm thrilled to have

1:53

Mike Maysnick, the founder of Tech

1:55

Dirt, which is the best outlet

1:57

covering all of these issues, joining

1:59

me today. We're going to be breaking

2:02

down who Brendan Carr is, why his

2:04

agenda is so dangerous, what exactly he's

2:06

doing to dismantle free speech in America,

2:08

and how it all fits into a

2:11

much bigger movement to control who can

2:13

speak freely online. Mike, welcome to Power

2:15

User. Yeah, thanks for having me. Always...

2:18

always fun to talk to you. So

2:20

just to sort of start off and

2:22

level set, can you explain to people

2:24

that might not be familiar? What is

2:27

the FCC? What does it regulate? So

2:29

it's the Federal Communications Commission. The sort

2:31

of the historical element of it was

2:33

that it was put together to manage

2:36

the sort of allocation and any regulation

2:38

around spectrum. Spectrum is, you know, the

2:40

things in the air in the space

2:43

that allows for some sort of communication,

2:45

whether it's television broadcast, radio broadcast. That's

2:47

what it was originally designed for because,

2:49

you know, as television and radio were

2:52

first invented in the early 20th century,

2:54

people began to realize they were using

2:56

spectrum to broadcast this content. and there

2:58

was a limited amount of it. So

3:01

each television station has some slice of

3:03

spectrum, each radio station has some slice

3:05

of spectrum, it allows you to communicate

3:08

over certain distances, certain types of content.

3:10

And what people realize is there's only

3:12

so much of it. And if multiple

3:14

people are broadcasting over the same spectrum

3:17

in the same space, you will get

3:19

interference and you will knock out some

3:21

signal and cause problems with others. So

3:23

they said somebody needs to sort of

3:26

present the rules of the road and

3:28

figure out who has which spectrum, what

3:30

they can do with it, what the

3:33

rules are. And so that was sort

3:35

of the beginning of the FCC. It

3:37

was created to sort of manage that

3:39

that single aspect. you know, sort of

3:42

changed a bit over time, but that

3:44

is really the basics of it. It

3:46

is supposed to manage how spectrum is

3:48

shared. The biggest sort of change is

3:51

that it also has some say over

3:53

certain types of telecommunications services. And it

3:55

can do certain kinds of regulations on

3:58

that, including in some cases, which it

4:00

doesn't really do anymore, price setting. So

4:02

it can tell phone companies how much

4:04

they can charge for certain things, which

4:07

it is mostly said, we're not gonna

4:09

do that anymore. So I think there's

4:11

what the FCC has traditionally done and

4:14

then what this man Brendan Carr, who

4:16

is currently running the FCC, wishes it

4:18

could do. Can you also explain who

4:20

Brendan Carr is? For people who don't

4:23

know, how did he end up as

4:25

chair of the FCC? has been at

4:27

the FCC for a while for in

4:29

fact for most of his career he

4:32

has been at the FCC he had

4:34

a brief stint where he was just

4:36

a telecom lawyer at a big law

4:39

firm in DC and but was only

4:41

there for a few years and then

4:43

went on staff for Ajit Pi who

4:45

was the former chair of the FCC

4:48

and had been just an FCC commissioner

4:50

under the Obama administration and so Carr

4:52

went in as a staffer for Pi

4:54

and then eventually rose up to become

4:57

general counsel of the FCC and then

4:59

when there was an opening during the

5:01

first Trump administration car was appointed as

5:04

one of the commissioners and then he's

5:06

been a commissioner ever since was renewed

5:08

by Biden just for background the the

5:10

FCC has five commissioners and it's always

5:13

three who are whichever party has the

5:15

presidency they get three commissioners and the

5:17

the other party gets two commissioners and

5:19

so you know he's been a commissioner

5:22

since I think 2017 but before that

5:24

he was the general counsel of the

5:26

FCC and deeply and deeply involved in

5:29

a bunch of things the FCC did.

5:31

And then when the second Trump administration

5:33

began, he was moved from just a

5:35

regular commissioner up to being the chair

5:38

of the commission. He also played a

5:40

role in Project 2025, right? Didn't he

5:42

write the Project 2025 telecom staff? Yeah,

5:44

he wrote the chapter on sort of

5:47

telecom and broadband stuff, which raised a

5:49

bunch of eyebrows because he was an

5:51

FCC commissioner at the time and people

5:54

who are in the government are not

5:56

supposed to be working on documents like

5:58

that. I forget the exact details. I

6:00

think he... He either claimed he got

6:03

a waiver for it or he said,

6:05

that it wasn't directly referencing his job

6:07

which is obviously nonsense because it very

6:09

much was directly on point with what

6:12

his job is and so that was

6:14

that was pretty sketchy to do that

6:16

you know the other thing about about

6:19

car is that he really got into

6:21

social media and in particular Twitter slash

6:23

X and just really sort of dove

6:25

in and really seem to like the

6:28

engagement and sort of the sort of

6:30

fighting nature. I want to talk about

6:32

that because I feel like this is

6:34

how he got on my radar. I

6:37

don't generally cover tons of tech policy

6:39

stuff but he started to crop up

6:41

on Twitter fashioning himself as a free

6:44

speech warrior almost trying to become an

6:46

influencer. I think he has something like

6:48

a hundred. thousand followers but he's really

6:50

kind of made himself into this like

6:53

alleged free speech crusader where he just

6:55

goes and attacks journalist I think he

6:57

came into my mentions one time and

7:00

I'm like why wait a minute he

7:02

follows me on Twitter which is you

7:04

know which is kind of surprising that

7:06

I had a sitting FCC commissioner following

7:09

me and and mocking me which was

7:11

always fun yeah well so when did

7:13

he really start to like lean into

7:15

this public profile of being a free

7:18

speech warrior because that's what how he

7:20

really positions himself and i think that's

7:22

what i'm sort of interested in exploring

7:25

today is how he became this like

7:27

alleged free speech warrior and what led

7:29

to that it feels like something that

7:31

he sort of picked up over the

7:34

last few years like i couldn't put

7:36

up a specific point on it i've

7:38

never met him personally i've engaged with

7:40

him on online multiple times but like

7:43

almost everybody i know who's met him

7:45

seems a little bit surprised at sort

7:47

of what he's turned into, you know,

7:50

a lot of people say he's very

7:52

smart and very nice and personable in

7:54

person and people had said he was,

7:56

you know, fairly thoughtful, kind of middle

7:59

of the road, obviously a Republican and

8:01

conservative, but, you know, sort of what

8:03

you would consider traditional conservative Republican kind

8:05

of values, you know, the thing that

8:08

that I had definitely seen going back

8:10

to when he was general counsel was

8:12

that he took positions that were sort

8:15

of what used to be, you know,

8:17

Republican conservative position on telecom issues, which

8:19

was generally we want the FCC to

8:21

not do anything, that the FCC should

8:24

basically give up its regulatory authority on

8:26

telecom and broadband, whatever was best for

8:28

the big telecom companies was going to

8:30

be the best and that would be,

8:33

you know, stepping back, letting them do

8:35

anything they wanted, not using any sort

8:37

of consumer protection authorities that they have,

8:40

not using any authority to block mergers,

8:42

or to go after companies in any

8:44

way, they're very against net neutrality, sort

8:46

of giving this the standard like, oh,

8:49

any of these things is this awful

8:51

regulatory burden, and you know, we need

8:53

to take away the regulations to allow

8:55

innovation to thrive. Sort of very traditional

8:58

Republican, conservative, the types of things that

9:00

you saw from Republican and conservative commissioners

9:02

on the FCC, going back to, you

9:05

know, the 80s and 90s and early

9:07

2000s. And then it felt that somewhere

9:09

during the Trump administration, he sort of...

