Regime Change In Cuba, Through Internet Access? — With FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr wants to provide internet access to the people in Cuba so they can document and share the abuses of their government without censorship. Commissioner Carr, who rose to his rank after initially serving as an FCC intern, joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss his plan, how the technology would work, and the ethics and advisability of accelerating regime change by providing internet access to a population. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 1:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hello and welcome to the Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed, nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. Joining us today is one of the most interesting people in Washington and one of the key voices on the policy decisions that govern the internet. He's FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. Brendan, welcome to the show.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  Great to join you. Thanks for having me on.

• 1:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Thanks for coming on. Really appreciate you being here. You're in a very interesting position. I feel like the conversation about policy on the internet has never been more dynamic, and you're right at the heart of it. So it's going to be great to get a chance to speak with you today and hear a little bit more about what's going on out there in Washington. The thing that we're going to get to is your suggestion about how we should, we as Americans should provide Cuban citizens the internet and allow that as a channel for their free expression and dissent against the government, which I find fascinating. But before we get there, I think that the occasion calls for a little bit of a discussion

• 2:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  of your background and actually the remit of the FCC, which is fascinating and doesn't get enough talk. I feel like we hear about the FCC every now and again when net neutrality comes up or something people are mad about, but it's a very important government agency and I don't think it gets the due that it deserves. So let's try to do that here first. So we'll start with you. You actually are a FCC success story. You started out as an intern there and then spent a bunch of years away and now have returned as a commissioner. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about your personal journey. And when you were an intern there, I'm curious, did you ever think, hey, maybe one day I'm going to be sitting on the commission itself?

• 2:56Speaker 01

  No, never. Yeah, happy to give a quick intro to those issues and then circle back to where, you know, we're at such an interesting time, I think, for conservatives in tech policy and happy to sort of talk about some of the shifts taking place there. I'm a rare sort of Washingtonian, grew up in Northern Virginia, went to undergrad at Georgetown, went to law school at Catholic specifically to do telecom law. And so I was in this Institute for Communications Law there at Catholic and had a chance of an internship for then FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy, who was an alum of Catholic, and I was an intern for her. So I sat in the little intern pen that we have in the opening of the suite area for every commissioner and did some mostly very mediocre work for her. And then, yeah,

• 3:41Speaker 01

  flash forward about 15 years later, and now I actually had the exact same office that she had when I started at the commission. So every morning I'd walk past that intern pen to the back office and it was a humbling, gratifying experience. I think for so many of us, our careers are like rivers. They take twists and turns that we never, ever could have predicted. And that's certainly the case for me.

• 4:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  What is the FCC's remit? We've heard a lot about net neutrality, but also there's a part of it is helping to provide communications infrastructure to the citizens of the United States. And then, of course, there's some of the stuff that you've talked about, which is providing Internet to Cuba, or Cubans, which is quite far afield, but seems to come under the remit as well. So can you talk a little bit about the purpose of the FCC and what it has authority over?

• 4:33Speaker 01

  It's a really great agency. And most of the stuff that people hear about that are not in the telecom bar, it's net neutrality, it's 5G, but there's obviously so much more that we do that thankfully and correctly never breaks above the fold of any newspaper. The best way to think about the FCC probably is like a mini Congress for purposes of tech and telecom issues. So there's five commissioners typically, three of the president's party, two that are not with the president's party. Right now, we are 2-2. We're waiting for the Biden administration to appoint a third Democrat. So as I say, being in the 2-2 position is the second best thing to being in the majority. But soon enough, I will make my eventual move fully into the minority. But we have different operating bureaus.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  The media bureau, which deals with a lot of licensing of TV and radio stations. If there's a merger between entities in that space, then we'll review that under the public interest standard. We have rules that limit how many TV stations one entity can own. And there's obviously very arcane rules around that. We've got a wireline bureau that focuses in large part on this $9 billion subsidy program we have called the Universal Service Fund. And there's a charge, 30% on your telephone service, that goes into this fund, so thank you for paying into that. And then we disburse that for subsidizing Internet bills in areas where there's no private sector business case, for subsidizing telehealth services, low-income programs. So there's a range of programs that we administer through that Universal Service Fund.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  We have a public safety bureau that deals with a lot of communications for public safety officials, as well as different alerting systems. So there's a very, very wide range of things we do, including 5G. We issue licenses to wireless carriers. We do a lot of behind-the-scenes work between-- a lot of the federal government has a lot of spectrum. And so there's a lot of negotiations about how do we get a little more spectrum out of the federal government's hand into the market for 5G services. Infrastructure, we have a role to play. And making it easier to build out 5G, which we did a lot of the last two or three years, and it's paying off big time with record-breaking internet builds right now. So there's a lot, there's a lot that goes on. It's an interesting place.

