Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios
The FTC's solicitation of public comments about online speech moderation, along with related moves by the FCC, are part of a plan to "sabotage" tech platforms' content moderation efforts, per a new report shared first with Axios by the Chamber of Progress.
Why it matters: The left-leaning tech advocacy group says the agencies are going beyond their authority with the goals they're trying to achieve.
- "Despite bad-faith complaints about 'censorship,' the FCC and FTC are overstepping their authority in order to force platforms to carry pernicious speech and turn online communities into anything-goes cesspools," the report's author, Hope Ledford, writes.
What's inside: The report digs into efforts to repeal or weaken Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act by President Trump and other Republicans, which tech platforms rely on to be able to host and moderate content without massive liability.
- Those efforts are without legal merit, the report argues, and are part of what it calls the MAGA agenda to squelch independent media and criticism of the Trump administration online.
Ledford writes that the FTC move "reveals the Trump administration's intent to scrutinize or challenge content moderation, disguised as protecting consumers or promoting competition."
- Consumer protection law and the FTC's ability to police speech that is false or misleading to consumers does not override the First Amendment, she writes.
- Without platforms freely being able to moderate content as they see fit, the web will become a "free-for-all junkyard of harmful content," Ledford writes.
