Trump's FCC Nominee Asked Fox News To Help Destroy Section 230 To Help Elect More Republicans

Trump's FCC Nominee Asked Fox News To Help Destroy Section 230 To Help Elect More Republicans

4 years ago
Anonymous $RGO3jP_V_c

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20201125/10483745771/trumps-fcc-nominee-asked-fox-news-to-help-destroy-section-230-to-help-elect-more-republicans.shtml

We've written a few times about Nathan Simington, who is currently nominated to take over Michael O'Rielly's seat at the FCC. As you'll recall, O'Rielly's renomination was withdrawn after he dared to give a talk in which he noted, accurately, that the 1st Amendment means that the government cannot regulate how private companies handle content moderation. Simington, in contrast to O'Rielly, has been at the center of various efforts to force social media companies to host speech they do not wish to host (a clear violation of the 1st Amendment, which does not allow for the government to compel speech).

Simington was the guy who apparently wrote the original executive order that kicked off the ridiculous (and still unconstitutional) FCC review process of Section 230. He also works at NTIA, which is run by Adam Candeub, a guy who has spent the last few years attacking (or misrepresenting) Section 230, after he filed a failed lawsuit against Twitter on behalf of a white supremacist. When the lawsuit was filed, Candeub appeared not to understand 230 when I engaged with him in an email exchange. Since then he's spent the intervening years, trying to change 230 to match his false belief of what it should be.