In Newspeak, freedom is slavery. In Trumpspeak, freedom of speech is censorship.
Brendan Carr, whom Trump wants to head the FCC, has declared his intent to “smash the censorship cartel” using the agency’s power. According to the Washington Times, “He is threatening the platforms with revocation of their federally granted immunity against content-based lawsuits.” He’s presumably referring to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, one of the few parts to survive legal challenges. It says that in general operators of websites that allow public posting of commentary can’t be held liable for what third parties post. Without it, website operators would have to keep a quick finger on the “Delete” button to keep potentially defamatory comments from showing up. They’d need to err on the side of caution. Many sites would probably find it easiest to eliminate the comments section.
Look at how quick YouTube is to honor the most ridiculous copyright takedown requests, and that will give you an idea of what Internet forums would be like. Actually, it could be worse. Copyright takedowns don’t have as much potential for political bias as takedowns of comments on the news would. Forum operators would need to consider who’s most powerful at the moment.
Under most interpretations, a revocation of Section 230 would still let forums leave comments up, provided they exercised no moderation at all. Comment sections that are run that way quickly turn into mud fights that only the mud flingers want to read.
Both Democrats and Republicans have attacked Section 230. The desire to increase governmental control of Internet content is bipartisan. See a discussion of the potential consequences of revoking it here.
The executive branch has no authority to suspend Section 230. “Dictator on Day One” Trump doesn’t care about such technicalities.
The advocates of stifling the Internet have adopted the language of free speech in a cynical attempt to reverse the issue. The Washington Times says Dan Schneider, who calls himself “vice president for free speech” at the Media Research Center, has claimed that “Mr. Carr’s role at the FCC will reinvigorate efforts to define the limits of Section 230.” and that “his job is going to be to restore First Amendment rights.” One of the first targets of the government’s “First Amendment rights” will be a rating service called NewsGuard.
The First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law…” Trump seems to think that means that power to abridge freedom of speech and the press is reserved to the president.