The Federal Communications Commission has a new general counsel—and he is no fan of Big Tech.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr has tapped Adam Candeub, a legal scholar and academic with decades of experience, to lead the agency's Office of General Counsel. As general counsel, Candeub will serve as a chief legal advisor to the commission and its various offices and bureaus, giving him the authority to recommend swift legal actions against Big Tech censorship.
Carr confirmed Candeub’s appointment on X, writing: “The FCC will work to dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech rights to everyday Americans.” Carr added that Candeub is “going to do great things.” This announcement comes just weeks after President Donald Trump selected Carr as the FCC chair.
The FCC will work to dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech rights to everyday Americans.
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) February 3, 2025
I look forward to Adam Candeub serving as the FCC's General Counsel. He is going to do great things! https://t.co/jcD35S0THA
Candeub, a law professor at the Michigan State University Law School, has proposed that social media companies should be regulated as common carriers and should lose certain protections granted under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.
In a brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of a pro-free speech case from Texas and Florida, Candeub argued that Section 230 has been widely misinterpreted and that discrimination of political viewpoints exceeds what this law provides. Accordingly, Candeub thinks social media companies should adopt neutrality policies to safeguard free speech online rather than regulate lawful content. He argued:
“Social media platforms carry data and messages for customers, and are therefore carriers. They offer carriage to all on equal terms and have the capacity to serve all, and are therefore common carriers. Common carriers have borne duties of non-discrimination since long before the American founding. A common carrier has First Amendment rights and may express (or not express) its own views, but it may not pass its customers’ views off as its own for the purpose of censoring their carried expression. By interpreting H.B. 20 as a declaration of long-standing common carrier doctrines, this Court can avoid any First Amendment conflict.”
Watch Candeub explained his arguments in an interview with the Moment of Truth podcast:
Candeub has also sued Big Tech companies for censorship. In 2016, Candeub took Twitter to court after the platform banned a pro-women’s rights activist for voicing opposition to transgenderism. The lawsuit was subsequently dismissed.
After graduating from law school, Candeub clerked for J. Clifford Wallace, a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In 2019, he served in the Trump administration as deputy assistant secretary at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, or NTIA, according to an FCC press statement. He later served as deputy associate attorney general at the Trump-led Department of Justice.
Candeub’s is not the only addition to the FCC. Shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, Trump officially nominated Olivia Trusty as the commission’s newest member. Trusty is the policy director on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Trump said Trusty would work with Carr to “cut regulations at a record pace, protect Free Speech, and ensure every American has access to affordable and fast Internet.” Her appointment requires confirmation by the Senate.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
