Bipartisan tech sector scrutiny grows

KLOBUCHAR PULLS BILL TO BOOST MEDIA OUTLETS VERSUS BIG TECH AFTER CRUZ AMENDMENT

As Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who is leading the bipartisan charge to get tough on tech, told NBC News, “it is time for 2023 — let it be our resolution that we finally pass one of these bills.”

Last year, Congress got closer than ever to passing serious restrictions on how the digital giants of social media, commerce, entertainment, and the news media do business. December’s lame-duck session saw significant attention to antitrust rules, including last-minute attempts to add media regulations to “must-pass” legislation by bipartisan groups in the House and Senate.

Members of both parties entered an already raucous, harshly partisan 118th Congress with lots of tough talk about social media, news and information, free speech, and more. But the regulatory march isn’t limited to one branch — or one level — of government. The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments on suits challenging expansive powers Florida and Texas claimed with social media laws passed last year but that have not yet gone into effect.

Even the nearly $70 million Big Tech spent lobbying in Washington against new regulations in 2021 starts to look small compared to the size of the regulatory beating it is facing this year. And the companies are doing so in an economic environment seeing consumers disappear after a long COVID-19-era boom for the digital world.

Commerce and cloud giant Amazon announced continuing layoffs this month, bringing its total planned job cuts to 18,000. Cloud software competitor Salesforce says it will cut 10%, about 8,000 jobs, from its global workforce. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, lost more than a half-trillion dollars in market value over the course of 2022 and ended the year with 11,000 layoffs and a hiring freeze. Twitter’s turmoil has been front-page news for months.

Many industries are downsizing in the face of losses or trimming their sails after forecasts for a slowing economy amid lingering fears of an inflation-driven recession. But those other industries aren’t the targets of intense scrutiny in Washington the way Big Tech is and has been for years.

Both parties took aim at tech firms when the industry flourished during the years of COVID-19 lockdowns when people went online for work, school, and commerce.

Republicans had been on the march against what they claimed was systematic bias against the Right by left-wing moderators at the companies. Restrictions on COVID-19 misinformation and political speech only intensified GOP anxieties.

There will be plenty of time to discuss that in the new House select committee on the “weaponization of the federal government.” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) heads the panel, adding to his duties as the incoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Jordan was a crucial supporter of new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R) as the Californian took 15 ballots to nab the chamber’s top job early in the morning of Saturday, Jan. 7. Jordan, who split with most of the members of the Freedom Caucus he once chaired to back McCarthy, has already laid out an aggressive agenda. According to reports, Jordan’s plan includes probing communications between the Biden administration and tech companies for evidence of government pressure to censor right-wing and pro-Republican content online.

That has ginned up renewed interest among Republicans in scrutinizing the tech sector — though many GOP lawmakers already were paying attention after the release of the “Twitter Files,” reports based on documents provided by new Twitter owner Elon Musk on the company’s prior policies and conduct.

Meanwhile, the tech sector’s record financial gains of recent years were drawing increased attention from the Democratic majority in the Senate and the Biden administration. President Joe Biden is likely looking to take a strong posture with populist appeals about the concentration of economic power and the push for unionization of tech firms, with his expected announcement of a campaign for a second term looming.

The expanded Democratic majority in the Senate is sure to consider expanding antitrust laws aimed at the core businesses of digital platforms. Klobuchar continues her bipartisan push. The Minnesota Democrat and 2020 presidential contender has two bills, one meant to forbid Amazon and others from giving preference to their own products on their own platforms and another that would force Apple to shed its users’ preference for privacy and security in favor of a less secure but more open approach like Google uses for its Play Store.

Neither bill passed in prior sessions of Congress. But both garnered enough bipartisan support to ensure they’ll be reintroduced this congressional session, with a real chance one or both will be considered.

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The news business, which has spent two decades in serious decline, is hoping to get a boost from Congress this year in a bid to force platforms like Facebook and Google to pay for content or maybe even be required to carry coverage. The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act didn’t pass in the previous Congress, but it still has lots of supporters, especially for a provision that would allow news publishers to bargain collectively with websites that feature and link to news content. That may be a tougher case for news corporations to make if tech companies continue to struggle financially.

Tech companies haven’t had much experience playing the pauper in appeals for protection from new regulations, but as their sector continues to face turbulence, they may be looking for mercy. The question is whether members of both parties, still steamed over COVID-19-era controversies and in need of new successes against populists’ targets, will care.