The Hill: Ongoing fight for Senate threatens fate of key bill targeting tech giants

November 11, 2022 Media

Democrats’ chance of pushing through a key antitrust bill to rein in the power of tech giants may be thwarted if their shot at keeping Senate control depends on the results of a Georgia runoff.

A bipartisan antitrust bill that aims to keep dominant tech firms from preferencing their own products has been stalled in the Senate as vulnerable Democrats fought off tough challenges this year, but proponents remained steadfast that they would get a vote before year’s end. Now, if Democrats’ Senate power hinges on a tough battle in Georgia, the bill may fall to the wayside yet again.

Klobuchar and other supporters of the bill have previously pushed back on the accusations that the bill pose content moderation concerns. Haworth and Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, called the argument over content moderation a red herring.

“We don’t want bad content, but we need to focus on the business model, which is really the root cause of a lot of these issues,” Harper said.

Although time is ticking, Haworth said she sees a couple of options for the bill to pass in the Senate. One would be hotlining, or trying to pass the legislation through with little or no floor debate. Another would be to add it into an omnibus bill to fund the government, she said.

With the election, mostly, out of the way, the idea of antitrust bills as “potentially sticky issues politically has just gone away,” she said.

The bill may also get a bump from the Biden administration. The White House is planning to make a post-election push in favor of antitrust legislation targeting tech giants after the midterms, Bloomberg reported last week.

Harper said if antitrust bills are not passed this year, she thinks there is hope for them in the next Congress, too.

“There’s really no choice. I mean, there’s so many issues that are stemming from the problems with big tech that I think people from both parties are feeling a tremendous amount of pressure to get things done to address it,” Harper said.