9:11

It feels like something clicked in his

9:14

head and he's like, oh, this is

9:16

how you play the game. I want

9:18

to read you one tweet that he

9:20

posted right after Trump won, which was,

9:23

he tweeted, we must dismantle the censorship

9:25

cartel and restore free speech rights for

9:27

everyday Americans. I mean, he's posted stuff

9:30

like that, like, basically a steady stream

9:32

of it non-stop. As you mentioned, it's

9:34

like, in some cases, he wants no

9:36

regulation, and then in other cases, it

9:39

seems like he's really... wants almost like

9:41

over regulation. He wants the FCC to

9:43

interfere in ways that they haven't previously.

9:46

And I want to talk about one

9:48

of the most recent examples, which I

9:50

know you covered, which is he threatened

9:52

to investigate NBC's broadcast license because they

9:55

had common errors on Saturday Night Live.

9:57

Can you talk about this? Like, is

9:59

this, is there a precedent for this?

10:01

And is this something that the FCC

10:04

normally gets involved in? Part of the

10:06

problem with this is that there's so

10:08

many layers to unpack. I actually understand

10:11

how ridiculous this is. It takes so

10:13

much to explain. So there is a

10:15

rule. There is this rule called the

10:17

equal time rule. And there have been

10:20

a few different rules that the FCC

10:22

has had in the past, again, regarding

10:24

broadcast television. And sort of the two

10:26

famous ones, and they're sort of opposite

10:29

sides to the same coin, where the

10:31

fairness doctrine. and the equal time rule.

10:33

And the basic idea behind both of

10:36

these is that, well, there's scarce spectrum,

10:38

there's only so many television stations, and

10:40

because there's nowhere else to get your

10:42

news other than television or radio or

10:45

maybe newspapers, and because public spectrum is

10:47

a public good that the government is

10:49

licensing for these people to use, the

10:51

government and the FCC in particular can

10:54

put certain restrictions on how they use

10:56

it, which in any other case would...

10:58

have serious First Amendment implications. So part

11:01

of that was originally the fairness doctrine

11:03

saying basically if you are doing a

11:05

segment on a particularly controversial topic, you

11:07

also have to present the other side

11:10

of it at a sort of equal

11:12

rate. And then the equal time rule,

11:14

which was the same thing effectively but

11:16

for politicians. So if you give air

11:19

time to a particular politician, you have

11:21

to give their opponents in a campaign

11:23

equal time. have been the things that

11:26

Republicans hated. They have, you know, the

11:28

screeds against both of these rules, going

11:30

back decades, was like, this was absolutely

11:32

hated, and in fact, Ronald Reagan effectively

11:35

got rid of the fairness doctrine, which

11:37

I actually think was a reasonable thing

11:39

to do. I know that people will

11:41

disagree with me, and a lot of

11:44

people were very supportive of the fairness

11:46

doctrine, and a lot of people today,

11:48

I think falsely, but we don't have

11:51

to go down this road, think that

11:53

like the problems that we see today,

11:55

came from getting rid of the fairness

11:57

doctrine. I can argue against that, I

12:00

can argue why that's wrong, but that's

12:02

a whole tangent that we don't need

12:04

to go down. But the equal... time

12:07

rule stayed in place. But again, like

12:09

historically, it's always been like the Republican

12:11

point of view was like that it

12:13

should violate the First Amendment. There is

12:16

an argument that if it ever went

12:18

to the Supreme Court again, the fairness

12:20

doctrine or the equal time rule, they

12:22

would say that yes, it violates the

12:25

First Amendment when they originally ruled on

12:27

it in a case, I think in

12:29

the 70s, called Red Lion. They basically

12:32

said, you know, you can put these

12:34

restrictions in place only because it is

12:36

scarce public spectrum. and there is no

12:38

real competition for where you can get

12:41

the news from obviously the internet has

12:43

changed all of that and so now

12:45

there are you know countless sources an

12:47

infinite number of sources that you can

12:50

get news from and so that sort

12:52

of ruling in that sort of rationale

12:54

for allowing these kinds of restrictions no

12:57

longer applies and so it's weird first

12:59

of all that a Republican would ever

13:01

make the claim that we should be

13:03

using the equal time rule that part

13:06

is is bizarre Then you get to

13:08

this, which was, you know, this was

13:10

right before the election, Saturday Night Live,

13:12

had Kamala Harris on, in the opening

13:15

bit, you know, they did this, this

13:17

joking thing with Maya Rudolph, and it

13:19

was, you know, a big deal, and

13:22

Carr immediately went on to Twitter and

13:24

basically went on to Twitter and basically

13:26

said, this violates the equal time rule

13:28

because NBC... He lost his mind over

13:31

this. So he went on Twitter, he

13:33

went on Fox News, and he started

13:35

screaming about how this. The equal time

13:37

rule for whatever little is left of

13:40

it and where and again it's like

13:42

almost never enforced it only applies to

13:44

broadcast television the specific affiliates not to

13:47

NBC proper NBC proper is you know

13:49

they contract with affiliates who have the

13:51

broadcast spectrum and technically the FCC only

13:53

regulates. those affiliates not NBC itself. And

13:56

of course what has always been left

13:58

out in all of this was that

14:00

NBC has decent lawyers and they actually

14:02

recognize that the equal time rule was

14:05

a potentially an issue and so they

14:07

gave free time to Donald Trump the

14:09

next day. during a NASCAR race. And

14:12

in fact, you know, you could argue

14:14

that the time that what they gave

14:16

Donald Trump was even better because with

14:18

Kamala Harris and Saturday Night Live, she

14:21

was part of a bit, which was

14:23

scripted out for her. I'm sure she

14:25

had some input in it, but it

14:27

was a bit. Whereas for Donald Trump.

14:30

They gave him just free airtime to

14:32

do whatever the hell he wanted with

14:34

it, which is very different. But, you

14:37

know, so they satisfied the equal time

14:39

rule. And yet Carr sort of went

14:41

off on this crazy rant about it.

14:43

This is a thing that Republicans have

14:46

really never supported and always insisted was

14:48

unconstitutional and a violation in the First

14:50

Amendment. So you have this guy claiming

14:53

to be a free speech warrior and

14:55

a big believer in free speech using

14:57

this law that, you know. I'm sure

14:59

if you would ask him 10 years

15:02

ago, what he would have said violated

15:04

the First Amendment, coming out there saying

15:06

I want to use this to basically

15:08

punish NBC for platforming Kamala Harris, even

15:11

though they they they abided by the

15:13

law clearly by what they did with

15:15

with giving Trump airtime the very next

15:18

day on the NASCAR broadcast. And so

15:20

all of that is crazy. But the

15:22

underlying point that has to be made

15:24

clear is that he's clearly doing this

15:27

to just punish NBC for for putting

15:29

Kamala Harris on S&L. Like, that's it.

