Senator Elizabeth Warren has pledged that, if elected president next year, she will aim to break up the big tech companies Amazon, Facebook and Google because they have too much control over Americans’ lives.
In her plan to rein in the influence of tech giants, Warren proposes legislation targeting companies with annual worldwide revenue of $25bn or more and imposing sweeping regulation on Silicon Valley.
“Today’s big tech companies have too much power – too much power over our economy, our society, and our democracy,” the Massachusetts senator said in a blogpost. “They’ve bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field against everyone else.”
Warren, an antitrust advocate who hammered big banks following the 2007-2009 financial crisis, said she would select regulators who would seek to break up what she called “anti-competitive mergers” such as Facebook’s recent buyout of Instagram and Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods.
She added: “We must help America’s content creators – from local newspapers and national magazines to comedians and musicians – keep more of the value their content generates, rather than seeing it scooped up by companies like Google and Facebook.”
Warren made the pitch before a town hall appearance on Friday in the New York neighbourhood where Amazon recently abandoned plans to open a new headquarters after a fierce backlash from progressive activists.
She is the first in the Democrats’ crowded 2020 field to stake out such aggressive territory on an issue that could shape debate in the primary election. There has been a growing backlash, or “techlash”, in Washington as the Silicon Valley behemoths extend their influence, but so far the European Union has taken a much tougher stand.
One of Warren’s 2020 rivals, Senator Cory Booker, has faced criticism for his past closeness to the tech industry. Another candidate, Amy Klobuchar, the top Democrat on the Senate judiciary antitrust subcommittee, told the Center for American Progress thinktank in Washington this week: “For so long, every time we proposed things like this, it was: ‘You’re trying to regulate the web. Wooooh!’ As opposed to saying, these are actually big media companies and your information is a commodity. That’s what this is.”
Quick GuideWho are the leading Democrats running for 2020?
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Joe Biden, former vice president
Biden unsuccessfully ran for the nomination in 1988 and 2008, and his campaign is likely to be dogged by controversy after allegations from several women they were left feeling uncomfortable by their physical interactions with him. If successful, Biden would become the oldest person to be elected president in US history.
Mike Bloomberg, former New York mayor
Bloomberg has expressed concern that none of the top candidates can defeat Trump, and he aims to make up for an unusually late entry in the Democratic primary with historic spending of hundreds of millions of dollars in television ad time and an unorthodox strategy of skipping the first four states in the primary. Bloomberg has announced that his campaign will be entirely self-funded, but can this billionaire win?
Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota senator
On Election Night 2018, Klobuchar coasted to a third term as senator in a state Trump almost won. Next morning she was on every short list of potential presidential candidates. Supporters say her success with rural voters makes her a formidable candidate in the Rust Belt, while her calm demeanour provides a clear contrast with Trump.
Bernie Sanders, Vermont senator
Sanders turned a long-shot, anti-establishment bid for the presidency into a “political revolution” that energized the party’s progressive base. His political career began nearly 40 years ago, but it wasn’t until his 2016 run that Sanders became a national figure as a new generation of Democrats – and 2020 contenders – embraced his populist economic policies.
Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts senator
Her sharp criticism of Wall Street and big corporations has made Warren a favorite among progressive activists, and she will campaign on a message of a rigged economic system and income inequality.
But NetChoice, an e-commerce trade group whose members include Facebook, warned that Warren’s plan would lead to higher prices for Americans. Carl Szabo, its vice-president and general counsel, told Reuters: “Warren is wrong in her assertion that tech markets lack competition. Never before have consumers and workers had more access to goods, services, and opportunities online.”