Tag: fcc

FCC Probe into ‘The View’ Heats Up: Media Research Center Submits 2,473 Separate Pieces of Evidence Documenting ‘Pervasive Bias’

In January, The Gateway Pundit reported that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced a crackdown on partisan talk shows in both daytime and late-night in an effort to provide equal treatment for political candidates.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said at the time, “For years, legacy TV networks assumed that their late night & daytime talk shows qualify as “bona fide news” programs – even when motivated by purely partisan political purposes.”

In February, the FCC is launched an investigation into ABC’s “The View” following an appearance by Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, the first political candidate to appear on the program following the announcement in January.

At the time, Talarico was facing other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), in the Democrat primary. Republicans Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), state Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX) faced off in the GOP primary.

Yet, as Fox News reported at the time, ABC’s parent company, Disney, never made an equal-time filing to the FCC regarding Talarico’s recent appearance, which would implicitly indicate to the FCC that Disney believes “The View” is bona fide news and would be exempt from the policy.

The equal opportunity requirement applies to all legally filed candidates on a ballot regardless of political party, meaning all eligible Democratic primary candidates would require equal time. Notably, Talarico received roughly nine minutes of airtime in one segment while his top primary rival, Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, had roughly 17 minutes of airtime across three segments during her appearance on “The View” last month.

The source noted that not only would ABC require equal airtime for Republican candidates on the ballot like incumbent Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn and his primary rivals. It would also apply to Ahmad Hassan, the little-known candidate running against Talarico and Crockett in the Democratic primary.

In a letter to FCC division chief Maria Mullarkey, Media Research Center (MRC) President David Bozell wrote, “For nearly four decades, the Media Research Center (MRC) has been an unrelenting media watchdog and a counterforce to activism in America’s newsrooms, broadcast networks, and Big Tech platforms. As such, the MRC is uniquely qualified to respond to the Commission’s request for comment on Disney/ABC’s petition to declare that the daytime television program The View qualifies as a bona fide news interview program.”

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FCC Wants to Kill Burner Phones By Forcing Telecoms to Get All Customers’ IDs

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to make it effectively impossible for people to buy what many call burner phones—a phone not explicitly linked to your identity at the point of purchase—which would impact privacy-conscious people, to domestic abuse survivors, to journalists, and many more. The FCC plans to do this by legally forcing the country’s telecoms to store a wealth of personal information about essentially all phone customers, including a government issued identification number and their physical address, alarming privacy advocates and civil rights activists who compare the measures to those from authoritarian countries where it can be difficult to buy a mobile phone plan without giving up your identity.

The proposed change would drastically shake up how people obtain phone plans in the U.S., and have all sorts of privacy and cybersecurity knock-on effects. The FCC is proposing the data collection partly as a way to combat scammers, with telecoms being required to collect other information on business and foreign customers like the intended use case of their bulk phone plan purchase and their IP address. But the changes would mean telecoms collect data on all new and renewing customers, and the FCC provides a long list of other things that the collected data could help authorities with.

“For decades, civil libertarians have looked overseas at authoritarian countries where the government requires people to register to get a mobile phone to ensure they can be tracked. We never thought that would happen here,” Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project told 404 Media in an email. “But make no mistake: with this rulemaking, the government is contemplating taking away people’s ability to get a burner phone, which will hurt low-income people, domestic violence victims, and anyone else who cares about their privacy.”

In a synopsis of the proposed changes, the FCC writes, “Specifically, we seek comment on requiring originating providers to, at a minimum, obtain and retain the name, physical address, government issued identification number, and an alternate telephone number of any new and renewing customer before granting access to its services.” The goal of collecting this data, the FCC writes, is to deter some scammers from getting onto a telecom network in the first place, and so “enforcers will be better able to identify the scammers when they do.” The FCC compares the changes to the sort of data collected by banks to prevent money laundering.

One section stresses that the newly collected data would help “law enforcement to more easily identify callers that use the network to perpetuate crimes by ensuring that voice providers have accurate and complete customer information.” It goes on to ask if the data would help identify people buying and selling illicit goods; the investigation of “fraud, espionage, or influence operations that undermine national security”, and “address abuse in text messaging networks.”

