Congress is Close to Cracking Down on Big Tech. But Powerful Obstacles Remain
On the surface, the fight to rein in Big Tech appears to be building toward success in Washington. A bipartisan bill to curb the power of dominant tech platforms like Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon is poised to pass Congress, one of the bill’s chief sponsors, Rep. Ken Buck, tells TIME.
The Colorado Republican, one of the leading voices pushing for antitrust reform within the GOP, says the bill is almost ready for a floor vote. He expects the measure to make it to President Joe Biden’s desk by the end of the summer. “We’ve worked out language that I think is just about complete on it,” says Buck, the ranking member of the House Antitrust Subcommittee. “I anticipate that by the August recess, we will have passed that from both chambers.”
Beneath the veneer of progress, however, powerful forces are at work—and success for anti-monopoly lawmakers is far from guaranteed, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
One obstacle standing in the way is opposition from the California delegation, much of which represents Silicon Valley. Both House leaders, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, are also from the state, which boasts the world’s fifth largest economy, driven largely by the tech sector. Another challenge is the multi-million-dollar lobbying campaign from the tech giants to scare lawmakers away from breaking up their enormous market power. The task of whipping votes for the bill is made all the more difficult by the fact that the current Congress is the oldest in American history; many members are geriatrics who struggle to fully grasp the implications of tech. (Some of them still use flip phones.) Lastly, there’s Chuck Schumer, who publicly supports the bill, but who sources worry may be playing into the tech companies’ strategy of running out the clock.
https://time.com/6168761/congress-big-tech-monopoly-antitrust/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_term=politics_&linkId=161688017
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