Aware of a perception they leaned toward Democrats, tech giants went out of their way during President Barack Obama’s first term to build bridges with the other half of Washington.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited Brigham Young University in March 2011 with Sen. Orrin Hatch, the longtime Republican senator. Three months later, Google hosted a happy hour with The Daily Caller, picking up the tab for a conservative-leaning crowd at a Capitol Hill dive bar.
Now, tech giants face their worst political storm yet, with President Trump making sustained, aggressive allegations of bias. Before “perception hardens into reality” and criticism morphs into policy, one tech industry public affairs pioneer urges corporate action.
“Corporations that want to win in Washington have to make as many friends as possible,” said Tim Sparapani, founder of SPQR Strategies and Facebook’s first director of public policy from 2009 to 2011.
“It’s been my perception that many of the tech companies have pulled back from broad engagement with Washington and they relied on simply being cool as a means of protecting the companies. And that’s never enough in Washington,” Sparapani said.
Sparapani said that working closely with Hatch — an influential senator, who this week requested a Federal Trade Commission antitrust investigation of Google — resulted in Hatch accompanying Zuckerberg to a cordial closed-door gathering of 19 Republican senators.
“During the rest of my tenure at Facebook, Sen. Hatch was open to hearing Facebook’s views on a variety of matters because we had come to Utah,” he said.
“If you’re a tech company it’s not OK to just talk to conservatives or libertarians or liberals once in a while,” Sparapani said. “You have to go talk to them all the time and as often as possible. Just as you lose touch with your friends — they stop returning your phone calls — the same thing happens in Washington, perhaps even faster.”
In recent public remarks and statements, Trump has accused social media companies Facebook and Twitter of “censorship” for removing commentators and allegedly limiting the reach of some right-leaning accounts. On Tuesday morning, he expanded his criticism to Google, saying search results were skewed in favor of hostile publications. On Wednesday, he alleged that fluctuations in his own number of Twitter followers may be an example of bias.
As of last week, an administration official told the Washington Examiner there were no moves to craft a regulatory or legislative response to alleged bias by tech companies. Trump said in a Thursday interview he would not comment on whether he believes tech giants are violating antitrust law. The companies deny bias, saying they are responding to abusive behavior, or that there are innocent algorithmic explanations.
Sparapani said he believes that tech giants already do more outreach work than is publicly known, but that perceived partisanship makes greater engagement necessary.
“Perception is reality here,” he said.“The companies are in the position where they have to double or triple their efforts to make it clear that they are listening and that they’re open to conversations.”
Sparapani said it’s important for the companies to engage with both lawmakers and outside advocacy groups in Washington. He said the working with political and advocacy groups to use their platforms to help them reach supporters is one clear way to build positive relationships. Attending advocacy events and conferences, too, could help, he said.
“They have to make friends in every part of the political spectrum and then they have to listen to all of those friends’ agendas and find common ground with them. That’s government relations 101,” he said.
“The stakes are huge right now, never more so for the tech companies,” Sparapani said. “Any time an elected official with that kind of megaphone and that sort of following makes a pronouncement, the risks are extraordinary.”
For the companies, it’s important to work overtime,” he said.
“Before the perception hardens into reality, the companies are going to have to do more to show they are neutral arbiters and communications conduits, rather than putting their fingers on the scale — and that is an extremely difficult task, showing you have no bias,” Sparapani said.
Trump’s most recent public criticism of tech companies has not focused on Amazon, a longtime source of Trump’s scorn because its owner Jeff Bezos also owns the Washington Post. Trump accuses the company of underpaying the U.S. Postal Service.
Spokespeople for Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether they intend to boost engagement with political conservatives.