15:31

It's direct, obvious punishment for speech. It

15:33

is a very clear violation of the

15:36

First Amendment. It doesn't go beyond that.

15:38

Like, understanding all of the sort of

15:40

details is important for how it is

15:43

that. But for him to claim that

15:45

he's a free speech supporter and then

15:47

to attack this and a whole bunch

15:49

of the other attacks, some of which

15:52

I'm sure we'll discuss, is just so

15:54

mind-boggling. that anyone will buy into his

15:56

argument that he's a free speech supporter.

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16:44

government to intimidate a media company into

16:46

censoring themselves and not platforming a Democrat

16:48

again. Exactly. The end result of this,

16:51

no matter what happens with NBC, is

16:53

that every news station, every major broadcast

16:55

TV station network, even I'm sure radio

16:58

stations too, because it's going after some

17:00

radio stations, will now be much more

17:02

hesitant about platforming Democrats. because he might

17:04

attack them for it. He might use

17:07

the power of the government to basically

17:09

punish them. And in a lot of

17:11

cases, even if they would win in

17:13

the long run, even if this goes

17:16

to court, and they'll win, the process

17:18

itself is the punishment. They go through

17:20

this investigation. They go through this investigation.

17:23

They have to hire lawyers. They have

17:25

to provide all this paperwork. They have

17:27

to go through this process, which can

17:29

take months or years in some cases.

17:32

And that itself is the punishment. So

17:34

he is punishing them. do not platform

17:36

Democrats. Right, and even if they were

17:39

to follow through and go through that

17:41

entire legal process, I'm sure he would

17:43

create a PR night where, you know,

17:45

the whole way down and God knows

17:48

what would come out in discovery in

17:50

those types of lawsuits, I'm sure would

17:52

be weaponized further against, you know, these

17:54

media companies. So it just seems like

17:57

this whole, you know, crusade to intimidate

17:59

the press, which is terrifying alongside, obviously,

18:01

you know, Trump and others in the

18:04

administration talking about silencing the press and

18:06

of the press briefing room and things

18:08

like that. He hasn't just attacked like

18:10

traditional media companies though too. He's also

18:13

attacked social media companies and I want

18:15

to talk about this fake crusade that

18:17

he has against social media censorship because

18:19

he's basically also tried like what he's

18:22

done to these media companies has also

18:24

sort of tried to do to social

18:26

media companies basically pressuring them into doing

18:29

his bidding under the guise of free

18:31

speech. Most recently he sent this letter

18:33

threatening meta Google Apple and Microsoft accusing

18:35

them of violating free speech by working

18:38

with fact checking services like news guard.

18:40

Can you explain what's going on here?

18:42

Absolutely nonsense here all of which are

18:44

are wrong, but like understanding how to

18:47

get there is so involved And so

18:49

I apologize. Let's start with Newsguard. Okay.

18:51

So Newsguard is a company. It was

18:54

set up by two long-term media execs

18:56

El Gordon Krovitz who was and this

18:58

is really important. He was the publisher

19:00

of the Wall Street Journal for many

19:03

years notorious liberal institution He is a

19:05

died-denwall conservative Republican, he was the one

19:07

pushing all of this sort of, you

19:09

know, right wing stuff in the Wall

19:12

Street Journal for years. You know, and

19:14

so he and and some other sort

19:16

of media folks created this thing called

19:19

NewsCard where they basically said, look, we

19:21

realize that there's this. explosion of news

19:23

services out there and people no longer

19:25

know exactly who to trust and which

19:28

ones are reliable and which ones are

19:30

credible. So we're going to create a

19:32

methodology to judge different new services in

19:34

terms of, you know, how much can

19:37

you trust them? I actually have some

19:39

problems with their methodology, which they got

19:41

really mad at me about. I mentioned

19:44

that in a post and the news

19:46

guard people were not happy that I

19:48

criticized their methodology, but... Gordon Krovitz himself

19:50

said, I respect your free speech rights

19:53

to criticize our methodology, which I appreciate

19:55

it. But they basically ask a whole

19:57

bunch of questions of different news sites.

19:59

There's all different stuff about like, do

20:02

you have a masthead? Do you say

20:04

who your editor is? Do you do

20:06

corrections? If someone finds something wrong, like

20:09

there. There are things that are important

20:11

in there. And then out of that,

20:13

they give everybody a score. And there

20:15

are some other companies that then use

20:18

that score for different things, or different

20:20

people use it. I'm not even sure

20:22

how a lot of people use it,

20:25

but some of the social media companies

20:27

were using that. as one signal of

20:29

many in terms of rating how trustworthy

20:31

certain new sources were and therefore probably

20:34

rolling that into their algorithm in some

20:36

form or another, it's not even exactly

20:38

clear how much. And I think the

20:40

sense that I got from the different

20:43

social media companies is that, you know...

