MIKE DAVIS: The rules governing local TV are older than the internet. That's insane

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr faces pressure to modernize outdated broadcast ownership rules that handicap local TV stations while tech giants operate without restrictions.

Michael R. Davis is the founder and president of the Article III Project.

These ownership rules were designed for a 1990s world. Google did not exist. Smartphones were a decade away. Netflix was not even imaginable. Yet local TV and radio stations, the most relied-upon and trusted news sources in the country, are regulated as if it is the era of dial-up. Meanwhile, the largest technology companies on Earth, all with obvious liberal bents, operate without the artificial, government-imposed limits on how many American households they can reach that are imposed on local broadcasters.

Google-owned YouTube can saturate the country with algorithm-driven narratives and AI slop without a single federal restriction. MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), CNN and other leftwing cable conglomerates can reach nearly every household (if the public could stomach them) with no cap limiting their influence.