• 6:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and so it's always good to be able to shine a light in terms of what the agency's doing, and I appreciate you coming here to talk about it. Thank you for this, for the intro. I feel like it was needed for me. I hope the listeners have, you know, found it valuable as well. I'm sure they will. So let's get to Cuba. Why don't we, right? So you've been pretty vocal about, you know, seeing what's happening in Cuba, which is that there's some protests against the government there and saying, hey, like, the government is shutting down internet, or slowing it down for folks, or censoring it. And the United States should go in and, and give internet to the people of Cuba to allow them to express themselves on the internet and register dissent that's been suppressed

• 7:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  so far. So why don't you start with a little bit of the background about what's happening there and why you think it's a good idea for us to do that?

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Well, we've seen these historic protests erupt in Cuba about two weeks ago, and I was actually on a regularly scheduled work trip down to South Florida when this started happening, and reached out to some of the government officials down there to see how we can be helpful. And what we saw is, is something that we see around the globe right now. As soon as people take to the streets to fight for their freedom in the face of a brutal dictatorial regime, one of the very first things that people do now is they pull out their smartphones. They take videos, they take pictures, because there is nothing that, you know, brutal dictators like least than the spotlight of the world's attention shining brightly on what they're doing, and that's the power of the internet. So while the first thing that people do is go to the smartphone, the very first thing that dictators

• 8:19Speaker 01

  do is go to shut down the internet or portions of the internet. We've seen it in Myanmar, in Venezuela, in Iran, and we're seeing it right now in Cuba. They're not cutting off the internet entirely. What they're doing is they're looking for, through filtering technology, that is- From what we can tell, provided and backed by the communist regime in China, they're looking for the digital fingerprints of certain applications like WhatsApp, like Facebook, that people use to share videos and messages, and they are shutting down those applications. And so I think, you know, America invented the internet. We are a beacon of freedom, and the internet still has the power for all of the tech clash that we're experiencing now to be an enormous, enormous vehicle for good.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  And so I think we should support the people of Cuba by supporting the restoration of internet services there. And I've said that we should do that through a two-part path. Path one is we should be helping to introduce new internet services that don't exist on the island today. It could be these high-altitude balloons that we have authorized before at the FCC. It could be Wi-Fi off of the embassy there, the US Embassy in Havana.

• 9:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  So can you share a little bit about the balloons? Where has the FCC authorized those in the past?

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, people have been very focused on the balloon technology, in part because I think it's a visually interesting thing. And what I've tried to remind people is that that's one technology, but we should be putting all technology options on the table. At the FCC, we authorized this balloon technology back in 2017 to restore service in Puerto Rico after a hurricane came through and wiped out the landline communications there. And this is a service that has, to be frank, obviously has had some commercial challenges. It's not a technology that necessarily you're gonna, well, not necessarily, that you wouldn't even drop your Verizon or AT&T 4G or 5G phone for. But if you're talking about generating emergency connectivity in circumstances like this, it can work.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  And I'd remind people that in Cuba right now, the speeds for Wi-Fi service on the island is something like 2 or 3 megabits per second, and that's slower than copper line DSL in the US. So if the baseline is how do we get some amount of connectivity into Cuba so that some of these photos and videos... Can continue to be shared, then this type of technology can work. So we saw it in 2017 in Puerto Rico. I've been to Kenya where this technology was used to support rural internet builds. And I've been to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where there's a manufacturing plant that makes these high altitude balloons. Google Loon was the face of this technology and they shut down their operations in January. Again, because it wasn't a great, from their perspective, commercial product in terms