“Criminals continue to leverage the anonymity provided by phone calls and texts to defraud Americans and exploit communications networks to further other crimes,” one section reads.

At the moment, the FCC is seeking comments about its proposed changes, with interested or concerned parties—think telecom companies, law enforcement, or privacy advocates—able to weigh in. But the intention of the FCC is clear: the agency wants telecoms to be legally obligated to collect much more personally identifying information on new and returning customers, linking them directly to their phone number and phone usage data. The FCC also asks whether the amount of data collected should change depending on whether a customer is seeking a prepaid or a postpaid service plan.

Multiple privacy and technology experts strongly pushed back against the proposed changes. “This proposal by the FCC will do little to combat scams and robocalls, since most people doing that will have no trouble creating fake documentation or identities,” Cooper Quintin, security researcher and senior public interest technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told 404 Media. “Given this administration’s crackdown on free expression, protest, immigrants, and women’s health we have trouble seeing this as a bold attack on freedom of communication. They want to take away our ability to make an anonymous phone call.”

Eric Null, the director of the Privacy & Data Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology, told 404 Media in an emailed statement “To address the scourge of illegal robocalls, the FCC has unfortunately proposed to force every wireless subscriber in the nation to sacrifice their privacy and give up significant personal details before receiving or renewing a wireless line. While some carriers already collect such details, there are specific circumstances where a person may need privacy and anonymity when seeking a cell phone, including if that person is a victim of domestic violence, or is a journalist or whistleblower. This proposal represents a loss of privacy across the board, and from an agency whose remit includes protecting privacy. The FCC might let a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch.”

Cape is a privacy-focused telecom company that limits the amount of data it collects on its customers. John Doyle, the company’s CEO, told 404 Media in an emailed statement “We hate robocalls and support eliminating them, but entrusting telecom carriers to effectively create a nationwide ID registry for every American with a phone is not the solution. Mobile carriers have been breached time and again because the incentives to secure trillions of dollars of legacy architecture aren’t there. Further enriching compromised telecom datasets with government ID, physical addresses, and alternate phone numbers harms our security rather than improving it.”

Given this proposal is in the comments stage, the FCC has many questions it is hoping to receive information on, such as whether “renewing” customers should be only those new to the provider, or those switching plans with their current telecom; or whether they should not allow the use of P.O. boxes or shared office locations as the required “physical address.”

The FCC did not respond to 404 Media’s request for comment. The proposal is open to comments until June 25.

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The FCC Wants Warning Labels for Shows With ‘Transgender’ Content

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering new content ratings for TV shows that depict or discuss gender identity. Doing so would be well outside the FCC’s legal authority, and some free speech organizations warn that such a request could constitute a violation of the First Amendment.

At the direction of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, broadcasters developed content ratings for TV shows, patterned after the ones for movies. The TV ratings span TV-Y (appropriate for all children) to TV-MA (mature audiences only), plus more specific content labels for suggestive dialogue, bad language, sexual content, and violence. They also established the TV Parental Guidelines Oversight Monitoring Board (TVOMB) to administer the new ratings.

The government now suggests those warnings are no longer sufficient.

“Recently, parents have raised concerns that controversial gender identity issues are being included or promoted in children’s programs without providing any disclosure or transparency to parents,” per a public notice the FCC filed in April. “Specifically, the industry guidelines that parents rely on are rating shows with transgender and gender non-binary programming as appropriate for children and young children, and doing so without providing this information to parents, thereby undermining the ability of parents to make informed choices for their families.”

As a result, it continued, “We seek comment here on any changes that can or should be made to the current ratings system to ensure that it is responsive to the issues that parents confront today.”

There are several problems with the memo—starting with the fact that the FCC lacks the authority to create or require new content labels.

The 1996 law did call for the government to create a “television rating code” and an “advisory committee,” unless the private sector “established voluntary rules” to do so within a year of the law’s passage. As the FCC acknowledged in its April memo, “Industry representatives chose to set up their own voluntary system, and the Commission in 1998 found that industry’s approach met the relevant statutory criteria.”

