By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, Oct 21 (Reuters) – The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday that US broadcast networks could violate their regulatory obligations by airing “entirely fake polls and suppression polls.”
FCC Chair Brendan Carr said on X that ahead of the November midterm congressional elections there had been a significant surge in such polls “designed to do nothing more than interfere with the regular functioning of ]the electoral process and alter the normal patterns of voter turnout and enthusiasm.”
He added that the FCC took these issues seriously and suggested they could violate its news distortion rules.
Carr has faced pressure from President Donald Trump to crack down on US broadcasters and journalists. He did not name any specific polls in his statement that he believed were fake.
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, a Democrat, last month said for a broadcaster to violate news distortion rules there would have to be “a deliberate misrepresentation of something of significant importance.” She said if a poll turned out to be incorrect it was “not something that I would say fits within the news distortion policy.”
Carr in April ordered an unprecedented early license review for all eight of Disney’s company-owned ABC TV stations.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Nia Williams)
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