US President-elect Donald Trump is about to take office, and while there's been a lot of attention paid to his stance on immigration, abortion rights and democracy, less attention has been paid to how he might threaten internet freedom.
Tech experts warn that his appointment to lead the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and other government agencies appears to be leaning toward censoring speech on the Internet and generally making it less free than in years past.
Brendan Carr is one of the more high-profile figures who may pose a threat to free speech on the internet. Kahl currently serves as a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the media, and Trump appointed Kahl to lead the agency. Kahl has positioned himself as a critic of Big Tech, and while the president-elect calls him a "free speech warrior," Kahl has targeted speech on the internet in the past.
“He will try to turn the FCC into the online speech police,” Evan Greer, director of the digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, told Al Jazeera.
In "Project 2025," a right-wing governance guide proposed for the incoming administration, Carr's chapter on the FCC advocates repealing "the current practice of Section 230." Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects platforms from liability for user posts and allows companies to moderate them. In Project 2025, Carr argued that Section 230 should be reformed “fundamentally,” including limiting companies’ ability to moderate or remove posts that reflect “core political views.”
In his letter to social media companies, he also accused fact-checking services of being part of a "censorship cartel" and warned that a new Republican Congress and administration would "censor" social media practices that "restrict (free speech) rights."
"He has made it clear that he intends to use the power of the FCC to target 'Big Tech censorship,' meaning he will punish any tech company that does not promote right-wing propaganda for his personal satisfaction," Franks said. is Professor of Intellectual Property, Technology and Civil Rights Law at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
In the past, Kahl has threatened to revoke the broadcast licenses of news networks he deems not "in the public interest," including CBS for airing an interview with President Trump's opponent Kamala Harris. The interview was criticized by Trump. Although he calls himself a defender of free speech, he also appears to support censorship of speech that the new administration does not like.
As for the Federal Trade Commission, which aims to protect consumers, Trump selected Commissioner Andrew Ferguson to lead the agency. Ferguson is also seen as a threat to internet freedom. He believes big tech companies have been censoring conservative speech and wants to use his power to fight back against that behavior.
Ferguson hopes to use antitrust laws to go after the companies, claiming that as FTC chairman he will help the Trump administration "eliminate uncooperative bureaucrats." That could mean getting rid of key career civil servants and replacing them with Trump loyalists.
“Ferguson is really singing a lot of the same tunes with a slightly different set of authorities,” said Matt Wood, general counsel and vice president of policy at the nonprofit Free Press.
Greer told Al Jazeera that Ferguson has made clear he will use the FTC to go after online speech related to gender-affirming care, LGBTQ issues and abortion.
Experts and free speech advocates warn that both nominees appear to be seeking to use the power they wield to elevate conservative voices and silence those they disagree with.
"There's also Harmeet Dhillon, whom Trump appointed to lead the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, another proponent of the 'conservative censorship' myth with a history of aggressively attacking social media companies and others seeking to maintain record of entities with the lowest anti-censorship standards - discrimination," Franks said.
Dhillon is a lawyer and conservative activist who defended a Google employee accused of sexism who was fired during Trump's first administration after he wrote a memo stating that due to Biological differences, female programmers are less efficient.
As head of the civil rights division, Dillon will be able to hold tech companies accountable through lawsuits for alleged violations of conservative civil liberties and could lead to the companies allowing more content on their platforms that targets minorities and other groups. Many abusive or threatening remarks. rhetoric from the left and less critical of the incoming government. In fact, in announcing his selection, Trump praised Dillon for taking on Big Tech and "prosecuting companies that use woke policies."
In addition to these nominees, there are others who will advise Trump, such as Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and his tech billionaire friend David Sacks, who Musk supported him throughout his acquisition of Twitter. They are known to promote the idea that conservative voices are censored on the internet, and they are fierce opponents of liberal ideology.
Many First Amendment experts worry that Trump's nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, a former public defender and Trump loyalist, will go after people the administration doesn't like if confirmed reporter. In fact, he said multiple times on former Trump aide Steve Bannon's podcast that he would do so. It could also be an internet freedom issue, as he could use the country's vast surveillance state to do this.
“At some point, it’s almost difficult to separate our digital rights from our physical rights,” Greer said.
Arguably, when a person is under surveillance, their Internet freedom is limited because they are then less able to move freely without fear of retaliation. This creates a situation where people are more likely to self-censor.
For example, during the first Trump administration, the government monitored the social media profiles of Black Lives Matter activists, raising concerns about their ability to freely express political views on the internet.
The attacks can be seen as part of what Wood calls the administration's "broader attack on free speech," which includes Trump's threats, like Carr's, to revoke the broadcast licenses of news companies that report news in a way he doesn't like.
It's unclear whether all of Trump's nominees will be confirmed by the Senate when they come up for vote in the coming weeks, but what is certain is that many of them share similar ideals and could fundamentally change or Restricting free speech on the Internet.