TikTok: A Keystone for Trump’s First Five-Year Attorney General Reionization Action During the 2016 Black Hole Campaign
There is a document you might have already heard about that could be the basis for Carr’s priorities. He was the FCC chapter leader for the Heritage Foundation’s wishlist for a Donald Trump presidency. Carr proposed limiting immunity for tech companies under Section 241 of the Communications Decency Act, as well as requiring disclosures regarding how platforms prioritize content, and making tech companies pay into a program that funds broadband access in rural areas.
Even if the commission approves any measures that are not bipartisan, Carr will need at least three Republican votes to approve them. The Senate needs to confirm Mark Meador to join the commission.
The new FCC chair has also indicated that he could use his power to revoke spectrum licenses for networks over their decisions to host speech, when he deems it a violation of the equal time rule. This came up in a scuffle about NBC’s hosting of Kamala Harris on “Saturday Night Live” before the election — though the network seemed to comply with the rules for giving candidates similar time and placement on public airwaves by offering Trump an appearance on air later on.
The bipartisan law banning TikTok was enacted January 19th, but Trump is trying to circumvent it by issuing an executive order. He warned on Truth Social that he would be asking companies to continue working with TikTok and that they would have to pay millions of dollars in fines if they did not. TikTok briefly went down on Sunday but quickly came back online — though it was removed from Apple and Google’s app stores and has not come back.
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In a statement, Carr named a few areas of focus: “issues ranging from tech and media regulation to unleashing new opportunities for jobs and growth through agency actions on spectrum, infrastructure, and the space economy.”
On top of all this, the rule the order says it’s “not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States,” which makes it even less reliable as a defense for companies.
But the service was restored Sunday morning, after Donald Trump, at that time still the president-elect, wrote on Truth Social that he planned to take executive action to postpone the ban law’s start date and provide legal cover to TikTok’s business partners once he entered the White House.
“The minute Trump withdraws his support — if he does — that’s when TikTok goes dark,” Calo said. “And that’s why everyone is currying Donald Trump’s favor.”
“The law confers an extraordinary amount of power upon the office of the president,” said Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington who specializes in tech policy.
Some legal experts expect Trump’s executive action to be challenged in court by a tech company to seek a “declaratory judgement,” a ruling to clear up the muddy legal picture. They believe Apple and Google are concerned about potential shareholder lawsuits about the market value hit the big tech companies could take if they run afoul of a federal statute.
Rozenshtein said if Trump tells Congress those things have happened, when they have not, in order to extend the legal start date of the ban, then “that would effectively mean one of his first acts as president would be lying to Congress.”
The text of the order said this will give Trump’s administration time “to pursue a resolution that protects national security while saving a platform used by 170 million Americans.”
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In response, on the eve of that date, firms that provide web hosting and cloud infrastructure to TikTok, including Oracle and Akamai, dropped the video app. Google and Apple removed TikTok from their app stores. Millions of Americans were left dark for about 14 hours when TikTok switched off its server.
The act of Congress does not change even if Trump tries to clarify the legal landscape for TikTok by extending the law’s start date.
The law will still be in effect despite those actions. As far as I am aware, it is still violating the law, and it doesn’t seem to have stopped.