20:45

they felt it was a useful tool

20:47

but certainly not the one that that

20:50

was determinative of you know whether or

20:52

not this new source would appear or

20:54

not if you look at their ratings

20:56

these are not like left-wing biased no

20:59

again like the New York Post or

21:01

someone a neutral rating like there's always

21:03

scandals that basically they're like rating these

21:05

right-wing places that I think a lot

21:08

of us at work in the media

21:10

don't consider very credible as more credible

21:12

than I think you know, most people

21:15

would agree. Yeah, which is why, as

21:17

I said, like, I have, I have

21:19

issues with their methodology. I think it's,

21:21

it's an interesting experiment and they're free

21:24

to do it. It's part of their

21:26

free speech. But again, like, the important

21:28

thing too is that no matter what

21:30

comes out of it, even if their

21:33

methodology was, was absolutely terrible, and I

21:35

thought was the complete opposite of reality,

21:37

that is still their free speech. What

21:40

they're doing is expressing an quintessential protected

21:42

free speech under the First Amendment. So

21:44

they are expressing an opinion, this side

21:46

is trustworthy, this one is not. You

21:49

can have that opinion, I can have

21:51

that opinion about different sources, and that's

21:53

all it is. And yet, for some

21:55

reason, Republicans have freaked out about NewsGuard,

21:58

and I don't fully understand where that

22:00

came from. I know Jim Jordan in

22:02

the House started a, you know, investigation

22:05

of NewsGuard. You know, I'm sure there

22:07

was like some, you know, crazy nut

22:09

job. right-wing publication that got dinged by

22:11

News Guard. And they claimed it was

22:14

this big conspiracy and got Jim Jordan

22:16

to investigate. And then, you know, once

22:18

Jim Jordan investigates, the reality of the

22:20

situation goes out the window entirely. And

22:23

then it just became this, like, weird

22:25

evidence of the censorship industrial complex is

22:27

usually the way they put it, which

22:30

is absolutely nonsense. But it's basically just

22:32

this company that gives a rating that

22:34

they think some new sites are trustworthy

22:36

and some are not. And so Brendan

22:39

Carr basically had an issue. with these

22:41

social media companies and accuse them of

22:43

censorship because NewsGuard was one input in

22:45

their algorithms? It seems that way. I

22:48

mean, he took it further. He said

22:50

that by relying on NewsGuard to censor

22:52

content, which again, they're not actually doing,

22:55

it's also, you know, if anything, it

22:57

may play into their rankings a little

22:59

bit, one of many, many different signals,

23:01

which wouldn't be censorship anyways. Again, like,

23:04

the algorithmic rankings that the social media

23:06

sites put on things is also their

23:08

opinion. These are all opinions, the opinion

23:11

of like, what do we think you

23:13

would like to see next? And again,

23:15

that is protected speech because it is

23:17

opinion, opinions are protected. And so this

23:20

combination of things that what Carr is

23:22

arguing is that doing this relying on

23:24

NewsGuard to influence your algorithm, which he

23:26

says censoring, which it's not, then is

23:29

not being done in good faith. which

23:31

is an important phrase, sort of important

23:33

phrase, because to him, Section 230 of

23:36

the Communications Decency Act, which is a

23:38

whole other issue, has in one section

23:40

a thing that says any website, can

23:42

moderate without liability if they are trying

23:45

to deal with certain types of objectionable

23:47

content in good faith. And so he's

23:49

claiming, because according to him, using NewsGuard

23:51

is not in good faith, therefore they

23:54

should lose Section 230 protections. And Section

23:56

230 protections ensure basically that they're not

23:58

liable for the content that's posted. So

24:01

like if somebody posts something inflammatory on

24:03

Facebook, face... book itself isn't liable, right?

24:05

Exactly. There are a few different elements

24:07

of Section 230 and it is incredibly

24:10

misunderstood and it's a little more complicated

24:12

than most people think of it, but

24:14

the very basics of Section 230 is

24:16

that if someone violates the law through

24:19

their speech, usually defamation or something along

24:21

those lines, create some sort of tort

24:23

with They post on Instagram, screw my

24:26

boss, she's a whatever, whatever, and it's

24:28

defamatory. Right, that the liability should go

24:30

towards the speaker, not the platform that

24:32

it was published on, right? So it

24:35

doesn't get rid of defamation claims, it

24:37

doesn't get rid of any claims if

24:39

there is a tort, it just says

24:41

where you place the liability is not

24:44

on the service that they used, but

24:46

on the person who created the content.

24:48

Which makes sense, because that's the person

24:51

that said it, not Mark Zuckerberg. Exactly.

24:53

Now there is an element of Section

24:55

230 which also then has been used

24:57

and is said to be used directly

25:00

on purpose that that says you also

25:02

cannot blame the platforms for their moderation

25:04

choices. And this was done deliberately by

25:06

the authors of Section 230 because they

25:09

wanted to allow platforms the freedom to

25:11

do content moderation because they realized if

25:13

they did nothing. then platforms would be

25:16

filled up with spam and porn and

25:18

garbage. And if you wanted to create

25:20

a place that was, let's say, family

25:22

friendly, the kinds of things that Republicans

25:25

used to claim they wanted, you know,

25:27

that you needed to give companies incentives

25:29

to actually do that moderation. And that

25:31

was part of the point of Section

25:34

230. Any moderation decisions that they made

25:36

were supposed to be protected from liability.

25:38

So if you took some content down,

25:41

you shouldn't be sued for that because,

25:43

you know, it is part of their...

25:45

power to create the kind of platform

25:47

and community that they want. Yeah, and

25:50

it seems like Carr is against most

25:52

forms of content moderation. I mean, it's

25:54

interesting, and this is part of this,

25:57

I think, larger conservative crusade of that

25:59

sort. like you said, content moderation itself

26:01

is censorship. You heard this from Elon

26:03

Musk as well. Elon Musk, obviously, despite

26:06

all of his claims of free speech

26:08

absolutism, moderates Twitter or X quite heavily,

26:10

right? Like. You've been banned, right? I

26:12

have been banned. I'm back on. Travis

26:15

Brown and many other journalists remain banned.

26:17

You can't say the word cisgender without,

26:19

you know, I'm getting a flag. So,

26:22

you know, and by the way, we

26:24

do want some level of content moderation,

26:26

even as you mentioned, just to keep

26:28

off C-Sal material or, you know, violative

26:31

content, violence, like gore, right? But Carr

26:33

seems to, like, you know, be pressuring

26:35

these companies, And I was struck by

26:37

this when Mark Zuckerberg, because, you know,

26:40

just before the election, Mark Zuckerberg comes

26:42

out, I think anticipating some of this

26:44

intimidation and said, we're going to roll

26:47

back. Like, we're sorry, we overmoderated too

26:49

much. Do you think that that was

26:51

a response to Carr coming in and

26:53

knowing kind of his stance on this

26:56

stuff? Yeah, I mean, it was a

26:58

response to a few things, obviously. He

27:00

was not well informed, which doesn't make

27:02

sense, or if it was more specific

27:05

to this. So I think, you know,

27:07

he was getting threatening letters from Carr.

27:09

He also had Donald Trump write a

27:12

book where he said we should imprison

27:14

Mark Zuckerberg for the rest of his

27:16

life, which seems like a threat. And

27:18

so it really felt that Zuckerberg caved

27:21

directly to pressure. Now, the ridiculous thing

27:23

was that in the process of doing

27:25

this, in caving to the Republican threats

27:27

against him from Carr and from Trump,

27:30

he claimed that he was doing this

27:32

because he was sick of dealing with

27:34

the threats from the Biden administration. Even

27:37

though he admitted very clearly, like, you

27:39

know, he gave this interview on Joe

27:41

Rogan. where he talks about the horror

27:43

of the Biden administration calling up Facebook

27:46

employees and cursing at them, which he

27:48

made. This represents, by the way. And

27:50

then he says, very clearly, multiple times

27:52

on Joe Rogan, but we told them

27:55

no. And so if the government comes

27:57

and yells at you about your moderation

27:59

choices and you are free to say,

28:02

no, we're not going to change, we

28:04

stand by our policies, then as the

28:06

Supreme Court said just last year, in

28:08

a case about Facebook and. you know,

28:11

demands from supposed demands from the Biden

28:13

administration, like there's no evidence that Facebook

28:15

was pressured by the government at all

28:18

in any of this. And yet here,

28:20

now we have very direct threats as

28:22

opposed to the supposedly indirect threats of

28:24

the Biden administration. Trump and Carr made

28:27

very direct threats against Zuckerberg and others.

28:29

And then immediately he's like, okay, we're

28:31

going to start moderating the way you

28:33

want. And in fact, it was then

28:36

later reported that before Zuckerberg announced the

28:38

plan, he went to Stephen Miller, which

28:40

is a high level Trump advisor, and

28:43

had him go over the plans, the

28:45

change in moderation plans to see if

28:47

they were okay, which should raise all

28:49

sorts of First Amendment alarms. Like if

28:52

you are a media company and your

28:54

editorial policies first get approved. by the

28:56

president that's a first amendment emergency and

28:58

and it should be seen as that

29:01

and yet we don't hear that and

29:03

instead we hear that car is some

29:05

great you know first amendment free speech

29:08

warrior right he's bringing free speech back

29:10

to meta another platform that car has

29:12

targeted is tick-talk this has been in

29:14

his cross hairs forever he advocated aggressively

29:17

for the tick-talk ban obviously you know

29:19

my feelings on my feelings on this

29:21

I feel like that ban is completely

29:23

I feel like that ban is completely

29:26

unconstitutional and restricts the you know speech

29:28

of a hundred seventy million Americans but

29:30

why do you think that tick-talk has

29:33

come in his cross hairs and what

29:35

did he sort of the most behind

29:37

it right I mean I think it's

29:39

not all that different than the motivation

29:42

among a lot of politicians and sort

29:44

of the political class these days that

29:46

just are like completely frightened by TikTok

29:48

and the fact that like the kids

29:51

these days are not... Too much speech.

