New York Times: Democratic Congress Prepares to Take On Big Tech

January 26, 2021 Media

WASHINGTON — The last time Senator Amy Klobuchar, the Minnesota Democrat, sat in the majority, her party was fawning over Silicon Valley. Lawmakers praised the ingenuity of Facebook and Amazon, while President Barack Obama and regulators fought alongside Google and Twitter to protect the growth of internet businesses.

Now, many of those same politicians are gearing up to tame those companies. And Ms. Klobuchar, who leads the Senate panel overseeing antitrust, is expected to play a leading role.

Many Democrats, as well as some Republicans, want to take on Big Tech with laws and regulations to address issues like market power, data privacy, and disinformation and hate speech. Those ambitions have only grown since the insurrection of Capitol Hill, with more members of Congress pointing to the power of the tech companies as the root cause of many problems.

We’d hope to see the antitrust subcommittee in the Senate collaborate with the House subcommittee to enact the full suite of recommendations in the digital markets report into law,” said Sarah Miller, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, a left-leaning nonprofit advocacy group focused on fighting corporate power. “We won’t be shy about pushing for bolder approaches when the need arises.”