Meet Brendan Carr: The Man Who Could Lead the GOP's War on Platform Moderation

Current Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has led the agency for nearly four years, and it’s unclear how much longer he plans to stay on. A President Donald Trump win carries a high likelihood that FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr will be selected — not elected — as the next chairman. And his first task will certainly be to regulate social media in America.

Even with a Joe Biden victory, Carr’s position at the FCC means he is likely to lead the GOP’s policy war on Big Tech for the foreseeable future, and he’s prepped and ready for the long haul. He regularly chats with politicians about how to revise Section 230, one of the most pivotal internet speech laws in legislation. “Reforming 230 is just the start. That’s just step one,” Commissioner Carr said. “We need to go beyond 230 reform. We need to strengthen the tools we have in antitrust. We need to adopt new transparency rules that would be outside of the 230 framework.”

He was asked whether these proposals were at odds with mainstream conservatism, as in, does the right’s threats against tech mean that the future of the GOP is pro-regulation now? Commissioner Carr got dodgy. “There is a way to talk about this as a continuation of conservative principles,” he argued. “We stand against concentrations of power that are going to limit freedom and limit individual liberty. You can very neatly draw a thread from traditional, Reagan-era, conservative principles all the way through where we should stand on Big Tech.” And then he conceded a little, before dodging again: “You may describe it as more regulatory. I don’t necessarily quibble with your framing. I can frame it as a rejection of abject corporatism.”