• 10:58Speaker 01

  of competing with, you know, 4G or other services. But the company that was behind that effort, that actually did the engineering, still exists. They're the ones that are based in Sioux Falls and they currently do a lot of work for the government. They do the high altitude balloons that NASA uses for weather satellites. Those are something like 160,000 feet up and carry, you know, massive payloads. Here, we're talking about balloons that would be 60 to 75,000 feet and carry, you know, a couple hundred pound payload. So that's one technology that we've seen in action in Puerto Rico, in Kenya, and actually in Peru after a natural disaster came through there. But there's other things that we should look at. We should look at beaming Wi-Fi off of the US Embassy in Havana.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  And back in 2013 and 2014, we inserted satellite backed internet connections, internet devices into Cuba. And the Obama administration shut that down, at least according to public reporting, due to political considerations as they were looking to restore their relationship with the then, I guess, Raul Castro regime. The Castro regime didn't like that we were inserting those satellite based internet devices, so they took those down. So there's a number of ways on that track one that we can introduce new connections to the island. But if you're looking at an overnight impact, it's this track two idea of the circumvention technologies. Again, the internet is still on in Cuba, they're just blocking certain applications. And with essentially sophisticated VPNs, we can get around that. There's a company out of Canada, Cyphon. The US has funded before.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  They're a very sophisticated VPN operation. They have 2 million users just in Cuba right now that are getting onto the internet and getting around this circumvention technology. So we need to pursue both tracks, looking at Introduction of new internet services on the one hand and bolstering support for circumvention technologies. And I'll just say on that first piece, there's an immediate need in Cuba. There's also a long-term, in my view, strategic need for the US. We have Radio Marti, which I visited down in Miami two weeks ago that broadcasts radio content into Cuba. Cuba doesn't like it. Cuba says it's a violation of Cuba law, international law. We say we don't care. We have, you know, radio operations in other parts of the world. And I think the modern day version of that is the internet.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  So I think we should have a long-term strategic capability in this country that when a brutal dictator is faced with a movement for freedom in their country and they do the go-to move of shutting down the internet or blocking portions of it, we should have the strategic capability to come in and provide that internet connectivity.

• 13:24Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. And with the VPN siphon that you mentioned, would it just be, from your perspective on a policy level, would it just be using that to basically promote it within Cuban society to get them to download it? Or is there anything more that we could do to help implement that stuff?

• 13:44Speaker 01

  There's a couple of steps. Step one is funding. So I don't sort of back any particular technology in part because I can't given my job. So there's other VPN technologies out there as well, but it takes money to keep these up and running, to keep the servers up and running. And there's no current flow of funding that I'm aware of that's going into these companies. There had been funding in the past. So step one is to provide some minimal amount of funding to keep these technologies working. Step two may be using that Radio Marti broadcast content into Cuba to spread the word about these technologies. They spread through word of mouth right now. And again, they've got about 2 million people that are on there, but we would love to find a way to double the number of people that are on these siphon and other sophisticated VPN technologies.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  What's interesting is, you know, it's a constant battle between these VPN technologies and the countries that are trying to identify and basically break these VPNs. And what we're seeing in Cuba is the digital fingerprints of the communist regime of China that are backing the efforts to, you know, filter the internet services in Cuba. So that's another interesting element of what's taking place with respect to internet activity in Cuba right now.

• 14:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  What is going on on the ground in Cuba that's making this accessible now for us? From what I understand, I've read a little bit, listened to your conversation with Antonio Garcia Martinez and read a little bit about what he's written about it. It turns out that The Cuban government was long resistant to putting internet in the hands of its citizens, or at least smartphones and wifi and wireless connectivity, but that's changed in recent years. Can you go through a little bit about the history and then also, what are they protesting about now and what's created this moment where there is, you know, a real dissent movement brewing there?

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Well, one of the interesting things about internet connectivity in Cuba is that the people of Cuba experienced the internet very differently than the way we experienced it here in America. In AGM, I think, sort of put this in very good terms. They deal with the internet in very time-shifted, technology-shifted ways. So they will download content on a smartphone, they'll take a SIM card out, they'll swap it on another phone, they'll put it on a USB drive, they'll go to a laptop and sort of interact with the internet as we would conceive of it there, and then, you know, reverse that and send it back out. And that's part of why I think it's so important to give even some connectivity to the Cuban people, because they've been so resourceful with respect to how they use internet connections.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  So, you know, for instance, will Cuba try to, you know, jam or block the delivery of internet services if we do it from the balloons or from the embassy? Sure, of course they will. They try to jam and block Radio Marti, but we're not talking about needing 100% coverage for 100% people all the time. It's, you know, how do we give a taste of additional internet connectivity and then let the people of Cuba find ways through their own resourceful mechanisms to use it. In terms of what's going on on the ground, you know, look, we're seeing historic protests, one of the largest, most active protests we've seen in decades. The words and chants that people are using at Libertad, they're waving the American flag. And so I read this very much as a push for freedom to get out from under the yoke of

• 16:55Speaker 01

  communism. But there are others that are more expert, obviously, in the in the politics of Cuba than me. I just know that we've got the technology that works and that we should be pursuing that avenue.

• 17:07Alex Kantrowitz?

  So are you aware of a set of events that set these protests off? And if so, you know, is it just more of a decentralized protest like we've seen in places like the Middle East and I guess even in the US here? Or is there like a particular goal? Like are they trying to overthrow the dictatorship or trying to get more rights? What are the aims of these protesters?

