28. Federal Communications Commission · Notable
Require Big Tech to specify terms of service and be held to them
Printed page 849 28. Federal Communications Commission
“In acting, the FCC could require these platforms to provide greater specificity regarding their terms of service, and it could hold them accountable by prohibiting actions that are inconsistent with those plain and particular terms.”
What has happened
- Not started
The FCC imposed no terms-of-service specificity or consistency requirement on platforms, and opened no proceeding in which it could. No FCC Federal Register document since 2025-01-20 has a title or abstract mentioning platform terms of service, content moderation or Big Tech; `conditions[term]="Big Tech"` across all types returns three unrelated documents. The Quote is conditional on the transparency framework of #2189, which does not exist.
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
The second sentence of the transparency bullet: #2189 asks for the disclosure rule, this asks that the disclosed terms bind. Leveled with #2189 and #2191, which are the other two pieces of the same unbuilt framework, and all three depend on the Section 230 or Consolidated Reporting Act authority the Mandate names on page 848 — authority the FCC never asserted.
The Federal Trade Commission’s 2025 inquiry into platform content policies touches similar ground, but it is a different agency, a request for public comment rather than a rule, and does not require platforms to be held to their terms. Under playbook §3b it does not move this ask.
- Action
- restrict
- Object
- Big Tech platform terms of service
- ID
- 2190