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WASHINGTON – The tech industry had it easy under President Barack Obama. Regulators did not file major charges, executives rotated in and out of administration, and efforts to strengthen privacy laws failed.
The industry will have a much tougher time with President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Bipartisan support for restricting his power has increased dramatically during the Trump administration and shows no sign of abating as Democrats regain control of the White House. Biden is expected to take on the Silicon Valley giants on misinformation, privacy and antitrust, in a clear departure from policies applied while he was vice president under Obama.
“The foundations of concerns about digital platforms developed during the Obama years, and yet the main technology problems of the Obama era are still with us and unresolved,” said Chris Lewis, president of the advocacy group for the consumer Public Knowledge. “The genie is out of the bottle and the problems the public needs to solve are piling up without resolution.”
During the election campaign, Biden rarely spoke at length about tech politics. But he has criticized social media companies such as Facebook that have allowed misinformation to flourish on their sites, and has raised concerns about the power held by a handful of tech companies and other industries.
Biden’s campaign did not comment on specific cases or investigations. But a company spokesman, Matt Hill, said Biden would take an aggressive stance toward the industry.
“Many tech giants and their executives have not only abused their power, they have misled the American people, damaged our democracy and shirked any form of responsibility,” Hill said. “That ends with a President Biden.”
Biden’s clearest position on Internet policy has been his call to repeal a legal shield known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That safe harbor has protected Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter from lawsuits for hosting or removing harmful or misleading content. He hasn’t explained how he would revoke the shield, a 1996 law that the tech industry will vigorously fight to defend.
Also near the top of Biden’s agenda, his advisers have said, will be the extension of broadband internet service to rural and low-income households, which has become an urgent need during the pandemic as schools have moved online. Billions in federal funding could come from legislation or from the Federal Communications Commission, which removed various regulations during the Trump administration.
The FCC would also be prepared to reinstate so-called net neutrality, a rule that prevented telecommunications companies from blocking or slowing down Internet traffic.
Hundreds of informal technology advisers, some of them current or former telecommunications and technology employees, have provided opinions, whitepapers and strategies for the Biden campaign and possible presidency. Many of the top advisers have been advocates of strong legislation to limit the power of technology companies.
The leader of Biden’s team of technology advisers is Bruce Reed, his chief of staff when he was vice president. Mr. Reed served in recent years as general counsel for Common Sense Media, a nonprofit children’s advocacy organization in San Francisco that has lobbied for privacy and technology safety laws. Reed was instrumental in creating California’s privacy law in 2018.
Another important contributor working on technology issues is Stef Feldman, a longtime Biden staff member who led the campaign’s political efforts. This year, he told Politico that among the issues he was closely monitoring was “disparities in children’s ability to participate in remote learning due to lack of access to technology” during the pandemic.
Biden will have to navigate a split in the Democratic Party over how aggressively he should approach tech companies. Progressives like Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island have argued that the giants should disband, and those lawmakers will likely fight for regulators who feel the same way. Party moderates have been reluctant to split up the companies.
Many conservatives support antitrust investigations led by the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. But they are likely to resist many of Biden’s technology policies, such as legislation on privacy and online speech that interferes with free markets. And since neither party controls a large majority in the Senate, their opposition means the legislation could easily be blocked.
Biden will also face strong pushback from the industry. In recent years, tech companies have expanded their lobbying, with Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google spending $ 53.6 million on it last year, more than Wall Street, the drug and energy companies.
“The tech lobby and its allies will exert tremendous political influence in the Biden White House,” said Jeffrey Chester, director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a privacy advocacy group. “However, it is day and night in terms of what technology looks like now and during the Obama years.”
Current and former tech executives and lobbyists, as well as former regulators, said that while the industry expected the Biden administration to be tough on companies, particularly in antitrust areas, it would welcome a change from the unpredictable Trump administration.
“The Trump administration was showbiz and as a result, no one knew what to expect,” said Tom Wheeler, a Democrat who was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission under Obama. “Silicon Valley will at least be pleased with stability knowing there is a plan, rather than policy making on the whim of the moment.”
Bruce Sewell, Apple’s attorney general and its chief of government affairs from 2009 to 2017, said: “If you’re in Silicon Valley and you’re the director of one of these companies, you’re probably saying, ‘Biden is not going to make it easier for us. But at least what we know has turned to hell. ‘
Biden is expected to greatly extend the hard line Trump has taken against Chinese tech companies that officials say pose a threat to national security. The Trump administration has taken steps to remove Chinese telecommunications equipment from US networks, prevent Silicon Valley companies from building undersea cables to mainland China, and remove Chinese-owned products like TikTok from Apple and Google app stores.
Trump has pressured American allies to take the same steps. But Biden may try to take a more conciliatory approach to European politicians who have grown up to view China’s influence over technology as a major threat, which could encourage him to bridge the gap between Europe’s strict internet regulations and the intervention of United States. Getting closer.
“A Biden administration would definitely seek to pressure Beijing multilaterally, but one of the first things they will have to think about is: how do we work with Europeans when there is a massive digital chasm? said Samm Sacks, China’s cybersecurity and digital economy policy researcher at the New America think tank.
