Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

28. Federal Communications Commission · Major

Issue an FCC order eliminating court-created Section 230 immunities

Not started

847 28. Federal Communications Commission

“Eliminate immunities that courts added to Section 230. The FCC should issue an order that interprets Section 230 in a way that eliminates the expansive, non-textual immunities that courts have read into the statute.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    No FCC order, declaratory ruling or advisory opinion interpreting Section 230 has been adopted or published. Press reports in early 2025 said the FCC was considering an advisory opinion; nothing followed on an allowlisted source.

    No action found yet. This entry is the starting point, not a finding.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Chapter 28’s author, Brendan Carr, has chaired the FCC since 2025-01-20, so the ask is in the hands of the person who wrote it. He told interviewers in February 2025 that Section 230 reform was “very much on the table at the FCC” and reports (Covington’s Inside Global Tech, 2025-02-28; Communications Daily, 2025-04-14) said an advisory opinion was being considered. All off the allowlist — leads.
  • Federal Register full-text search for “Section 230” + “Communications Decency” since 2025-01-20 (all document types): 0 documents; restricted to the FCC: 0. fr-notice grep for “section 230” returns only unrelated DOT information-collection notices.
  • Executive Order 14149 Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship (2025-01-20) is the only speech-related presidential action in the Corpus; the Corpus grep for “section 230” does not hit it and it was not read in this session, so it is a lead only if a reviewer finds an FCC instruction in it.
  • A DOJ/FTC/FCC forum on 2025-04-03 (reported by Crowell & Moring) aired the agencies’ reading that Section 230 does not protect takedown decisions; a panel discussion is not an order.
  • If the FCC opens a docket (a declaratory-ruling petition or an advisory opinion), append attempted; an adopted order is done.
Action
issue
Object
FCC order interpreting Section 230
ID
2184