Even setting that aside for the moment, the memo’s phrasing also suggests any “transgender [or] gender non-binary” content is potentially inappropriate for children—after all, why else would it matter if parents were sufficiently warned about it?

This broad scope has First Amendment implications. “If what the Commission is in substance proposing is that any program featuring or discussing transgender and gender non-binary persons be flagged with a content warning, that is the stigmatization and marginalization of an entire segment of the population through the machinery of the ratings system, and it is the kind of viewpoint targeting forbidden by the First Amendment,” according to comments filed to the FCC by The Future of Free Speech, a nonpartisan think at Vanderbilt University.

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The FCC Is Asking the Public to Weigh in on Whether ‘The View’ Is ‘Bona Fide News’ After Disney Files Petition

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr is asking the public to weigh in on whether ABC’s “The View” truly qualifies as a news program, and therefore not subject to broadcast laws requiring it to provide access to differing political views.

Of course, anyone who watches the program at all knows its political views range from left to hard left.

Carr posted on social media on Friday, “Disney has filed a petition with the FCC asking the agency to declare that The View is exempt from the statutory equal opportunities requirements that would otherwise apply to broadcast shows.”

ABC is part of the Disney Corporation.

“Disney argues that The View qualifies as ‘bona fide news’ under the law, comparing itself to Meet The Press or Face The Nation,” he added. “Therefore, Disney argues, it can have one partisan candidate for office on The View while denying equal opportunities to all others.”

Carr noted that the FCC is now seeking public comment on the matter online. “Is The View a ‘bona fide news interview program’?” he asked.

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Disney Begs FCC to Label Far-Left Propaganda Show ‘The View’ as “Bona Fide News” So They Can Handpick Democrat Candidates and Silence Republicans – FCC Chairman Brendan Carr Asks the American People to Weigh In

Disney-owned ABC is now petitioning the Federal Communications Commission to officially declare the screeching harpies on The View as “bona fide news,” giving the daytime talk show a free pass to platform Democrat politicians while blackballing Republicans and dodging equal time rules that apply to every other broadcaster.

This is the same network that spent years pushing nonstop Trump Derangement Syndrome, COVID hysteria, and every woke agenda item under the sun, and now they want the government to rubber-stamp their partisan operation as legitimate “news” journalism? Give us a break.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, one of the few adults left in Washington fighting back against Big Tech and Big Media gatekeepers, just exposed the whole scheme in a blistering public statement that perfectly captures the hypocrisy:

Disney has filed a petition with the FCC asking the agency to declare that The View is exempt from the statutory equal opportunities requirements that would otherwise apply to broadcast shows.

Disney argues that The View qualifies as “bona fide news” under the law, comparing itself to Meet The Press or Face The Nation.

Therefore, Disney argues, it can have one partisan candidate for office on The View while denying equal opportunities to all others.

The FCC is now seeking public comment on Disney’s request to be labeled as “bona fide news.”

Is The View a “bona fide news interview program”?

Under FCC case law, tv shows do not qualify as “bona fide news” if their decisions are based on partisan purposes, such as an intention to advance or harm an individual’s candidacy.

As the Public Notice observes, Congress originally passed the equal opportunities law to prevent media gatekeepers from deciding the outcome of elections. The law, even when it applies, does not prohibit anyone from having any candidate appear on any show. Rather, Congress intended it to empower voters with more information and encourage more speech.

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The FCC Wants Your ID Before You Get a Phone Number

The era of the anonymous phone number could be ending. On April 30, the Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved a proposal requiring telecom providers to verify customers’ identities before activating service.

Government-issued ID, physical address, legal name, and existing phone numbers would all be included. The stated goal is stopping robocalls. The result would be an identity-verification regime covering one of the last semi-anonymous communication tools available to ordinary Americans.