29:53

Too much speech that they don't like.

29:55

The whole idea of banning Tiktak in

29:58

the first place, remember, came about when

30:00

Donald Trump got mad at them because

30:02

a whole bunch of kids on Tiktak

30:04

reserve tickets for a rally and then

30:07

didn't show up and made this arena

30:09

appear half empty, which is again speech,

30:11

right? And then I just want to

30:13

say too, because I made another video

30:16

about this recently, but then Gallagher and

30:18

Warner were on a panel recently together

30:20

in Munich talking about the quote unquote

30:23

real. reason the tick-talk was banned, and

30:25

they brought up speech again. They were

30:27

talking about pro-Palestinian speech and how that

30:29

was what it was able to get.

30:32

the ban through. There were a number

30:34

of politicians who admitted directly and again

30:36

like you know sort of confessing to

30:38

violating the First Amendment that they were

30:41

upset that pro Palestinian speech was popular

30:43

on on the platform and therefore that

30:45

was one of the reasons why they

30:48

needed to ban it which is problematic

30:50

for all sorts of reasons so the

30:52

case happened and the Supreme Court I

30:54

think ruled incorrectly but again they're the

30:57

Supreme Court so you can't... entirely question

30:59

that, but Carr was 100% supportive of

31:01

this idea that TikTok is bad. As

31:04

for why, who knows? You know, it

31:06

is not entirely clear. I think it

31:08

could have just been general fear of

31:10

China. I mean, the FCC had been

31:13

a part of earlier efforts to sort

31:15

of block Chinese companies from operating in

31:17

the United States. And so it could

31:19

be that, it could be just, you

31:22

know, there was all this constant like

31:24

national security sort of doomerism that went

31:26

around about how it was, you know,

31:29

a national security threat, like there was

31:31

spyware on it, which has never been

31:33

shown or never been proven. And so.

31:35

You know, I think it was just

31:38

one of those things where he was

31:40

he was sort of playing the role

31:42

of the anti-China. We have to say

31:44

the China Hawk. I just think as

31:47

somebody again that professes to be the

31:49

ultimate free speech warrior, it's just so

31:51

interesting to see the way that he,

31:54

it all goes out the window continually

31:56

when he's dealing with these platforms. There

31:58

are so many contradictions in the way

32:00

that that car acts and and I

32:03

want to talk about one other one

32:05

Which is that you know again like

32:07

car came out of this world of

32:09

the sort of Republican conservative FCC commissioners

32:12

that for the last 20 years have

32:14

been against the concept of net neutrality.

32:16

And we don't have to get too

32:19

deep in the weeds on net neutrality,

32:21

but the basic concept is that your

32:23

internet service provider, whether it's AT&T or

32:25

Verizon Comcast, whoever, that they shouldn't be

32:28

allowed to throttle or block certain content

32:30

or they shouldn't be able to say

32:32

like, oh, you know, if you want

32:34

to have access to Netflix and YouTube,

32:37

you have to pay extra. that they

32:39

shouldn't have the right to do that.

32:41

They're sort of core infrastructure. They're sort

32:44

of, you know, the highways, the information,

32:46

super highway, whatever you want to call

32:48

it. And so therefore they shouldn't be

32:50

able to block it. And for a

32:53

little while, almost exactly 20 years ago,

32:55

there was sort of a bipartisan belief

32:57

in this concept of net neutrality. And

32:59

there was just a question of how

33:02

would you actually put that into law?

33:04

There were a couple of times by

33:06

Congress to do stuff, but Congress can't

33:09

do anything. This is only true on

33:11

the political class. If you poll the

33:13

public, overwhelmingly, it's like 84% support net

33:15

neutrality. That's like 70% of Republicans and

33:18

like 95% of Democrats or something crazy

33:20

like that. Don't quote me on those

33:22

numbers, but it's something in that range.

33:24

But the political class has decided that

33:27

net neutrality is. you know, evil government

33:29

takeover of the internet, regulation, it's Obamacare

33:31

for the internet, depending on who you

33:34

talk to, all of these things. And

33:36

Carr was one of the leading voices

33:38

in saying that net neutrality is evil

33:40

and specifically that it violated the First

33:43

Amendment. And this is an argument that

33:45

has made the rounds a little bit,

33:47

basically saying that because the ISPs, your

33:50

Comcast Verizon, whoever, because they are providing

33:52

the network to tell them that they...

33:54

can't block access to certain websites is

33:56

a violation of their free speech. It's

33:59

a very twisted thing. Because they don't

34:01

have the right to censor, that means

34:03

that their free speech rights are being

34:05

restricted? Yes. And so you should be

34:08

careful here because there is a sort

34:10

of weird argument where that makes sense,

34:12

but it doesn't really make sense here.

34:15

And the only person who has ever

34:17

sort of bought into that argument was

34:19

a judge on the DC circuit named

34:21

Brett Kavanaugh, who is now on the

34:24

Supreme Court. But we'll leave that aside.

34:26

Here's the thing. You can believe that

34:28

argument. I don't. I think it's wrong

34:30

for a whole wide variety of reasons.

34:33

But at the same time, Carr is

34:35

100% insistent that you can use Section

34:37

230, reinterpret Section 230 entirely. And again,

34:40

as I said earlier, the authors of

34:42

Section 230 have said this over and

34:44

over again. It is designed to create

34:46

incentives for... Internet websites to moderate their

34:49

content to create whatever type of community

34:51

that they want, including family friendly, including

34:53

communities that are just for Republicans, communities

34:55

that are just for Democrats, communities for

34:58

people with eating disorder, whatever community you

35:00

want, you have to be able to

35:02

create your own rules and enforce them.

35:05

And this is because they are a

35:07

level above. They're not the Internet service

35:09

provider. They're not your connection to the

35:11

wider Internet. itself, and so therefore they

35:14

have to be able, you know, each

35:16

website is different, each website should be

35:18

able to set its own rules, and

35:20

each website should be able to enforce

35:23

its own rules without facing legal liability

35:25

for that. That's the theory behind Section

35:27

230. Brendan Carr believes that he can

35:30

reinterpret Section 230 to force websites to

35:32

do no moderation at all of political

35:34

content. And what counts as political is

35:36

increasingly unclear. But this is, you know,

35:39

if you think about these two things

35:41

together. that net neutrality is a violation

35:43

of the First Amendment, but that you

35:45

can enforce no moderation effectively the same

35:48

thing as net neutrality on service providers.

