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"The Day Big Tech Stopped Being Untouchable"

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SubscribeSign inShare this post"The Day Big Tech Stopped Being Untouchable"mattstoller.substack.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailAug 2, 2020Share this post"The Day Big Tech Stopped Being Untouchable"mattstoller.substack.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailHi,Today I’m going to write about we learned on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week. In sequence, Wednesday was the day of a historic Congressional hearing on big tech monopoly power, Thursday was when these firms announced blow-out earnings even in the midst of an economic collapse, and Friday saw Donald Trump announce he might ban the social media firm TikTok. That’s democracy, monopoly, and national security in sequence.“American democracy has always been at war against monopoly power,” he said. “Throughout our history, we have recognized that concentrated markets and concentrated political control are incompatible with democratic ideals. Their ability to dictate terms, call the shots, upend entire sectors, and inspire fear represent the powers of a private government.” And then, with a flourish, he concluded, “Our founders would not bow before a king. Nor should we bow before the emperors of the online economy.”Mark Zuckerberg had to confront his own emails in which he noted that Facebook’s purchase of Instagram was done to buy out a competitor. His response was that he didn’t remember, but that he imagined he was probably joking when he wrote that. One congresswoman on Joe Biden’s vice-presidential shortlist, Val Demings, asked Zuckerberg why he restricted Facebook’s tools for competitors like Pinterest, but not for non-competitors like Netflix. He had no answer. Congressman David Cicilline asked about Facebook promoting incendiary speech and making money off advertising sold next to that speech. Zuckerberg pivoted to free speech talking points, and Cicilline cut him off, “This isn’t a speech issue, it’s about your business model.”It was also a massive media event. Of course the tech press was all over it, but it was front page news on every major American newspaper, which is remarkable considering this media environment involves a global pandemic and Trump’s endless controversies. Here’s the New York Times:And the Wall Street Journal:And the Washington Post:And Fox News:“The day when the big tech companies stopped being untouchable.”So what is likely to emerge? Cicilline has said he wants a final report out in September, which will likely have proposals to update the antitrust laws, set rules for digital platforms, and increase funding for enforcers. His goal is to make these proposals bipartisan. While top Republican Judiciary ranking member Jim Jordan will likely refuse to strengthen antitrust law, several Republicans, such as Ken Buck and Kelly Armstrong, really understood the problems with dominant tech platforms and might be supportive. enforcement One long-time Yelp official who has been pushing for antitrust action against Google for nearly a decade, Luther Lowe, pointed out that the antitrust agencies respond to signals from Congress. From the 1980s to the early 2010s, Congress mostly indicated it wanted lax enforcement, and the agencies eventually complied. This was true during the Obama era, when enforcers tended to defer to big tech. Cicilline made this point on lax Obama-era enforcement to Politico, saying “I think there was a sense from tech that these were new, great American companies and they were providing services that people like.”Since 2015, that dynamic changed, and Congress has gotten more and more aggressive with the agencies. This hearing revealed deep anger at how the FTC and DOJ have done, because the documents used by the Subcommittee investigators were available to enforcers even as they approved merger after merger. Two days after the hearing, Cicilline noted, “The FTC has not done a good job.”Going forward, in other words, enforcers are far less likely to be given the benefit of the doubt when they approve mergers or fail to bring cases.would probably be felt at a macroeconomic levelSo Zuckerberg is not only unapologetic, he is likely to make no meaningful change to his behavior. But they will. Because then came Friday.The end game isn’t clear. There are a flurry of reports about Microsoft potentially buying the domestic operations of TikTok, which may or may not happen. Microsoft is the only big tech monopolist not on the hot seat, so I suppose it appears that such an acquisition will not reduce competition. But that’s besides the point. The implication goes far beyond TikTok, but extends to Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, and Microsoft. What these corporations do is critical infrastructure, and the public through its public institutions will be playing a major role going forward in structuring it.So that what’s what we learned on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. We are going to govern big tech, big tech will not govern us.cheers,Matt StollerLike this postShare this post"The Day Big Tech Stopped Being Untouchable"mattstoller.substack.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmail15 CommentsFor your security, we need to re-authenticate you.Click the link we sent to , or .Expand full commentExpand full commentNo posts© 2022 Matt Stoller ∙ ∙ &nbsp;is the home for great writingThis site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please or unblock scripts

SubscribeSign inShare this post"The Day Big Tech Stopped Being Untouchable"mattstoller.substack.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailAug 2, 2020Share this post"The Day Big Tech Stopped Being Untouchable"mattstoller.substack.comCopy linkTwitterFacebookEmailHi,Today I’m going to write about we learned on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week. In sequence, Wednesday was the day of a historic Congressional hearing on big tech monopoly power, Thursday was when these firms announced blow-out earnings even in the midst of an economic collapse, and Friday saw Donald Trump announce he might ban...

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