FCC commissioner: If social media companies wish to be political actors they shouldn't have special protection
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr joins Tucker Carlson on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'
Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Brendan Carr scolded Twitter on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Wednesday for attaching a fact check to a tweet from President Trump, saying the decision represents "their own political, partisan viewpoint."
"Since the 2016 election, the far left has hopped from hoax to hoax to hoax to try to explain the laws of the ballot box," Carr told host Tucker Carlson. "One of them is, they go after online platforms for the crime, in their view, of being neutral in the 2016 election, and they are committed to making sure these online platforms are not neutral again."
On Tuesday, Twitter slapped a fact check notification on one of Trump's tweets for the first time, cautioning users that despite the president’s claims about mail-in voting, “fact checkers” say there is “no evidence” that it would increase fraud risks.
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Carr accused Twitter of engaging in "political speech against the president," arguing that "these are not fact checks that are going on, this is opinion journalism."
"They've gone to Congress time and time again, and represented under oath that they don't engage in partisan political bias," Carr said. "And then we see conduct like this, just a regular business practice."
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"I think going forward if these entities want to be political actors, like they pointed out, they have First Amendment rights," Carr added, but "they shouldn't necessarily have these special bonus protections that only that set of political actors have."
Carr spoke moments after the White House announced that President Trump plans to sign an executive order on social media, though the purpose and intent of the order remain unconfirmed.
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"Doing nothing at this point is not an option in my view," Carr said. "These companies have told us exactly what they are going to do, which is engage in partisan political activity."
Fox News' Gregg Re contributed to this report.
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