The president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, has chosen Brendan Carr, a critic of the telecommunications policies of the Biden Administration and big technology, as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, as reported on Sunday in a statement.
Carr, 45, is currently the top Republican on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the independent agency that regulates telecommunications.
He has been a relentless critic of the FCC’s decision not to end broadband subsidies worth nearly $900 million for the Starlink satellite internet subsidiary of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, as well as the broadband infrastructure program. of the Department of Commerce worth $42 billion and President Joe Biden’s radio spectrum use policy.
Last week, Carr wrote to Meta’s Facebook, Google (part of the Alphabet group), Apple and Microsoft to say they had taken steps to censor Americans. Carr said Sunday that the FCC must “restore free speech rights to ordinary Americans.”
Democratic Sen. Ed Markey said Sunday that Carr’s letter amounted to “a regulator implicitly threatening private companies for their speech. The FCC under Trump is poised to become the Federal Censorship Commission.”
The president-elect has disparaged moves by Disney’s ABC, Comcast’s NBC, and Paramount Global’s CBS, and has suggested they could lose their FCC licenses for a variety of reasons. Trump also sued CBS over his “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Carr criticized NBC for allowing Harris to appear on “Saturday Night Live” just before the election.
Furthermore, in 2022, Carr, a staunch critic of China, became the first FCC commissioner to visit Taiwan. He has been an advocate of the FCC’s hard line on Chinese telecommunications companies.
Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channels YouTube, WhatsApp and to newsletter. Turn on notifications and follow us on Facebook, x and instagram.
Add Comment