An FCC commissioner showed up at a tech-policy conference in Washington this week to urge one of her colleagues to stop telling private companies how to do their work—and the speaker was not a Republican appointee on the FCC.
Instead, it was Anna Gomez, a Democratic appointee, who used her speech at the State of the Net tech-policy conference to denounce FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s recent moves to investigate broadcasters for alleged unfairness towards Republican candidates.
“During these last few weeks, the commission has acted in ways that give me pause,” Gomez said. “This FCC has been weighing in on partisan issues that go far beyond our core responsibilities.”
Without once saying Carr’s name, Gomez decried “recent investigations launched against broadcast stations simply because their content or coverage is perceived to be unfavorable to those in power.”
Within days of President Trump promoting him to lead the FCC, Carr launched inquiries of multiple broadcast organizations subject to FCC licensing. He reopened complaints about ABC, CBS, and NBC affiliates over alleged bias in favor of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris; asked CBS for raw video footage to confirm that it had not favorably edited a 60 Minutes interview of Kamala Harris (the network complied, revealing no unusual editing); opened an inquiry into whether commercial sponsorships of NPR and PBS amounted to paid advertising; and started an investigation into the CBS Bay Area radio affiliate KCBS for its coverage of immigration enforcement actions in San Jose.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr and President Trump at a November SpaceX launch. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
“I am concerned that this is a clear attempt to weaponize our licensing authority, to instill fear in broadcast stations and influence a network’s editorial decisions,” Gomez said.
“The good news is, the law and the Constitution are squarely on the side of press freedom,” she continued. “The Communications Act, which established the commission as independent, clearly prohibits the commission from censoring broadcasters.”
Gomez—nominated by President Biden to the FCC in 2023 after his prior nominee, Gigi Sohn, fell victim to character attacks largely unanswered by the White House—also called out Carr’s moves to challenge social platforms over allegedly biased content-moderation choices.
“I’m afraid there are other ways the FCC may be weaponized to threaten free expression and unleash dark forces that are against the moderation of harmful content,” Gomez said, again without breathing Carr’s name. “The administration and others have not been shy about expressing their desire to have total and complete control to undermine, threaten, and intimidate online companies that do not toe the line.”
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Gomez, who opened her speech by commenting on how X has become overrun by “hate, misogyny, racism, and antisemitism” as well as “verifiable lies,” said the FCC should not attempt to undermine the protections granted to online forums in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
At the tail end of Trump’s first term, he issued an executive order directing the FCC to exercise authority it does not have to take action against online forums that engage in perceived bad-faith content-moderation choices. That went nowhere before Biden’s inauguration, after which the FCC dropped the matter.
Gomez urged the FCC to resist trying to edit “CDA 230” through its own rulemaking process.
“When it comes to online speech, the government should not intimidate private companies who are responsive to consumer demands for content moderation,” she said. “Ultimately, only Congress can change and amend the law that gave us the Internet we have today.”
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About Rob Pegoraro
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