The proposal applies to nearly every voice provider in the country, from traditional carriers and mobile operators to VoIP services. The FCC is seeking public comment on specifics, but the direction is clear.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr framed it around negligent carriers. “As we have continued to investigate the problem of illegal robocalls over the last year, it has become clear that some originating providers are not doing enough to vet their customers, allowing bad actors to infiltrate our U.S. phone networks,” he said. Some providers, he added, “do the bare minimum (or worse) and have become complicit in illegal robocalling schemes.”

That language targets telecom companies and the surveillance targets everyone else.

The framework borrows from banking’s anti-money-laundering rules. The FCC is also asking whether carriers should retain identity documentation for at least four years after a customer leaves and whether they should check customers against law enforcement watchlists. Penalties would shift to a per-call basis, meaning fines of $1,000 to $15,000 for every illegal call a poorly verified customer places.

The real privacy stakes sit in the proposal’s section on prepaid service. Right now, you can pay cash for a prepaid phone and SIM card without showing identification. Journalists use prepaid phones to protect sources, domestic violence survivors use them to avoid being traced, and whistleblowers, activists, or anyone with a reason to separate phone activity from legal identity relies on this.

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FCC Launches UNPRECEDENTED REVIEW OF ABC Stations After Kimmel’s “Expectant Widow” Jab

The federal government is cracking down on ABC’s broadcast licenses in direct response to Jimmy Kimmel’s latest vile comments, this time on First Lady Melania Trump. 

The FCC, under Trump appointee Brendan Carr, is directing eight Disney-owned TV stations to file early license renewals tied explicitly to Kimmel’s “expectant widow” monologue that he may have gotten away with had an assassination attempt against Trump not occurred on the same day.

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung was forthright In a post on X, declaring “Jimmy Kimmel is a shit human being for: Making a disgusting joke about assassinating the President. Doubling down on that joke instead of doing the decent thing by apologizing. ABC needs to fire him immediately and he should be shunned for the rest of his life.”

The controversy erupted after Kimmel, during a skit on his show last Thursday portraying himself as master of ceremonies for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, told Melania Trump: “Mrs Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.”

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FCC Bans Nearly All Wireless Routers Sold in the U.S.

This week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) effectively banned the sale of nearly all wireless routers in the U.S., in yet another example of the government making Americans’ consumer decisions for them.

Ninety-six percent of American adults use the internet, and 80 percent of them use wireless routers—devices that transmit a signal throughout your home via radio waves and allow you to get online without plugging into the wall.

In a Monday announcement, the FCC deemed “all consumer-grade routers produced in foreign countries” potentially unsafe. This followed a national security determination last week, in which members of executive branch agencies concluded that “routers produced in a foreign country, regardless of the nationality of the producer, pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States and to the safety and security of U.S. persons.”

The Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act of 2019 empowered the government “to prevent communications equipment or services that pose a national security risk from entering U.S. networks.” The law directed the FCC to “publish and maintain a list of such equipment or services,” and according to that agency, inclusion on the list “will prevent the marketing, sale, or operation of any such new ‘covered’ equipment within the United States.”

Since wireless routers transmit over radio frequencies, they must be authorized by the FCC to be sold in the U.S.; adding all new foreign-made routers to the “Covered List” means the FCC will not authorize those devices’ transmitters, effectively banning their sale or use.

The announcement specifies that this only applies to new consumer-grade devices and “does not prohibit the import, sale, or use of any existing device models the FCC previously authorized.” It also notes that manufacturers who apply for exemptions on new models can be “granted ‘Conditional Approval’ after finding that such device or devices do not pose such unacceptable risks.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ban will likely make it more difficult for Americans to get wireless routers.

The problem is that banning all foreign-made routers means banning practically all routers. Most manufacturers, including the three largest, make their products overseas.

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Stephen Colbert Hates Black Women and Other Universal Truths

As someone who loves comedy, what a*s-clowns like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert havedone to the concept is like what Harvey Weinstein did to movie production or what Democrats have done to journalism, if journalism were their cellmate in Super-Max. Colbert is the Jeffrey Epstein of truth and Kimmel is the Luigi Mangione of honesty. That’s why it was not shocking to anyone with an IQ larger than their shoe size that Colbert would go on his show and lie, doing his best to help a white guy, James Talarico, beat a black woman, Jasmine Crockett, in the Democratic primary in the Texas Senate race.

