Combating Cartels on Social Media Act of 2025
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Sen. Kelly, Mark [D-AZ]
ID: K000377
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Bill Summary
Another brilliant example of congressional incompetence, masquerading as a solution to a complex problem. Let's dissect this trainwreck.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The Combating Cartels on Social Media Act of 2025 is a laughable attempt to combat transnational criminal organizations' use of social media for recruitment and illicit activities. The bill's primary objective is to require the Secretary of Homeland Security, Attorney General, and Secretary of State to submit a joint assessment on the use of covered services by these organizations.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill defines "covered services" as social media platforms, messaging apps, and other online services used by transnational criminal organizations. It also establishes a framework for assessing the use of these services for illicit activities, including recruitment, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling, and cybercrime.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects are involved: social media companies, law enforcement agencies, and congressional committees. But let's be real, the only stakeholders who truly matter are the ones with deep pockets – lobbyists and special interest groups.
**Potential Impact & Implications:**
* **Increased surveillance:** This bill will inevitably lead to more government snooping on citizens' online activities, under the guise of combating cartels. * **Censorship:** Social media companies may be forced to censor content deemed "illicit" by the government, further eroding free speech and online freedom. * **Ineffective solutions:** The bill's focus on social media platforms ignores the root causes of transnational crime, such as poverty, corruption, and lack of economic opportunities. * **More bureaucracy:** This legislation will create new layers of bureaucratic red tape, ensuring that the government can't effectively address the problem.
**Diagnosis:** This bill is a classic case of " legislative theater" – a showy display of concern for a complex issue, without any real intention to solve it. The symptoms are clear:
* **Corruption:** Lobbyists and special interest groups have likely influenced this legislation to further their own interests. * **Cowardice:** Congress is too afraid to tackle the root causes of transnational crime, instead opting for superficial solutions that won't offend anyone. * **Stupidity:** The bill's authors seem to believe that social media platforms are the primary drivers of transnational crime, rather than a symptom of deeper societal issues.
**Prognosis:** This bill will likely pass, but its impact will be negligible. It will create more bureaucratic hurdles, increase surveillance, and further erode online freedom. Meanwhile, the real problems – poverty, corruption, and lack of economic opportunities – will remain unaddressed.
Related Topics
đź’° Campaign Finance Network
No campaign finance data available for Sen. Kelly, Mark [D-AZ]
Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 859 — Federal Communications Commission 21. Hal J. Singer and Ted Tatos, Subsidizing Universal Broadband Through a Digital Advertising Services Fee: An Alignment of Incentives, Econ One, September 2021, p. 1 (“[T]he current USF mechanism is unsustainable and will fail to meet the needs of its target consumer base within the next five years.”), https://www.econone.com/ wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Digital-Divide-HSinger-TTatos-2.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023). 22. FBI Director Christopher Wray, testimony in video of hearing, Worldwide Threats to the Homeland, Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives, November 15, 2022, at 02:27, https://democrats- homeland.house.gov/activities/hearings/11/04/2022/worldwide-threats-to-the-homeland (accessed January 23, 2023); John D. McKinnon, Arunav Viswanatha, and Stu Woo, “TikTok National-Security Deal Faces More Delays as Worry Grows Over Risks,” The Wall Street Journal, updated December 6, 2022, https://www.wsj. com/articles/tiktok-national-security-deal-faces-more-delays-as-worry-grows-over-risks-11670342800 (accessed January 23, 2023). 23. U.S. Federal Communications Commission, “List of Equipment and Services Covered by Section 2 of the Secure Networks Act,” updated September 20, 2022, https://www.fcc.gov/supplychain/coveredlist (accessed January 23, 2023). 24. H.R. 820, Foreign Adversary Communications Transparency Act, 118th Congress, introduced February 2, 2023, https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr820/BILLS-118hr820ih.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023). 25. U.S. Department of State, “The Clean Network,” https://2017-2021.state.gov/the-clean-network/index.html (accessed January 23, 2023). 26. U.S. Government Accountability Office, Broadband: National Strategy Needed to Guide Federal Efforts to Reduce Digital Divide, GAO-22-104611, May 2022, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-104611.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023). 27. Document No. 144, “Federal Communications Commission: Message from the President of the United States Recommending that Congress Create a New Agency to be Known as the Federal Communications Commission,” U.S. Senate, 73rd Cong., 2nd Sess., February 26, 1934, https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/ DOC-298207A1.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023). 28. 47 U.S.C, Chapter 5, §§ 151 et seq., (accessed March 6, 2023). — 861 — 29 FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION Hans A. von Spakovsky MISSION/OVERVIEW The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent federal agency that began operations in 1975 to enforce the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) passed by Congress in 1971 and amended in 1974.1 FECA governs the raising and spending of funds in all federal campaigns for Congress and the presidency. The FEC has no authority over the administration of federal elections, which is per- formed by state governments. While the FEC has exclusive civil enforcement authority over FECA,2 the U.S. Justice Department has criminal enforcement authority, which is defined as a knowing and willful violation of the law.3 Because the FEC is an independent agency and not a division or office directly within the executive branch, the author- ity of the President over the actions of the FEC is extremely limited. As former FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith has said, the FEC’s “[r]egulation of campaign finance deeply implicates First Amendment principles of free speech and association.”4 The FEC regulates in one of the most sensitive areas of the Bill of Rights: political speech and political activity by citizens, candidates, political par- ties, and the voluntary membership organizations that represent Americans who share common views on a huge range of important and vital public policy issues. NEEDED REFORMS Nomination Authority. The President’s most significant power is the appoint- ment of the six commissioners who govern the FEC, subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Commissioners may only serve a single term of six years but
Introduction
