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Project 2025 - what is it?
"Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise" is a conservative playbook for reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration, commonly referred to as Project 2025. It was written by the Heritage Foundation but with contributions from over 300 experts, oversight from a 54-member advisory board and support from over 100 conservative organizations. It runs to 800 pages, and is a detailed plan of the policies that a Republican administration should seek to enact immediately on taking office, across a broad swathe of policy areas covering all government departments.
Kevin Roberts, the heritage Foundation's president, describes components of the plan. The next conservative president, he says, will focus on “four broad fronts that will decide America’s future”:
- Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.
- Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.
- Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.
- Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely — what our Constitution calls the “Blessings of Liberty.”
Given the importance and prominence of this document in discussions around the future of America under a possible second Trump presidency, over the coming months we will explore some of the key policies that are set out in the document, look at where similar policies have been tried by the states previously, and attempt to assess their effect.
We have contributed some of these articles to a wider examination of Project 2025 by Fulcrum: "a platform where insiders and outsiders to politics are informed, meet, talk, and act to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives." Sign up to the Fulcrum newsletter to get articles delivered directly to your inbox.
What is the FCC?
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates U.S. communications, promoting free speech, economic growth, and equitable access to advanced connectivity. Its goals include supporting diverse viewpoints, job creation, secure networks, updated infrastructure, prudent use of taxpayer money, and “ensuring that every American has a fair shot at next-generation connectivity”. The FCC is an independent agency led by five President-appointed Commissioners serving five-year terms, with typically three Commissioners aligning with the President's party, with the Chairperson setting the agency's overall agenda.
A significant portion of the FCC's budget ($390.2 million requested in 2023) is self-funded, coming from regulatory fees and spectrum auction revenue. The agency's specialized bureaus focus on 5G transitions, net neutrality, and FCC-licensed entity mergers. It also manages the Universal Service Fund, which supports rural broadband, low-income programs, and connectivity for schools and healthcare facilities.
Project 2025 & the FCC:
Project 2025 has four main goals with the FCC: reining in Big Tech, promoting national security, unleashing economic prosperity, and ensuring FCC accountability and good governance. Today, we’ll focus on reining in Big Tech.
What the FCC “Reining in Big Tech” Could Look Like
The FCC plays a pivotal role in regulating Big Tech companies like Meta, Google, and X, which significantly influence public discourse and market dynamics. These companies are often criticized for using their market dominance, enabled by favorable regulations, to suppress diverse political viewpoints and not pay a fair share towards programs which benefit them. Project 2025 has several initiatives aiming to address these issues:
Reform of how Section 230 is Interpreted: Section 230 currently provides websites, including social media platforms, with immunity from liability for content posted by users. Project 2025 proposes the FCC clarify this immunity does not apply universally to all content decisions, and establish guidelines to delineate when these protections are appropriate.
Implement New Transparency Rules: Have the FCC impose transparency requirements on Big Tech, similar to those for broadband providers. Require mandatory disclosures about content moderation policies and practices and create transparent appeals processes for content removal decisions.
Legislative Changes: Have the FCC work with Congress to ensure "Internet companies no longer have carte blanche to censor protected speech while maintaining their Section 230 protections." This could include introducing anti-discrimination provisions to prevent bias or censorship of political viewpoints.
Notable National Section 230 Legislation:
- The Break Up Big Tech Act of 2020: Aims to limit the immunity granted to interactive computer services under Section 230(c).
- The Protect Speech Act: Aims to ensure that immunity under Section 230 incentivizes online platforms to responsibly address illegal content.
- The CASE-IT Act: Seeks to hold Big Tech companies accountable for their content moderation practices.
- The Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act: Aims to prevent interactive computer services from claiming immunity for claims involving their use of algorithms to rank, promote, recommend, or alter the delivery or display of information.
- PACT Act: Requires transparency, accountability, and protections for consumers online.
Two Influential State Bills:
- Texas: prohibits companies from removing content based on their authors’ viewpoint
- Florida: bars companies from removing politicians from their site
Empower Consumers: Have the FCC and Congress prioritize "user control" as an express policy goal. Section 230 does encourage platforms to provide tools for users to moderate content themselves, including choosing content filters and fact-checkers. They also advocate for stricter age verification measures.
Fair Contribution to the Universal Service Fund (USF): Require Big Tech companies to contribute to the USF. Currently, the USF is funded by charges on traditional telecommunications services, an outdated model as internet usage shifts to broadband. Big Tech is not currently required to contribute to this fund.
Is Project 2025 Justified in Seeking these Changes?
On the surface, Project 2025's proposal to hold Big Tech accountable and "protect free speech" appears justified. There's a broad consensus that Big Tech should not have total immunity and should bear some responsibility for their platforms' impact on users and content promotion. However, the implications of these changes could potentially cause more harm than good.
For example, requiring platforms to host all content under anti-discrimination laws could inadvertently protect harmful speech. Broad applications of these rules and allowing self-censorship might limit effective moderation and allow harmful content to spread unchecked, posing risks to public health and increasing abuse and discrimination.
The debate over whether internet platforms should be held responsible for the content they host continues across the political spectrum. Courts and Congress face the challenge of balancing the risks of over-moderation, which could result in the unnecessary removal of content due to fear of litigation, and under-moderation, which could allow illegal or harmful content to thrive.
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