President Trump plans to nominate official for FCC amid social media push

President Donald Trump, pressing for new social media regulations, plans to nominate a senior administration official to be a member of the Federal Communications Commission. The nomination of Nathan Simington, a senior adviser at the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, comes after the White House abruptly announced in early August it was withdrawing the nomination of FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly to serve another term. President Trump issued an executive order in May requiring the NTIA to petition the FCC asking the commission to impose new regulations on social media moderation practices. Simington helped draft the May executive order. By contrast, Commissioner O’Rielly expressed skepticism about whether the FCC had authority to issue new regulations covering social media companies. NTIA asked the FCC to limit protections for social media companies under Section 230, a provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that shields social media companies from liability for content posted by their users and allows them to remove lawful but objectionable posts.