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not sure. I mean, this is something that I heard about, obviously, you know, on my way down to South Florida and spent some time with the local leaders there, working on it. It certainly, you know, has the appearances of a decentralized movement. We're seeing it in multiple cities, multiple places, multiple times, and the regime is engaging in, you know, very brutal tactics to crack down on it. The first couple of days, we saw, you know, black clothing, security forces, abducting and beating people. Then they got wise and started wearing, you know, plain street clothes to engage in that activity. So it's a movement that I think, you know, we should be supporting. And again, I think this connectivity is the way to do it.

• 18:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and you've been pretty vocal about this over the past few weeks in terms of, you know, enabling some of this connectivity. What response are you seeing in Washington? And do you think this is something that might actually happen out there? Or is it sort of like a nice thing to talk about, but there's little chance of actually practically seeing it implemented?

• 18:24Speaker 01

  It's been interesting. So when I first started talking about this two weeks ago, you know, providing internet connectivity to Cuba, whether this new services or whether it's the circumvention technology, it wasn't clear to me that it was going to go too far, but I thought, you know, I have a value add here because I've seen this technology work. So I think there's a space for me to speak about how do we technically accomplish this, which I did. And I was sort of surprised, within a day or two, and this isn't because of me speaking out, there was a lot of people speaking about internet connectivity in Cuba. You had President Biden speak at a press conference and say that his administration is looking at ways to restore internet connectivity. You've had the White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, say that they're looking at these types of options. I provided some feedback myself to people inside the administration, which I don't

• 19:09Speaker 01

  want to sort of get too far in the weeds on that, but I provided, you know, my thoughts on how we can do this through both tracks. And I was initially very hopeful, given that President Biden said, we're looking at restoring internet services, that we'd see some movement. But we're now two plus weeks on, and I'm really worried that we're going to be stuck in a navel gazing situation where this moment is going to be allowed to pass. And I don't know if it's just... The way the decision making is going inside the administration, but again, it's not a technical challenge. It may be a political challenge, but I think we should rise to this moment. And even if people don't do anything right now, again, I think as a long-term strategic matter for this country, we should be bolstering our ability to restore internet services.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  So if you ask me, the moment people started speaking up, what are the odds of this? I would say long. If you'd asked me 24, 48 hours in after President Biden had spoken, I'd say, wow, that's a game changer. Maybe we're going to get there. And two weeks later, not seeing much.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  I'm not very hopeful. Now, maybe we end up with some more financial support for that VPN-type technology. That's just such low-hanging fruit. How could you not do that? But it's disappointing that we're this far in after that much attention, including from the president, and we're not seeing a lot of action. So I'm disappointed at the moment.

• 20:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, does the FCC, so I guess like I'm wondering how much action the FCC itself can take. From my understanding, it's just a domestic agency. So, and it's actually rare to, at least from my perspective, see commissioners speaking up on international affairs. Is that the right read? It's sort of out of your hands, but you can help guide the policy discussion that other agencies in the White House might be able to take?

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's funny. I mean, you talked about when I worked as an intern at the FCC. One of the very first projects I did as an intern at the FCC, this must have been 2002 or 2003, was on a sort of a flotilla that was heading from South Florida to Cuba to try to broadcast radio content in. And so there were some FCC angles there. What can the FCC do here? One, we can potentially authorize use of spectrum by the different technological solutions, whether it's that former Google Loon project or otherwise. But this is why I've said that it needs to be someone very high up within the Biden administration, including Biden himself, that gives a green light, because there's going to be FAA issues.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  If we go one route, there's the international FAA rights that might need to be implicated. There's arguably, it's a violation of international law to beam internet connectivity into Cuba. So there's a number of reasons why I think ultimately this should be a federal government initiative that uses these private sector technologies. And I think the FCC can have a role in terms of some of the authorizations of the use of spectrum. For my part, it's just that I've seen this one technology, these high altitude balloons, work in South Dakota, in Kenya, having authorized at the FCC, when people said, hey, there's different ways to do this, and people initially looked at SpaceX-type technology. I said, that's one option, but with SpaceX, you need infrastructure on the ground. With these high altitude balloons, you can go right from the balloon, from international

• 22:15Speaker 01

  airspace, directly into the handset. So, some of that isn't necessarily the FCC's regulatory jurisdiction, it's just, I've seen this technology work and thought I'd, you know, offer up, you know, one path to getting there.

• 22:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and you said it could be a violation of international law to beam internet connectivity into a country, into another country's territory. Why do you think that is? Why do you think that law exists?