35:50

There's no way to align those two

35:52

concepts. Like the way I think about

35:55

it is basically saying that you are

35:57

saying... that the roads, the highways, can

35:59

discriminate and block certain people from traveling,

36:01

but then you say a store on

36:04

the road cannot kick anyone out of

36:06

their store. Right? You're saying like, you

36:08

know, that the Comcast can say, oh,

36:10

you can't go to YouTube, but YouTube

36:13

can't tell you that you can't post

36:15

a comment to YouTube. It makes no

36:17

logical sense. You can't put those two

36:20

things together. I can kind of see

36:22

an argument where somebody says like, you

36:24

know, something like this could apply to

36:26

both or there's a very clear and

36:29

I think reasonable argument that neutrality should

36:31

apply to the the infrastructure layer to

36:33

the ISP but not to the service

36:36

provider above it because that that's how

36:38

it works right that's that's literally how

36:40

it should work but you can't do

36:42

the flip where you say like the

36:45

lower level can can can't but the

36:47

upper level can't it makes no sense

36:49

I mean I think the just absurdity

36:51

of it kind of highlights the broader

36:54

issue that I think myself and many

36:56

people have with Carr, which is that

36:58

he's not intellectually honest or consistent. He

37:01

is a very clear political actor and

37:03

the only way that these sorts of

37:05

actions in my mind make sense is

37:07

if you look at them through a

37:10

political lens, which is what is most

37:12

politically expedient, what can I do to

37:14

further my... conservative agenda and essentially, you

37:16

know, ensure that progressive content, democratic content

37:19

is censored online and Republicans have free

37:21

reign of the energy. Yes. And it's,

37:23

you know, and I almost hesitate to

37:26

call conservative agenda, right? Right. Because it's

37:28

not, right. It's, it's, it's its own,

37:30

it's like, yeah, it's Trumpism. Yeah. And,

37:32

you know, there's a really clear example

37:35

of this, which was that in the

37:37

last year or so, it may go

37:39

back a little bit further, there were

37:41

four different cases that were brought to

37:44

the FCC. about the renewal of broadcast

37:46

licenses. These are for affiliates, so local

37:48

TV or radio stations, where people challenge

37:51

the renewal. And the renewal is generally

37:53

pretty proformer, like you have a license.

37:55

your spectrum and you know every so

37:57

often you have to renew it and

38:00

generally you send in your forms and

38:02

the FCC stamps it and that's it

38:04

I don't even I can't even think

38:06

of a case where the the renewal

38:09

didn't didn't go through but there were

38:11

four challenges during the the last administration

38:13

and one of them was by a

38:16

bunch of progressive groups against a Fox

38:18

affiliate in Pennsylvania somewhere. I forget exactly

38:20

where. And they were arguing that based

38:22

on the dominion case, which, you know,

38:25

we don't have to go into the

38:27

details, but basically, you know, sued Fox

38:29

for defamation and, you know, won a

38:31

settlement of 780-something million dollars, you know,

38:34

just crazy amounts of money. And so

38:36

they were arguing that because of that

38:38

settlement and this affiliate had rebroadcast a

38:41

lot of the content that was found

38:43

to be defamatory. that they had violated

38:45

some of the terms of their spectrum

38:47

agreement, their license agreement. The three other

38:50

ones of the four were brought by

38:52

a very right-wing conservative group against different

38:54

providers for different things. Each one was

38:56

slightly different, but each one was effectively

38:59

saying you platformed Democratic content that we

39:01

didn't like. And so right at the

39:03

end of the last administration, the previous

39:06

FCC commissioner Jessica Rosenmursil, who was a

39:08

Democrat, dismissed all four of those and

39:10

wrote in the explanation very clearly this

39:12

would violate the First Amendment. Like, it's

39:15

a speech issue and like, doesn't matter

39:17

which side of the aisle, there was,

39:19

you know, one complaint from the left

39:22

against the right and three complaints against

39:24

the right against the right, like all

39:26

of these, it's not our job to

39:28

be judging on speech. and therefore you

39:31

know we're not doing anything we're gonna

39:33

we're not we're not taking up this

39:35

this these requests to remove the licenses

39:37

from from these stations we're gonna let

39:40

him go that happened like a week

39:42

before the inauguration the inauguration comes in

39:44

car gets appointed to to be FCC

39:47

chair he doesn't have to go through

39:49

Senate approval because he's already been approved

39:51

as a commissioner so they can bump

39:53

him up to the chair and one

39:56

of the very first things he does

39:58

is reinstate three of those efforts the

40:00

three from the right-wing group against you

40:02

know for platforming democratic speech effectively this

40:05

was as clear cases you can see

40:07

as clear cases you can see where

40:09

the the previous administration was very clear

40:12

like we're not going to touch this

40:14

this is political this is obviously trying

40:16

to abuse our power to violate the

40:18

first amendment we're not going to touch

40:21

those things across the board doesn't matter

40:23

which political side of the aisle this

40:25

is on car comes in He ignores

40:27

the one that was dismissed that was

40:30

left-wing groups complaining about Fox and immediately

40:32

reinstates the other three and says, we

40:34

need to do more investigation of this.

40:37

It's just all so transparent. It's infuriating.

40:39

And he's doing all of this while

40:41

transparent. It's infuriating. And he's doing all

40:43

of this while ranting about free speech.

40:46

One of like a top first amendment.

40:48

One of the best. Yeah. But he's

40:50

sort of cultivated this phantom that I

40:52

would say is very Elon like very

40:55

much smaller, but that sort of believe

40:57

that yes, this is restoring free speech.

40:59

And it's terrifying to me as somebody

41:02

that actually cares about free speech. And

41:04

I'm sure to you too. What do

41:06

you think? And obviously like, you know,

41:08

his powers are limited somewhat, you would

41:11

think. in terms of what the FCC

41:13

actually has jurisdiction over, but what do

41:15

you think that the internet and media

41:17

landscape could look like in the next

41:20

few years if Carr is continually allowed

41:22

to kind of amass and exert the

41:24

power that he's been attempting to? I

41:27

mean, it's weird too, because literally less

41:29

than a year ago, the whole sort

41:31

of conservative movement and sort of the

41:33

federal society folks were super excited by

41:36

a ruling in a case which is

41:38

referred to as Loper Bright, which was

41:40

basically this question of... I feel bad.

41:42

I go deep in the weeds on

41:45

these things. I feel like I'm going

41:47

on these tangents. No, this is helpful

41:49

context. You got to know the context.

41:52

I feel like I'm explaining like Twitter

41:54

drama. You know, like that's how you

41:56

feel when you're talking about tech policy

41:58

because you're like, well, you've got to

42:01

kind of understand these other things. But

42:03

just give people the 101 because I

42:05

think it's important. So for many, many

42:08

years, there was this concept called Chevron

42:10

deference, which came from a case that

42:12

involved the company Chevron. Doesn't matter what

42:14

that case was about. What matters is

42:17

the idea was about. executive branch, you

42:19

know, effectively under the White House, if

42:21

they were coming out with rules based

42:23

on regulation, so Congress will pass a

42:26

regulation, part of that will often be

42:28

to shift the authority to handle the

42:30

issues around that regulation to some authority.

42:33

It could be the FCC, could be

42:35

the FAA, could be, you know, health

42:37

and human services, whoever it is, somebody

42:39

is going to be in charge of

42:42

enforcing it. And what the Chevron deference...

