About 5 million years ago in October, Federal Communications President Ajit Pai vowed to “move forward with regulations” to “clarify” section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a key legal shield that protects online platforms from the liability of certain types of content posted by users. However, he apparently quietly left the clock on these plans.
Now, less than three months later, Pai says he no longer plans to follow him because, you wouldn’t know, he has too little time. Drats. (De Pai coming down from the agency on January 20 before the incoming Biden administration can give it the go-ahead).
“I have no intention of going ahead with the FCC’s proposed rules decision notice,” he said Protocol on Thursday, explaining that “there is simply not enough time to complete the administrative steps needed to resolve the formulation of rules.”
Of course, you may have dropped these plans as well because of the FCC he had no legal authority follow up with them first.
A nonsense executive order on social media that President Donald Trump issued in September commissioned the FCC to monitor section 230 and to investigate websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube to resolve an alleged anti-conservative bias. Trump’s demands came after an explosive rage — even for him — about the social media platforms that check his posts.
G / O Media may receive a commission
If carried out, this reinterpretation of Article 230 threatened to break the Internet in all sorts of ways. At least in theory. That is, it would essentially establish the Republican-controlled FCC to remove Article 230 liability protections from any platform that Trump believed discriminated against the Conservatives, thus leaving these platforms vulnerable to litigation to moderate user-posted content. What happens is that the FCC simply it does not have the power of A.) regulate the Internet to this extent or B) rewrite federal legislation willingly or unwillingly.
It’s worth mentioning with the Democrats who are already there control of the Senate, President-elect Joe Biden gets ready for lunch follow his appointment to the next FCC president and potentially reverse Pai’s most controversial political decision: killing net neutrality protections that prevented Internet service providers from limiting access to online content or charging more for using certain sites.
Pai’s statements came during an interview with C-SPAN’s “Communicators” aired this weekend in which the president also strongly condemned Wednesday’s attempted insurgency in DC that left at least four people death. He called the outrageous violence that erupted on Capitol Hill “outrageous and extremely disappointing to those of us who love American democracy.”
And while Pai has largely refrained from publicly commenting on the president’s antics during his tenure, he rebuked Trump for spreading unfounded electoral conspiracy theories that should not have been “fulfilled.”
“I think it was a terrible mistake to suggest that the election results, and in particular the process that culminated yesterday in the Senate and the House, could be changed in some way,” he said. “It was a terrible mistake and I think it shouldn’t be pleased in any way.”
[Protocol]