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Well, the world is filled with pinheads. So, Radio Marti broadcasts today into Cuba, they do so from Marathon, they do so from some facilities in the Carolinas as well. As I mentioned, Cuba takes the position that's a violation of Cuba law, and there's an organization called the ITU, which is basically the UN for telecom and spectrum issues, and they have all kinds of rights and allocations, who can be on what spectrum where, who has landing rights, and I believe their position is that Radio Marti today is a violation of ITU laws, but yet we continue to do it. So, my guess is both of those entities, Cuba and the ITU, will take the position that beaming internet into a country without that country's authorization is a violation of international law, and I say, you know, I don't care.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  I think this is an important enough issue, 90 miles from the US, that it's something that we should go ahead and do. But again, the government should do it, because if, you know, it's a violation of law, we don't want to put a private sector entity as the face of this.

• 23:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Do you think that this could be like a new way that countries invade or wage war? I mean, I'm thinking about, you know, it's one thing to, I mean, yeah, like, think about the proportionality, it's one thing to do it in Cuba. I mean, what would happen if the United States did this in China? So, I'm curious what you think about the sort of, and you mentioned that, you think that in Cuba, some of the censorship that's being done there is with the, you know, not in help of China. So... What is, does this fall along the line of like an invasion of another country's sovereignty? And what is the future of this type of stuff? If we try it in Cuba? I'm just trying to take it down the line.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think we should engage in this type of activity in other countries. And if someone from the State Department was here, they'd probably jump on the mute button and try to get me to stop, you know, speaking. But as someone in an independent agency, you know, I have the freedom to speak my mind. But also, remember, we're not breaking new ground. You know, the Obama administration introduced these satellite internet devices into Cuba, contra to what Cuba wanted. We've long been broadcasting Radio Marti contra to Cuba. Former Secretary Pompeo tweeted that we'd engage in some activity in Iran to boost internet services there during protests. We beam, you know, radio content into Asia historically, into inside different countries. So it's not necessarily, well, it's not a line that we have not crossed before.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  But yeah, there should be people that can consider some of the international implications of this. I just think we've always looked to the modern form of communication as a way to shine a light on regimes. And when you have the free flow of information over whatever the modern form of communication is of the day, that accelerates the end of regimes that rule without the consent of the government. You can go back to the printing press in, you know, the revolutionary era. You can go to, you know, pamphlets that were dropped in World War II, or you can go to Radio Marti broadcasts into Cuba today. If you look through the course of history, the free flow of information over the modern

• 25:45Speaker 01

  means of communications accelerates the downfall of regimes. And we have historically played a role in making sure that that type of communication takes place. The version of that today is the internet. So yeah, I think we should do this. And I'm not too worried about what brutal dictators, whether it's Iran, or Venezuela, or Cuba, or Myanmar, think about that activity. I'm sure there's people about a mile or so here from Foggy Bottom that have lots of thoughts on that and would prefer me not to speak about it. But, you know, such is life.

• 26:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, I want to continue that conversation specifically about accelerating the fall of regimes. Why don't we do that when we get back from the break right here on Big Technology Podcast? This episode is brought to you by Avpoint. Everyone's racing to roll out AI right now. Co-pilots, chatbots, agents doing real work. But here's the part nobody loves talking about. All that AI runs on your data and most teams have no single way to see it, secure it and prove it's under control. That's exactly what Avpoint does. For 25 years, they've been the trusted layer beneath the world's most demanding data, now extended across your entire AI estate. Your data, your cloud and the agents acting on your behalf.

• 27:01Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 27:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast with Brendan Carr. He is an FCC Commissioner, speaking with us about broadcasting or making internet connectivity available inside Cuba. So before we took the break, you mentioned that this could accelerate the fall of the regime there. I am kind of curious like what you think about what happens in the aftermath. Like what happens if we do end up making the internet available inside Cuba? And that does end up causing the fall of the regime. What happens next? I feel like a lot of times we have these conversations in the US and we don't talk about the consequences and what happens afterwards. So what do you think happens afterwards?

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Well, look, I think it's inevitable that this regime ends. I think it's inevitable that that we will see greater freedom in Cuba. The question is on what timescale? I think if we can provide this internet connectivity, then that will accelerate the timescale. All the issues and questions that you raise are ones that have to be raised and answered and addressed. It's just a question of when. And given that we are only 90 miles from Cuba, that we have the ability to do this, I think it's something that we should we should do. But part of that is why I have to call for the Biden administration to be involved. Let's get the State Department involved. Let's get, you know, other agencies involved that are going to be part of this endeavor. But so far, we've heard largely radio silence on these issues.

