https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/m7a7da/gop-jams-through-appointment-of-unqualified-trump-ally-to-the-fcc

The Senate today voted 49-47 along party lines to move forward with an unqualified Trump ally to the FCC for a five-year term. It’s an aggressive move by the GOP experts say will not only help Trump attack free speech online, but could mire the Biden FCC in partisan gridlock for years. A final vote is expected later Tuesday.

Trump pick Nathan Simington has no experience whatsoever when it comes to telecom or consumer protection. What Simington does have is the willingness to pursue Trump’s heavily-criticized plan to use the FCC to undermine Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation say is essential to protecting free speech online. While Trump claims attacking the law will thwart the nonexistent “censorship” of Conservatives on social media, the real goal appears to be to thwart the policing of disinformation by social media giants. But experts have spent months pointing out in elaborate detail how attacking the law will result in corporations being more likely to censor user content, not less.It’s a dumb idea opposed by a broad, bipartisan coalition of experts. And while Simington’s effort to attack the law will be an uphill climb in the wake of Trump’s defeat, even Conservative telecom policy experts say Simington could make a mess of the court system as it tries to deal with lawsuits related to social media content moderation.