As American lawmakers prepare to vote on updating antitrust statutes to deal with new digital era abuses, the scare tactics of Big Tech have begun. US airwaves are full of what a commentator has termed “emotional but fact-free advertising” attacking any action to regulate technology platform companies, with Wall Street Journal reporting that these mega-corporations have spent $36 million to torpedo the antitrust Bill. The proposed measure emerged from a year-and-a-half-long investigation by a US House of Representatives antitrust panel into the power of tech platforms and is seen as the most significant step – save the move to protect online privacy for children in 1998 – by legislators to curb the monopoly power of internet giants. But to amass great fortunes through market exploitation, and then use part of those riches to pay for propaganda opposing regulation, is a timeless political strategy, writes governance expert Tom Wheeler. 

Drawing a parallel with the tactics of railroad companies in 19th-century America, he points out that troubled by the passage of a regulatory bill in the House, the railroads launched a campaign to turn the country against regulation. As the world watches a re-enactment in the digital era of a political strategy developed in the industrial age, it is worth remembering that the railroads were ultimately unsuccessful and the protections put in place to assure a competitive market resulted in a century of progress and competition-driven innovation. Just as the rail companies played off the ignorance of the public and many lawmakers about the details of their businesses, portray- ing valid regulatory oversight as “government intrusion” and warning of a disaster within the industry and the wider public if “affairs were unsettled” as a result, Big Tech is enacting a similar playbook. Of the multimillion-dollar campaign against regulation, the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which represents companies such as Amazon, Apple, Meta/Facebook, and Alphabet/Google, has spent the most – over $24 million. The CCIA campaign theme, “Don’t Break What Works”, plays on the fears of millions of digital natives, claiming that regulation by the US Congress “could stop progress in its tracks, breaking the products and services you love”. 

Domain experts, on the contrary, say that the proposed legislation is nuanced and doesn’t reach any a priori conclusions about digital companies’ business practices. What it does do is require antitrust authorities to make their case in court where the tech behemoths would have the full opportunity to challenge the contention that certain practices are anti-competitive. Wheeler says another industry group, the Consumer Technology Association, has also been running advertisements against regulation with their line of attack, referencing the role of cyberattacks by Russia against Ukraine, being that antitrust legislation is a national security threat. Critics of the digital companies’ approach to oversight norms, meanwhile, have been vilified and the tech industry’s approach is eerily reminiscent of President George W. Bush’s ‘if you are not with us, you are against us’ stand after the 9/11 attacks.