Ajit Pai Kills Effort to Stop Big Tech Censorship, ‘Wont Second Guess’ Trump Ban

The Trump-appointed Chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, has killed a last-minute effort to curb Big Tech censorship, saying there is insufficient time to take action.

Pai, who is set to step down from the FCC later this month, said he would not proceed with a proposed rulemaking change to Section 230, the law that shields tech companies from lawsuits related to censorship of First Amendment protected content, or defamation.

In an interview with C-SPAN, the FCC chairman also said he would not “second-guess” recent decisions by Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms to ban President Trump.

Asked if he agreed with Facebook and Twitter’s decisions, Pai responded “given the circumstances we saw yesterday, I’m not going to second-guess those decisions.”

Asked why he would not move forward on the proposed rule-making change, Pai said “there’s simply not sufficient time to complete the administrative steps necessary in order to resolve the rule-making.”

Pai’s fellow commissioner, Brendan Carr, disagrees with this view. In December, he highlighted a plan to move forward on a Section 230 rule-change on an accelerated timetable.

The outgoing FCC chairman said that the matter should be debated by Congress, both houses of which will soon be in the hands of Democrats.

“It’s a very complicated issue, one that I think Congress will have to study and deliberate on very seriously. I personally would think about it more carefully in terms of the immunity provision, for example, but those are the kinds of things that I think the next administration and Congress will think about very carefully.”

Pai also condemned the protesters who stormed the capitol building, blaming their actions on “conspiracy theories.”

“I think it was a terrible mistake to suggest that the results of the election, and particularly the process that culminated yesterday in the Senate and the House, could in any way be changed. That was a terrible mistake and one that I do not think in any way should have been indulged.”

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. His new book, #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election, which contains exclusive interviews with sources inside Google, Facebook, and other tech companies, is currently available for purchase.