• 28:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  Should the US still be involved in pushing forward regime change as opposed to like allowing these events to take their natural course, like you mentioned, if this is going to happen anyway? Should the US still push for regime change? I mean, we have a pretty checkered past in terms of our success rate when we do that.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  You know, obviously, that's a complicated question and room for lots of debate and disagreement there. What I would say is when we're talking about is, you know, providing open means of communications and then seeing what happens from there, I think that's very different than some of the other activities you've seen historically from the US government directed towards regime change. And so I think there is a valuable, and I think, sort of, to some extent, non-controversial role of opening up free communications and then whatever consequences flow in terms of the regime, they flow.

• 29:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, but that's kind of why I asked the question earlier about like whether this is like the new form of invasion. Because, you know, we've seen with the internet, especially over the last few years, that you don't need an army necessarily to, you know, accelerate the overthrow of a foreign government or even in our own country, where, you know, we've had our internet sort of turned against us and turned Americans against each other here. So, you know, I know it's not the traditional way of pushing forward regime change, but don't don't we need to think a little bit more deeply about the consequences of this type of stuff, given some of the, yeah, given some of the negative effects or, you know,

• 30:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  potential downsides that might ensue, as opposed to just like jumping in, you know, right, right, eagerly and pushing it forward?

• 30:35Speaker 01

  I think if we were breaking new ground here, I think the point you're making would be particularly compelling. Not that it's not compelling as it is, but particularly compelling.

• 30:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's okay, yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  But again, given that we have done this before, you know, with the internet satellite devices under the Obama administration, with, you know, Radio Marti, which again, it's broadcast, not internet. But given that we've been here, I don't think that the step that I'm advocating right now is sufficiently different, that it should lead to a different result than what we did in 2013 with the satellite devices, what we do with Radio Marti right now. One thing that's interesting, though, is as we push for unfiltered, uncensored internet connectivity abroad, you know, that obviously raises fresh questions to your point of where are we domestically with our policy? And at the same point in time that we're calling for unfiltered, uncensored internet access in Cuba, including some in the administration, you know, we've had revelations of people inside the White House.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  I don't know what the right word is you want to use, but potentially coordinating with big tech companies to censor users, to take down what they label as misinformation. And I think that puts us in a difficult posture globally. So what I would say is, you know, we need to support this capability to insert uncensored, unfiltered internet around the world. And in order to do that without seeming like hypocrites, I think we should also make clear, and by the way, we're not going to put a thumb on the scale from our government to private big tech companies in favor of censorship, because obviously that looks fairly hypocritical if we're saying, you know, unfilter the internet in Cuba, but, you know, Facebook, Twitter, take down these, you know, misinformation posts that me, government official, don't like.

• 32:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and it is interesting that it would be the same platforms, right? Giving like the platforms you've mentioned are, you know, that we'd want to help enable inside Cuba, something like a WhatsApp, you know, owned by Facebook. And that's where the conversation over our internet here exists. So it's a complicated conversation for sure. I want to get to that a little bit more, but I just want to ask one more question along this line, and then we can start talking about big tech. Does So if we're gonna do this in Cuba, why not do it in China? Like, isn't it like, maybe it's a slippery slope, or maybe it's a natural evolution? Um, it seems like the internet in China is, uh, well, we know the internet in China is definitely censored,

• 32:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  and dissent is crushed there. Um, so what's the, you know, is, is there a reason why we would advocate for this in Cuba? And not in China, and then what are the implications of that?

• 33:09Speaker 01

  Oh, I think we should go beyond Cuba. Like I mentioned, I think, you know, we should look at this in Venezuela.

• 33:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  China in specific, yeah.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah, absolutely. You know, we have former Secretary Pompeo, uh, again, talk about the US government engaging in similar activities. I'm not sure exactly what he had in mind, uh, in Iran. I wasn't, I wasn't privy to those. And to China, yeah, I'm open to, to all of that. I mean, look, if an open line to the internet, uh, makes it untenable for your regime to stay in power, I've got no problem with that. Uh, I, I think we should be supporting globally the free flow of information. I'm not supportive of, you know, the censorship practices that US companies engage in right now in China. I think there was always this idea, similar to the position that people took with the entry of, uh, China in the WTO,

• 33:57Speaker 01

  that if we give them a taste of freedom, um, if they see economic prosperity from international, uh, organizations, that they will move towards freedom and away from authoritarianism. And I think what we've seen recently with Hong Kong, uh, with WHO, with all of this shows that that's not true. And I draw that analogy to businesses that go into China, like Microsoft, and say, look, let's give, uh, the people of China a taste of freedom, a censored version of Bing search, for instance. And net-net, we will pat ourselves on the back and say, we're doing a good thing. Okay, we're making some money, but we're also doing a good thing because we're giving people a taste of freedom. I think that idea of, you know... Play ball, give a taste of freedom and the communist regime will come our way has

• 34:41Speaker 01

  proven to be a failure across the board. And so while I respect that thinking that says we'll go into China, we'll give them a censored internet and it's net-net a good thing, I increasingly believe that it is a net-net a bad thing. I think if we flash forward two or three years from now, I think we're going to be in a, there's a significant chance, I don't want to overstate it, there's a significant chance that we'll be in a posture of sort of greater decoupling when it comes to economic activity in China. And frankly, I think that's, that's a good thing.

