Trump’s Tech Haves and Have-Nots

In tech, the story is going to be very much about the haves and have-nots over the next four years. Some tech firms will have juice with Donald Trump and some won’t. Trump’s Sunday night announcement that Brendan Carr will lead the Federal Communications Commission is more bad news for Meta Platforms, which increasingly looks to be one of the biggest tech losers in the Trump victory. 

Carr has been a vocal proponent of pushing back at big tech companies that limit conservative voices through content moderation, including by watering down the protections for tech firms provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. He made the case for this approach in a chapter of the Project 2025 conservative manifesto. As Carr notes in the Project 2025 chapter, a former FCC general counsel has argued that the agency has the power to interpret Section 230.