The following article is a supplement to the MRC Report: The Biden Administration Waged War on Free Speech with 57 Censorship Initiatives.
Initiative #50: The Digital Equity Order
Type of Censorship: Partnership
Agencies Involved:
- Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
Summary:
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a sweeping digital equity order giving itself enormous power to coerce and censor free speech.
The FCC’s order empowered the agency to regulate prices and business decisions of internet service providers (ISPs) so long as the FCC’s purpose was to advance “digital equity.” The power sidestepped the clear text of the Communications Act’s Title II, allowing the government to gain control over the access points to the internet without having to pledge to follow common carrier laws which prohibit speech discrimination. In fact, the order actually — in the words of dissenting commissioner Brendan Carr — barred “ISPs from charging a uniform price to all consumers,” incentivizing a complicated access structure that better enabled and concealed viewpoint discrimination.
The order also vastly expanded the avenues by which the FCC could threaten enforcement actions in order to incentivize more censorship, as it did to Starlink in Initiative #54.
Key Individuals:
- Anna Gomez, FCC Commissioner
- Jessica Rosenworcel, FCC Chair
- Geoffrey Starks, FCC Commissioner