— 849 — Federal Communications Commission Big Tech, and it should look to Section 230 and the Consolidated Reporting Act as potential sources of authority.19 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. Within this framework, Big Tech should be required to offer a transparent appeals process that allows for the challenging of pretextual takedowns or other actions that violate clear rules of the road. l Support legislation that scraps Section 230’s current approach. The FCC should work with Congress on more fundamental Section 230 reforms that go beyond interpreting its current terms. Congress should do so by ensuring that Internet companies no longer have carte blanche to censor protected speech while maintaining their Section 230 protections. As part of those reforms, the FCC should work with Congress to ensure that antidiscrimination provisions are applied to Big Tech—including “back-end” companies that provide hosting services and DDoS protection. Reforms that prohibit discrimination against core political viewpoints are one way to do this and would track the approach taken in a social media law passed in Texas, which was upheld on appeal in late 2022 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.20 In all of this, Congress can make certain points clear. It could focus legislation on dominant, general-use platforms rather than specialized ones. This could include excluding comment sections in online publications, specialized message boards, or communities within larger platforms that self-moderate. Similarly, Congress could legislate in a way that does not require any platform to host illegal content; child pornography; terrorist speech; and indecent, profane, or similar categories of speech that Congress has previously carved out. l Support efforts to empower consumers. The FCC and Congress should work together to formulate rules that empower consumers. Section 230 itself codifies “user control” as an express policy goal and encourages Internet platforms to provide tools that will “empower” users to engage in their own content moderation. As Congress takes up reforms, it should therefore be mindful of how we can return to Internet users the power to control their online experiences. One idea is to empower consumers to choose their own content filters and fact checkers, if any. The FCC should also work with Congress to ensure stronger protections against young children accessing social media sites despite age restrictions that generally prohibit their use of these sites.
Introduction
— 849 — Federal Communications Commission Big Tech, and it should look to Section 230 and the Consolidated Reporting Act as potential sources of authority.19 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. Within this framework, Big Tech should be required to offer a transparent appeals process that allows for the challenging of pretextual takedowns or other actions that violate clear rules of the road. l Support legislation that scraps Section 230’s current approach. The FCC should work with Congress on more fundamental Section 230 reforms that go beyond interpreting its current terms. Congress should do so by ensuring that Internet companies no longer have carte blanche to censor protected speech while maintaining their Section 230 protections. As part of those reforms, the FCC should work with Congress to ensure that antidiscrimination provisions are applied to Big Tech—including “back-end” companies that provide hosting services and DDoS protection. Reforms that prohibit discrimination against core political viewpoints are one way to do this and would track the approach taken in a social media law passed in Texas, which was upheld on appeal in late 2022 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.20 In all of this, Congress can make certain points clear. It could focus legislation on dominant, general-use platforms rather than specialized ones. This could include excluding comment sections in online publications, specialized message boards, or communities within larger platforms that self-moderate. Similarly, Congress could legislate in a way that does not require any platform to host illegal content; child pornography; terrorist speech; and indecent, profane, or similar categories of speech that Congress has previously carved out. l Support efforts to empower consumers. The FCC and Congress should work together to formulate rules that empower consumers. Section 230 itself codifies “user control” as an express policy goal and encourages Internet platforms to provide tools that will “empower” users to engage in their own content moderation. As Congress takes up reforms, it should therefore be mindful of how we can return to Internet users the power to control their online experiences. One idea is to empower consumers to choose their own content filters and fact checkers, if any. The FCC should also work with Congress to ensure stronger protections against young children accessing social media sites despite age restrictions that generally prohibit their use of these sites. — 850 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise It should be noted at this point that the views expressed here are not shared uniformly by all conservatives. There are some, including contributors to this chapter, who do not think that the FCC or Congress should act in a way that regulates the content-moderation decisions of private platforms. One of the main arguments that this group offers is that doing so would intrude— unlawfully in their view—on the First Amendment rights of corporations to exclude content from their private platforms. l Require that Big Tech begin to contribute a fair share. Big Tech has avoided accountability in several additional ways as well. One of them concerns the FCC’s roughly $9 billion Universal Service Fund. This initiative provides the support necessary to subsidize the agency’s affordable Internet and rural connectivity programs. The FCC obtains this funding through a line-item charge that carriers add to consumers’ monthly bills for traditional telecommunications service. While Big Tech derives tremendous value from the federal government’s universal service investments—using those federally supported networks to deliver their products and realize significant profits—these large corporations have avoided paying a fair share into the program. On top of that, the FCC’s current funding mechanism has been on an unsustainable path.21 By requiring traditional telephone customers to contribute to a fund that is being used increasingly to support broadband networks, the FCC’s current approach is the regulatory equivalent of taxing horseshoes to pay for highways. To put the FCC’s universal service program on a stable footing, Congress should require Big Tech companies to start contributing an appropriate amount. Conservatives are not unanimous in agreeing that the FCC should expand the USF contribution base. Instead, some argue that Congress should revisit the program’s entire funding structure and determine whether to continue subsidizing the provision of service. Future funding decisions, the argument goes, should be made by Congress through the normal appropriation process through which the USF program can compete for funding with other national initiatives. These decisions should be made with an eye to right-sizing the federal government’s existing broadband initiatives in light of both technological advances and the recent influx of billions of dollars in new appropriations that can be used to support efforts to end the digital divide. Protecting America’s National Security. During the Trump Administra- tion, the FCC ushered in a new and appropriately strong approach to the national
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.