About 5 million years ago back in octoberFederal Communications Chairman Ajit Pai has vowed to ‘continue with a rule’ to ‘clarify’ Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a key legal shield that protects online platforms from liability for certain types of content used by users placed. Apparently, however, he quietly let the clock run on these plans.
Now, less than three months later, Pai says he no longer intends to follow it, because if you did not know, then he just has too little time? Drats. (Pai’s retires from the agency on January 20 before the incoming Biden administration can give him the chance).
“I do not intend to proceed with the notification of proposed regulation at the FCC,” he said. Protocol explained on Thursday that there is simply not enough time to complete the necessary administrative steps to resolve the rule provision.
Of course, he may have dropped these plans as well because the FCC did not have the legal authority to follow up with them in the first place.
A senseless executive order on social media that President Donald Trump issued in September, the FCC instructed to enter Article 230 and investigate websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube to erase alleged anti-conservative prejudice. Trump’s claims come after an explosion temper tantrums – even for him – over social media platforms to check his posts.
G / O Media can get a commission
If carried out, this reinterpretation of Article 230 threatened to break the internet in all sorts of ways. At least in theory. Namely, it would establish the Republican-controlled FCC to discriminate against Article 230 of all platforms that Trump thought against conservatives, thus making the platforms vulnerable to lawsuits for moderating user-posted content. The thing is, the FCC is simple does not have the power to A) to regulate the internet to such an extent or B) federal law rewritten willy nilly.
It’s worth mentioning that the Democrats are now in control of the Senate, Elected President Joe Biden stand ready to fast follows his nomination for the FCC’s next chairman and reverses possibly Pai’s most controversial policy decision: kill net neutrality protection that has prevented ISPs from restricting access to online content or charging more for the use of certain websites.
Pai’s remarks come during an interview on C-SPAN’s “The Communicators” that was launched this weekend, in which the chairman on Wednesday also strongly condemned the insurgency attempt in DC that left at least four people death. He calls the violent scene that erupted on Capitol Hill “outrageous and extremely disappointing to those who cherish American democracy.”
And while Pai largely did not comment publicly on the president’s antics during his tenure, he reprimanded Trump for spreading unfounded election conspiracy theories that should not be “conceded.”
“I think it was a terrible mistake to suggest that the outcome of the election, and especially the process that unfolded in the Senate and House yesterday, could change in any way,” he said. “It was a terrible mistake and one that I think should not be conceded in any way.”
[Protocol]