• 35:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, we've talked a lot about on this show about the splinter net and how like we have like one internet that is governed by the US vision and another one that's governed by the China vision. And it would be interesting if we ended up broadcasting, you know, some of this unfettered internet. I don't know if broadcasting is the right word, but making this unfettered internet available there.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, we should, we should, you know, break through the great cyber wall of China.

• 35:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I'm sure companies in the US would love that because they wouldn't have to, you know, you know, kneel before the regime in order to operate in China and it's a pretty big market. On the other hand, like, yeah, I think that there is a reason to be very, very, well, skeptical of these type of moves because, you know, when we've come in and meddled in other countries' affairs, you know, sometimes we get good results and other times we get, we end up creating a power vacuums and ISIS steps in. So I do wonder about what the implications are there. All right. Why don't we take one more break and then talk a little bit about the FCC and big tech. You mentioned censorship. Some people might call it content moderation, 6230 stuff. Let's just spend the last 10 minutes here talking about that and we'll do that right after the break.

• 36:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back here for one final segment with FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. Brendan, thanks for being with us here today. It's always great to talk to you. Okay, so like actually the first part of the big tech conversation I want to have with you is about the Universal Service Fund. You mentioned it in the beginning of our conversation, but it's something that doesn't get talked about at all. And it's a big part of, I guess, the way that we make internet available in the country now. And in particular, it helps big tech a lot, helps their businesses a lot. So then you have proposed some changes to it. So I'm kind of curious if you could first explain what it is and then how it benefits big tech and how do we make it a better solution for everyone?

• 37:33Speaker 01

  So the FCC, as we mentioned, has this $9 billion a year Universal Service Fund that we use to support principally internet builds in parts of the country where there's no private sector business case. And the way we've been funding that is by adding a 30% charge to your telephone bill. And that's not sustainable. It started as a 5 or 6% charge and it's just been spiraling above 30% and it looks like it's going to keep going from there.

• 37:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Great, so 30% premium on a bill is going to help with this program?

• 38:04Speaker 01

  That's right. It's a portion of your telephone bill that gets the 30% charge. Not all of the telephone bill, but still it's a, it can be a significant sum.

• 38:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's a lot of money.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so it supports these rural internet builds and other, other sort of initiatives. Big tech benefits tremendously from this Universal Service Fund. In fact, there's a study that shows that 70% of downstream traffic on these rural networks is attributable to just the big streamers alone. So Netflix, Hulu, those companies. And 90% of the cost of maintaining these networks come from that 70% of traffic. Historically in this country, the businesses, the enterprises that benefit from communications networks pay a fair share for it. That's how the telephone network was built out. You know, we looked at 1-800 numbers, fax lines, businesses paid higher rates even for local

• 38:54Speaker 01

  calling, and consumers paid relatively less. But somehow, we got away from that model over the years. And so now, end-user consumers are paying full freight for this $9 billion program while big tech is benefiting from it. So what I've said is that we should look to big tech to start contributing a fair share into that universal service fund, and that'll relieve and eliminate the burden that hits everyday Americans right now in their pocketbooks. It makes sense, because that's the entity, big tech, that derives billions, if not trillions of dollars of value from this internet. So why not ask them to contribute some amount to the maintenance of it? So I put that idea out there, and it's gained some pretty good traction. We see a lot of support now in Capitol Hill for the FCC,

• 39:38Speaker 01

  at least exploring whether we should do this.

• 39:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  And who do you define as big tech? I was reading this story on Tech Policy Press from a law professor, I think at University of Nebraska, who was saying that one of the issues with this is that the definition of who big tech is, is kind of amorphous. Like, do you include Disney Plus in there? So what's your definition of big tech?

• 40:02Speaker 01

  There's a couple-

• 40:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  Who gets the money? Like, is it the FCC that takes the money? Is Congress taxing it? How would this work?

