from the I-have-zero-ideological-consistency-whatsoever dept
As somebody who has covered the telecom and media industries professionally for decades, there’s simply of no limit of problems in both sectors competent federal regulators could be taking aim at. Broadband price gouging by monopolies, widespread telecom privacy and security failures, or the obvious harm of unchecked media consolidation all come quickly to mind.
Instead of tackling any of this, new Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr has spent the lion’s share of his first months in office engaged in erratic zealotry, whether it’s abusing FCC authority to harass journalists who refuse to kiss Donald Trump’s ass, or investigating Verizon and Comcast for not being racist enough.
Last week Brendan took a break from abusing government power to abuse government power in a slightly different way — harassing Google for not including enough religious programming in its YouTube TV live streaming television lineup:
“FCC Chairman Brendan Carr sent a letter to the CEOs of Alphabet and Google, calling out the refusal of YouTube TV to carry a network, Great American Family, as a potential case of discrimination against faith-based programming.”
It is, of course, up to a cable or streaming company as to what channels it delivers to its audience. This is generally dictated, fairly coldly and mathematically, by which channels attract viewership eyeballs, and protected by the First Amendment. It’s not generally based on the random-ass zealotry of the head of the Federal Communications Commission.
In his letter, Carr tries to conflate Google’s refusal to offer users access to a barely watched religious programming with the broader false Republican claim that tech companies–that have tripped over their own asses to appease Republican ideology in recent years — “censor Republican viewpoints”:
Carr, again, could be doing any number of things to actually help markets function or improve consumer welfare. Instead he’s harassing a streaming TV provider he has no authority over for not carrying a religious channel not all that many people watched in the first place. This again aligns pretty well with the MAGA mantra that they believe in “free speech,” but only if they agree with what’s being said.
You’ll recall we went through something similar when DirecTV was accused of “censorship” because they refused to carry OAN, an unhinged and barely watched right wing propaganda network pretending to be journalism. They didn’t carry the channel because it wasn’t worth it financially. There’s nothing illegal or nefarious going on in either case. Carr’s complaint is baseless.
Carr has no legal leverage to force a streaming TV provider to do anything, but he dresses up his whining as if it’s a very serious good faith inquiry to “better understand the nature of carriage policies in the virtual MVPD sector.”
We’ve long established that Carr is a rank hypocrite: routinely changing his stance on what authority the FCC has. He’s been at the forefront of insisting the agency has no authority to police predatory behavior by giant telecoms or protect consumers, yet he routinely oversteps the agency’s authority when it’s time to pursue his fringe zealotry, whatever form it takes from week to week.
This all aligns with the broader GOP propaganda campaign to censor anything critical of Republican policies, while mandating the widespread distribution of right wing ideologies. It’s lazy cover for the fact that most Republican policies and ideologies aren’t popular; thus require being shoveled down the public’s throat whether they like it or not, leveraging the abuse of government power if necessary.
Like most companies, Google signed up for Trumpism because they wanted some mindless deregulation, a heightened war on labor, and some tax breaks. But as is always the case with authoritarianism (or say, Bespin’s gas mining trade deal with the Empire), most of these companies are quickly figuring out they may have bitten off more than they can chew.
They thought they might be getting another Ajit Pai — a corporatist lackey who simply rubber stamped the interests of corporate power. But authoritarianism is something much worse, as everybody — including many of the companies that signed up for it — are going to continue to learn in painful detail.
Filed Under: authoritarian, brendan carr, cable tv, fcc, propaganda, religious programming, streaming, telecom
Companies: google