42:44

standard that the Supreme Court came out

42:46

with in the 80s basically said the

42:48

agencies are experts in this they're hiring

42:51

people who are experts they have civil

42:53

servants who are experts they've studied this

42:55

usually they've gone through like detailed comment

42:58

periods and gotten all this stuff if

43:00

they come out with a rule we

43:02

shouldn't second-guess the rule unless we determine

43:04

that the rule was arbitrary and capricious

43:07

that's the standard if they find that

43:09

the rule was just sort of put

43:11

in place willy-nilly arbitrary, capricious, then the

43:13

courts will step in, but if it

43:16

appears that the agency considered the rule

43:18

carefully, got comments, discussed pros and cons,

43:20

and then had a vote, we're not

43:23

going to get in the way of

43:25

that. And that rule was originally put

43:27

in place and Conservatives celebrated it because

43:29

I actually thought that was a good

43:32

thing. And then they got mad because...

43:34

the government kept doing stuff that they

43:36

didn't like and they couldn't sue to

43:38

stop it. And so then it became

43:41

this project to sort of get rid

43:43

of Chevron deference. And so that finally

43:45

happened last year in a case called

43:48

Loper Bright where the Supreme Court said,

43:50

no, you know, Chevron deference makes no

43:52

sense. The judiciary can now review anything

43:54

the executive branch does and we don't

43:57

have to give deference to anything. So

43:59

if the FCC goes and does stuff,

44:01

historically, the Supreme Court will be like,

44:03

well, the FCC considered it, even if

44:06

we don't agree, it's their job to

44:08

do that. And then it happened. That's

44:10

happened. There was a famous case about

44:13

broadband services in the early 2000s, and

44:15

the Supreme Court said, we can't touch

44:17

it, because the FCC did the work,

44:19

we're not going to second guess it.

44:22

Now, last year, the Supreme Court

44:24

said, like, oh yeah, like we

44:26

can second guess everything, everything the

44:28

executive branch does. Conservatives

44:30

cheered that because that was when

44:32

Biden was president. Right. And they

44:34

didn't want the government to be

44:36

able to do anything. Now Trump

44:38

is president and Carr is running

44:40

the FCC and so his authority

44:43

is clearly way less than it

44:45

even was eight months ago before

44:47

before the Loper-Bite decision came down if

44:49

the Supreme Court will actually review stuff.

44:51

Now that's the whole other question. So

44:53

he has very little authority and again

44:55

like the FCC. is not supposed to

44:57

have any authority over the internet itself

45:00

and in fact part of the arguments

45:02

against Net neutrality that Carr himself laid

45:04

out was that the FCC should have

45:06

no authority over regulating any part of

45:08

the internet, which he now ignores because

45:10

he wants to regulate speech on the

45:13

internet. And so he doesn't really have

45:15

the authority to do any of this.

45:17

He certainly doesn't have the authority to reinterpret

45:19

Section 230, even though he's making moves for

45:21

that. And I believe there was like something

45:24

that was put out recently where they had

45:26

started this process at the end of the

45:28

first Trump administration to reinterpret, to say the

45:31

FCC could reinterpret Section 230 section 230. The

45:33

crazy thing is like the original draft of

45:35

the law that became section 230 literally had

45:37

a line in it which says like the

45:40

purpose of this is so that the FCC

45:42

does not regulate the internet. It's just like

45:44

you have to laugh I feel like but

45:46

with so many things with Trump and and

45:48

I you know I totally hear you right

45:50

like he doesn't have this authority he has

45:52

less power than he had eight months ago

45:54

but look at someone like Elon Musk. It

45:56

seems like a lot of people with no

45:58

authority are still able to to kind of

46:00

exert power and cause chaos. Yes, and

46:03

that's the fear, right? If nobody stops

46:05

him. then yeah then suddenly he does

46:07

have the authority even if it's not

46:09

if it's not a legal authority if

46:11

nobody stops them from doing this stuff

46:13

then yeah then they get away with

46:15

it and so that is the terror

46:17

right and and the fear is that

46:19

he can use this this the powers

46:21

that he believes he has or he's

46:24

pretending he has to consistently attack media

46:26

any kind of media social media regular

46:28

media that favors Democrats or even favors

46:30

Democrats that's not even fair right just

46:32

platforms them at all like interviews them speaks

46:34

to them that like represents their

46:36

you know viewpoints in any capacity

46:38

exactly articles and the end result of

46:41

that is clearly a chilling effect which

46:43

is that no one will platform these people

46:45

no one will present fairly we're getting

46:47

the the opposite of the fairness doctrine

46:49

in every way which is like a

46:51

pure unfairness doctrine which is that only

46:53

sort of magga trumpist speech is allowed

46:55

And that should be terrifying. And it's

46:57

all happening under the guise of free

47:00

speech. And he's using the language of

47:02

free speech. And I would argue he's

47:04

built himself this little like influencer profile,

47:06

especially on X, where he rants about

47:08

free speech and these idiots who don't

47:10

know anything about free speech, listen to

47:12

him and amplify this. And I would

47:14

say even the media has played a

47:16

role in this, because there's headlines that

47:18

also refer to him as a free

47:20

speech. I mean, we've seen this before,

47:22

right? It was the same thing with

47:24

Elon Musk. Elon Musk presented himself as

47:26

a free speech crusader, and everyone for

47:28

years, the media would write that about

47:30

him and just sort of like take

47:32

him as words. And this is like,

47:34

you know, this has become sort of

47:36

a staple of the sort of Trumpist

47:38

media ecosystem in which they say the

47:40

exact opposite of what they really believe,

47:42

and the media especially You know, it's

47:44

not all media. Some are certainly much

47:46

better than others, but definitely sort of

47:49

the traditional political media seems to think

47:51

that we have to take what they

47:53

say and present that, even if it's

47:55

totally false. And, you know, the Trump

47:57

and those in his orbit are completely

47:59

exposed. So as long as we keep

48:01

saying we're about free speech and we

48:03

believe in free speech and we're pushing this

48:05

for free speech, then like the, you

48:07

know, a huge portion of the media will

48:10

report it as true and reflect that and

48:12

then we can do whatever we want

48:14

to suppress speech and nobody will report on

48:16

that because we're the free speech people. And

48:19

because by then the media has been dismantled.

48:21

Yeah. And Carr himself, you know, you

48:23

know, so every once in a while he

48:25

does things that sort of pretend to be,

48:27

you know, actually about free speech, like

48:29

he just did a talk in Europe somewhere.

48:32

I'm not sure for what conference for some

48:34

conference where he was like slamming Europe

48:36

for the DSA. Yeah, the Digital Service Act,

48:38

which if you want to explain super quick.

48:41

Yeah, which is it is their sort

48:43

of social media regulation. It's from a few

48:45

years ago. It's from a few years ago.

48:47

And it's from a few years ago.

48:49

And it has some elements of it, which

48:52

I'm actually think there's a lot of problems

48:54

with the DSA and the way it's been

48:56

implemented. That could impact speech. actually do

48:58

think the law is problematic but Carr turns

49:00

it into this like huge like censorship bill

49:03

that you know forces companies to censor

49:05

content that the Europeans don't like which is

49:07

not true right there are problems with the

49:09

law there are things about it that

49:11

I think you know can lead to censorship

49:14

and the way the way the EU has

49:16

sort of presented it at times, you

49:18

know, they've sort of threatened Elon Musk with

49:20

it in a way that I thought was

49:22

ridiculous and unfair and sort of went

49:24

way beyond what we were promised the DSA

49:27

would be allowed to do. So there are

49:29

concerns about it. And so he'll stand up

49:31

to something like that, but then he'll

49:33

never admit that he's doing much, much worse

49:36

in terms of censorship at home. I just

49:38

cannot drive home enough that this man

49:40

does not care. about free speech. Yes, not

49:42

even one bit. The only way he cares

49:45

about it is as a tool to

49:47

sort of increase his own power or the

49:49

power of sort of the Trump universe. So

49:51

what can people, like us, and others

49:53

that actually care about free speech and protecting

49:55

a right to free expression, do about this?