• 40:08Speaker 01

  So the money would go back into the same universal service program. So this idea wouldn't change how much munding or where the money goes. It would just be where the money comes from. For these purposes, there are several concrete ways that you could apply this to big tech. One is if you look at digital ad services alone. So Google and Facebook, this is a over $100 billion industry right now. There's no consumer-facing charge. You're not charged for the advertising that you see. So we could put a very small fee on the digital ad services, and that could replace entirely the current universal service regime. So that's one sort of rifle-shot way you could do it. I think you can make the case for going beyond that and apply a test that basically says, look, if your business is benefiting-

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Substantially from America's world-leading internet connections, then you should contribute. In that broader view, you could bring in potentially the App Store, you could bring in, you know, Microsoft Xbox, you could potentially bring in the iPhone itself. We don't necessarily have to go that far. Again, the rifle shot is digital ad services, but I think you can make a case for applying it more broadly.

• 41:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  And what about Disney?

• 41:17Speaker 01

  Sure. Yeah, that's fine.

• 41:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  So the streamers are responsible again for a big, big portion of the usage of these networks and derive a lot of benefits. So, yeah, I think, you know, digital ad services makes sense. Rifle shot, maybe the next tranche you go to is the streamers, including Disney Plus. Then maybe if you want to go, you know, all the way as I've indicated, then you could look maybe to, you know, the App Store, iPhones, things like that.

• 41:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, okay, let's do a little rapid fire before we close out here. First of all, Section 230, do you think it ever gets repealed? Conservatives have been focused on repealing Section 230, which provides the tech companies with immunity for what's said on their platforms. What do you think, versus from a legislative feasibility? I mean, everyone that I speak with seems to think that there's, there's very little chance of this actually changing. What's your take on the ground?

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Well, Republicans and Democrats are pulling on opposite ends of the reform thread. Democrats want, in my view at least, more censorship. Republicans want less censorship. Pretty tough to get to a compromise when you're yanking in those directions, but I don't think the status quo is going to hold with 230. Even at the FCC, you know, we have the power, and I think we should have exercised this last year, to interpret Section 230 and give it a narrower construction because some courts have really blown the doors off of the restraints that Congress, that Congress put in place. So I think the FCC, if we have the right composition of people here, could give it a narrowing construction. And, you know, maybe there's a path forward depending on who's in power in Congress as well.

• 42:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  What's your take on the Biden administration so far? I really want to just focus on the working relationship you have with them. It seems like they took your suggestion seriously when it came to beaming the internet into Cuba. Do you view them as a functional administration? What's your take on how they've been doing so far?

• 43:03Speaker 01

  You know, relations at the FCC are going pretty, pretty well. I mean, again, we're, we're two, two, we're compromising. We voted on a, you know, unprecedented $7 billion program to connect school kids to the internet. We voted on an unprecedented $3 billion program in order to connect low-income Americans to the internet. So we're getting a lot done in a bipartisan way. I am worried about what's to come with the Biden administration, the executive order. You know, maybe there's some good stuff in there on competition when it came to some of the stuff the FTC.

• 43:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  They guarantee trust one.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly right.

• 43:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  But the FCC stuff was very backwards looking. It was going back to sort of Obama era utility regulation of the internet. And it was as if nothing had changed with respect to thinking about the internet ecosystem and the challenges that we face since 2014. I mean, in 2014, we were still in the era of social media platforms, saying that they are the free speech wing and the free speech party. If you're worried about, you know, the blocking of URLs or information on the internet today, then that shouldn't take you to, you know, the ISPs. It should take you to action with respect to social media companies or edge providers. And yet, the FCC portion, at least of that Biden competition executive order was silent as to any action on big tech.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  So I'd like to see some more action on that front as well. And there's some different directions going forward. We've got something like $800 billion that have been voted on by Congress or allocated to agencies for a variety of projects, but that could be used for bridging the digital divide. So we've got enough money to close the digital divide multiple times over. The question is, are we going to see overbuilding? Are we going to see waste, fraud, and abuse? And I'm very worried that that's where we're going to go. But we don't have to. There's time to course correct here and get this right.

• 44:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, last question for you. Do you think on net, the internet's done more good or harm to American society?

• 44:54Speaker 01

  It's unquestionably, it's done far, far more good than harm. There are issues with respect to the power, in my view, of big tech. There's issues with respect to content moderation, as you put it, censorship, as I put it. But unquestionably, we are in a far better

• 45:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 45:08Speaker 01

  situation economically and otherwise because of the power of the internet.

• 45:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, Brendan Carr, thank you so much for joining us. It was great having you here. We hope you're a repeat guest and we can keep these conversations going.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  Appreciate it. Thank you.

• 45:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, well, thank you, Nate Guattini, for doing the editing this week on a short timeframe. Appreciate it. Welcome back from vacation. Thanks to Red Circle for doing the hosting and ad sales. And again, to you, the listeners, for coming here each week and engaging with us here on the Big Technology Podcast. It's great having you, and we'll be back next week with another show. Until then, take care.

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