A legacy media host teed up Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr to join the chorus of calls for censorship following the assassination of Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk, but Carr didn’t take the bait.
At the Politico AI & Tech Summit on Tuesday, Carr acknowledged the tragedy of Kirk’s assassination but denounced Big Tech’s history of censorship and supported recent shifts towards free speech at X and Meta. During the interview, the FCC Chair told Politico Senior Executive Editor Alexander Burns, “I think we saw a really dangerous bent towards censorship, particularly during COVID. Anytime you have a situation in which there's an increase in government control, you necessarily see a decrease in free speech because the two of those are counterweights.”
Carr added, “And I've been really pleased, frankly, over the last couple of years, where a lot of social media companies have embraced or re-embraced the idea of free speech online. I think Elon Musk and X had a great deal to do with that. I was pleased to see Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook join him.”
Following Kirk’s assassination on Sept. 10, numerous public officials have condemned the abhorrent social media responses. CNN Media Analyst Sara Fischer and former Biden DOJ chief technologist Laura Edelson, as a guest on CBS News, both used the response to Kirk’s death to advocate for content moderation on social media. Edelson even pointed the finger at Zuckerberg and Musk for easing up the rampant censorship that once existed on their platforms.
Carr would not be pressured into this view.
Burns continued to push Carr towards content moderation during the event, asking, “Is there a role for content moderation on that kind of material where it’s not ideological content, not left-right bias, just do you want to see a man lose his life in the most appalling way?” In response to both questions, Carr repeatedly stressed that social media platforms should focus on empowering users to decide what they want to see rather than censoring content.
Both Carr and White House Senior Advisor for AI Sriram Krishnan also addressed elements of the administration’s AI Action Plan, including the prohibition on contracting with AI companies that infuse their chatbots with woke beliefs. Carr also told Burns that the FCC would be looking into “preempting state laws” and regulations that could block AI infrastructure.
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.