49:58

Because this is a man who's kind

50:00

of an unelected person in government. Like a

50:02

lot of people don't work in journalism, right?

50:04

They're not able to affect that much change.

50:07

Like what can people do? being willing

50:09

to recognize what's actually happening and to call

50:11

it out. Like when there are opportunities. Do

50:13

not accept his framing as that he

50:15

is a free speech supporter. Do not accept

50:17

his framing that the things that he's doing

50:20

are in defense of free speech or

50:22

in support of free speech. And recognizing and

50:24

telling people and being clear about it that

50:26

they're not. They're the opposite. That he

50:28

is clearly repeatedly trying to suppress speech. any

50:31

kind of speech that is pro-democratic and that

50:33

that is a problem. There's so many

50:35

different things going on right now, right? Like

50:37

the question is, what do you do about

50:40

all of it? Kind of an impossible question

50:42

probably to ask. But you know, part

50:44

of it and the important part is like

50:46

sticking to the truth, like sticking to reality,

50:48

right? to speak out and talk about

50:50

this stuff, because the first step to actually

50:53

fighting against this stuff is making sure that

50:55

people understand reality. You know, they are

50:57

flooding the zone with absolute nonsense and lying

50:59

constantly. It is pure propaganda, and part of

51:02

that is to make people give up.

51:04

and to not know what's real, and because

51:06

they don't know what's real, just give up

51:08

caring about everything entirely, which just opens the

51:10

field for them to do even worse

51:12

stuff. The most important thing, at least, is

51:15

to stay in touch with reality, to recognize

51:17

what is being said, how it is

51:19

being used, how it is being weaponized, and

51:21

being able to speak that, and to say

51:24

what Carr's doing is against the First

51:26

Amendment. What he's doing is trying to suppress

51:28

speech, no matter what he says. You have

51:30

to look at what he's actually doing.

51:32

And the more you can actually understand what's

51:35

actually going on, then people can get into

51:37

the right frame of mind, the right

51:39

position to actually push back on this stuff.

51:41

I think it's also just so important that

51:43

people value speech. I think one thing that's

51:46

been so concerning to me is adrenaline.

51:48

and I talk about this all the time,

51:50

is just how people on both sides of

51:52

the aisle, but especially Democrats, liberals, leftists,

51:54

are so willing to advocate against free speech,

51:57

right? I mean, I was very against the

51:59

whole like panic over sort of quote

52:01

unquote misinformation, like driven by the media that

52:03

I thought was. It just can be so

52:05

easily weaponized and obviously we want to

52:08

call it, I mean, that's the goal of

52:10

good journalism is to debunk misinformation, but I

52:12

do think that overall a lot of

52:14

people on both sides of the political spectrum

52:16

just want to censor the other side. Yeah,

52:19

and, you know, people always get mad when

52:21

you get into this thing, you're like,

52:23

oh, don't both sides this, right? You know,

52:25

like, clearly, what the Trump world is doing

52:28

right now is worse. The Democrats are

52:30

not helping though, right? Because you're right. They

52:32

are presenting the same thing. They've pushed bills

52:34

to like, you know, force people to

52:36

take down misinformation. Cosa, there have been a

52:38

whole bunch of these other ones, right? You

52:41

know, Amy Klobeshar had a bill that

52:43

would, this is my favorite one, would give

52:45

the director of Health and Human Services, which

52:47

is now Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The

52:49

power to dictate to dictate to any website

52:52

health misinformation that they had to remove. Right?

52:54

With RFK Jr. in that position, if you

52:56

could give him the power to point

52:58

to any website and say, you have to

53:01

remove this because this is health misinformation, that

53:03

was an Amy Klobashar bill, right? This

53:05

is the point. Even if Democrats are pushing

53:07

this thing because they say, well, this is

53:09

misinformation, this is bad, or even some

53:11

people are arguing like, this is why we're

53:14

in this position today, think about who you're

53:16

giving power to. Right? If you are

53:18

giving the government power to say this is

53:20

misinformation that you have to remove right now,

53:23

that is Trump, that is RFK Jr,

53:25

that is Brendan Carr, that is all these

53:27

people who are showing that they want to

53:29

censor, and some people will argue, well, they're

53:31

going to do it anyways, and you

53:33

can see what Brendan Carr is doing, you

53:36

don't have to enable it, you don't have

53:38

to give them the power to make

53:40

that easier, and you don't have to give

53:42

them the tools to make that. it makes

53:45

it even harder to fight. And so

53:47

what the Democrats are doing, where they talk

53:49

about this stuff, and yes, you're right, across

53:51

the board, you have people on the

53:53

far left who have been really, really into

53:56

this idea of like, oh yeah, you know,

53:58

we have to stand up and make

54:00

misinformation illegal. It's like, who defines what misinformation

54:02

is? Who's going to have the power? Every

54:04

time this has been done, you can look

54:07

at all different countries around the world,

54:09

you can see where this is being done,

54:11

every time. That power, the power to, or

54:13

even hate speech, right? This is a

54:15

sensitive topic. People say hate speech, okay. Look

54:18

at every hate speech law around the world,

54:20

and look how it's enforced. It is

54:22

always enforced by the powerful against the powerless,

54:24

against the marginalized groups. They say, you know,

54:26

like some marginalized group speaks out against...

54:28

the police or the government and they say,

54:31

well, that's hate speech against us and we're

54:33

going to punish you for it. Don't

54:35

give them the tools. Don't give the powerful

54:37

the tools to suppress the speech of the

54:40

marginalized and the powerless. And so it's so

54:42

important to make this point. It's so

54:44

important to make this point. And thank you

54:46

for bringing that up. This is not just

54:49

like a Democrat or Republican thing because

54:51

both of them are awful on this. Like

54:53

if you believe in free speech, don't give

54:55

people the power to censor. Trump source,

54:57

I feel like I have to say that

54:59

disclaimer so people don't get all up in

55:02

arms. Obviously we just did this whole

55:04

episode on it, so we agree. But I

55:06

am just appalled by the Democratic Party and

55:08

the way that they've enabled all of

55:10

this and facilitated it and go out and

55:13

boost, you know, crow about it. They brag

55:15

about it. I mean, this is like Joe

55:17

Biden bragging about the Tik Band, you

55:19

know, it's just... It's absurd. Well, Mike, thank

55:21

you so much for chatting with me today.

55:24

I appreciate your time so much. Where

55:26

can people continue to follow your work? All

55:28

my big writings are on techtert.com and I

55:30

spend all my social media time these

55:32

days on Blue Sky where I post way

55:35

too much. I'm a fan of your posting.

55:37

So, all right, well, thanks so much.

55:39

Thanks. Thanks for having me. All right. That's

55:41

it for this week's episode. You can watch

55:44

full episodes of power. on my YouTube

55:46

channel at Taylor Lorenz, Don't

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