If these companies are truly out to silence opposition and dissent by elevating their own products, they are certainly doing a poor job of it.
The American Innovation and Choice Online Act is based on faulty premises and, if passed, would harm America's global competitiveness.
S enator Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) is pushing her fellow senators very hard to pass her antitrust package, the American Innovation and Choice Online (AICO) Act. However, as that battle rages in the halls of Senate office buildings, another parallel one is taking place on the Internet, showing how unnecessary the bill truly is.
The premise behind AICO is that American tech companies unfairly preference their own products and services, cutting competitors out of the marketplace, and creating market monopolies. It also rests on the assumption that these companies selectively enforce their terms of service in a way that ought to trigger legal action.
Given the market-cap requirements to qualify for the restrictions in the bill, it is clear that AICO specifically targets American tech companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Given the global race to unlock next generation technology, it is a particularly bad look for American lawmakers to specifically target their own country’s companies for added scrutiny based on an arbitrary metric like market-cap size.
In a recent Washington Post report it was noted that proponents of AICO were enlisting social-media influencers to garner support and get their message across. The videos in question reportedly garnered hundreds of thousands of views.
Using TikTok and Instagram to pass anti big-tech legislation is rich with irony. TikTok is a direct competitor with a number of the companies targeted by AICO. As a content platform, it competes heavily with Google — which owns YouTube — for viewers and ad revenue. As a social-media platform, it also competes for users with Facebook. The very fact that TikTok is a prominent enough platform that AICO proponents are taking advantage of its market position to push their agenda demonstrates the absurdity of the claim that any of the companies targeted by the bill constitute a “monopoly” in any sense of the word.
TikTok has already officially surpassed one billion users worldwide. This is roughly three times the number of active Twitter users and is already at almost 40 percent of the number of global users of Facebook and YouTube. Not only do the companies under threat from AICO compete with each other, they also have other competitors rapidly accumulating market share, like Snapchat, Reddit, and Pinterest to name a few.
AICO has been drafted in a way designed to address selective enforcement of terms of service. Section 3 would categorize “discrimination in the application or enforcement of terms of service” to be “unlawful conduct.” This conduct would only need to be demonstrated by a preponderance of evidence in a court to successfully sue a tech company. What actually constitutes discrimination is left open-ended.
In general terms, this reflects the belief of the bill’s sponsors that tech companies are censoring opponents or competitors in a way that can legally be deemed unfair. For example, many conservatives point out perceived bias in censorship decisions on Facebook. Another way bill sponsors say this manifests is when companies like Amazon and Google promote their own products and services in search results.
However, it’s instructive that the nation can plainly see a comprehensive debate of both sides of the AICO playing out on social media, not on the face of it obvious evidence of anticompetitive suppression of free speech. It’s relevant that one of the platforms chosen by AICO’s proponents has been Instagram, a platform owned by Facebook’s parent company Meta. There were seemingly no concerns about censorship when groups supportive of AICO sank their money into this push.
Even the Washington Post report cited at the beginning of this article further highlights the disconnect between reality and the fantasy being spun by the bill’s supporters. The Washington Post is owned by former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who remains a major shareholder in Amazon and its executive chairman. The newspaper still hosted this story, which spelled out many arguments that — if adopted by Congress — could severely hurt Amazon’s business. Instagram (owned by Meta) is broadcasting these same messages that trash Meta on a platform it owns. If these companies are truly out to silence opposition and dissent by elevating their own products, they are certainly doing a poor job of it.
In fact, the Washington Post report (and much else besides) should lead fair-minded observers to the only viable conclusion left to draw about the motives behind bills like AICO. It has become all too popular for politicians on both sides of the aisle to make a boogeyman out of big tech companies. The right does not like the supposed political bias of their corporate leadership, and the left can cast them as the villain in their economic populism narrative. This bill is an ambitious power play to score political points against these companies. Whether those on the right who support this bill are being played for fools by the left is a question for another time, although not one that, in my view, should be too difficult to answer.
However, while their congressional critics might decry these American success stories, their actions themselves are further proof that the market is thriving. People across the country — even across the globe — can debate complicated political issues. They can gain access to every byte of information you could possibly want with just a few clicks. They have access to a massive range of products and services that can be at their door in a matter of days. The foundation upon which AICO has been built is flimsy at best and should be exposed as such.