First, I have to tell you about the concept of equal time. It is surprising how many “journalists” out there either do not have the mental capacity to understand this very basic concept, or simply are willing to come off as morons for the cause of their party. It’s about half and half, as I think you’d be stunned by just how many of these people have the intelligence of someone who snacked on lead paint chips.

But the concept of equal time is pretty basic: If you are going to have a candidate for office on a show that uses the public airwaves (broadcast tv and radio, not cable or streaming), other legitimate candidates (those who are on the ballot officially) can request an appearance for the same amount of time. This only applies to real candidates, not write-ins, and ONLY for 30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election. The rest of the time, it is a free-for-all and shows can have on whoever they want.

One thing I’ve heard morons in the media claim is that the FCC is monitoring broadcasts or warning networks of the equal time obligations, but that is a lie. The FCC does not monitor any broadcasts, they respond to reports filed by viewers/listeners and anyone else, either for violation of decency rules or equal time. An audience member can’t make a claim for equal time on behalf of someone else; the candidate or politician must. The FCC decides if a claim is valid, period.

This is not rocket science, not even close, which means the people deliberately saying otherwise are lying or don’t have the mental capacity to understand this very basic concept.

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“More Trust in Gas Station Sushi!” — FCC Chair Brendan Carr BLASTS Legacy Media, Colbert, and Dem Hopeful Talarico for FALSELY Claiming Trump’s FCC BLOCKED TV Interview Over Fears Talarico Could Flip Texas

FCC Chair Brendan Carr absolutely eviscerated the fake news peddlers who swallowed hook, line, and sinker a blatant hoax cooked up by late-night comedian Stephen Colbert and far-left Democrat Senate hopeful James Talarico.

Texas Democrat James Talarico apparently teamed up with late-night leftist Stephen Colbert to push a massive, embarrassing HOAX.

The ridiculous claim? That Donald Trump’s FCC supposedly “blocked” a TV interview because they were utterly “worried” Talarico might actually flip the deep-red state of Texas.

In January, The Gateway Pundit reported that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced a crackdown on partisan talk shows in both daytime and late-night in an effort to provide equal treatment for political candidates.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said at the time, “For years, legacy TV networks assumed that their late night & daytime talk shows qualify as “bona fide news” programs – even when motivated by purely partisan political purposes.”

“Today, the FCC reminded them of their obligation to provide all candidates with equal opportunities.”

As a result of the rules, CBS chose not to air an interview between Late Night host Stephen Colbert and Texas Democrat Senate candidate James Talarico on the network.

The interview was instead moved to YouTube, and Colbert was not pleased.

In an effort to look like a free speech warrior, Colbert mentioned Talarico during the show and released a false statement:

Colbert: You know who is not one of my guests tonight? That’s Texas State Representative James Talarico. He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers—who called us directly—that we could not have him on the broadcast. Then I was told in some uncertain terms that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention not having him on.

And because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk—let’s talk about this. This doesn’t just affect interviews. The rules forbid any candidate appearance, including by voice or picture. That’s right. I am absolutely not allowed to show a photo of Texas State Representative James Talarico.

Because that’s not him—that’s a stock photo we found when we Googled “not James Talarico.”

It was a couple of weeks ago, on Carr’s Orders, the SEC opened an investigation into ABC’s The View after their James Talarico interview. That is absolutely shocking. James Talarico did The View before my show?

So I cannot show you any form of James Talarico. I can’t interview James Talarico. I can’t show any pictures of James Talarico.

I’m not even sure I can say the words “James Talarico.” But what I can show you is what we always show when we have to pull material at the last minute: this tasteful nude of Brendan Carr.

Talarico also posted a clip of the segment, further spreading the lie.

“This is the interview Donald Trump didn’t want you to see. His FCC refused to air my interview with Stephen Colbert. Trump is worried we’re about to flip Texas,” Talarico wrote on X that was viewed 12 million times.

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