Busting up the nation’s tech giants would be much harder than making a campaign pledge. Corporate breakups are a huge, and rare, undertaking for the government, and a social media company like Facebook presents unique challenges that didn't exist with past antitrust successes like the dismembering of AT&T in the 1980s. Here are some of the obstacles standing in the way of turning this rallying cry into reality:
Kristine Fargotstein has been named VP, policy and advocacy, for USTelecom-The Broadband Association. Fargotstein comes from the Federal Communications Commission, where most recently she had been detailed to the House Communications Subcommittee to work on broadband infrastructure, network neutrality, and spectrum issues. While at the FCC, Fargotstein's posts included acting wireline advisor to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, special counsel in the Office of General Counsel, legal advisor to the Wireline bureau chief, and attorney advisor in the Wireline Competition Bureau.
A growing tech-skeptic chorus is drawing attention to the ways in which information technology disrupts democracy. No country is immune. With a better understanding of the principles undergirding both foreign and domestic responses to the threats posed by big tech, each subsequent section in this paper will lay out the specific dimensions of the political and economic problems that have arisen in the digital age, the policy responses and proposals pursued abroad, and the ideas guiding debate in the US.
I recently traveled to Brussels to see my long-time friends Gerry Salole and Rien van Gendt at the European Foundation Centre. As usual, we spoke about the status of philanthropy in Europe and the United States. A huge topic, indeed.
The recent presidential executive order barred US companies from buying foreign-made telecommunications equipment deemed a national security risk. Although the order does not name Huawei, Congress and our intelligence agencies have voiced concern that the company’s equipment contains vulnerabilities that the Chinese government and others could exploit to spy on or harm US networks. But the executive order misses a critical problem: our networks already contain equipment from Huawei — lots of it.
The Trump administration’s offensives aimed at frustrating the 5G ambitions of China and mobile-technology giant Huawei might end up impeding America’s wireless ambitions, too. Recent White House actions land as China and the US race to launch the superfast cellular networks, with Huawei and its Chinese customers targeting a nationwide 5G rollout in 2020. A US Commerce Department measure, designed to hinder Huawei from buying critical components, might make it harder for American and European telecom-equipment makers to buy certain supplies as well, Western industry executives said.
Rep Scott Tipton (R-CO) introduced a bill May 10, the Reprioritizing Unserved Rural Areas and Locations for Broadband Act (RURAL Broadband Act) which if passed would improve the process for expanding broadband to rural communities. “It’s an outrage that rural communities still don’t have the same access to high-speed internet as urban areas,” said Reo Tipton.
Parler, a Twitter-like platform, was initially hatched in 2018 as a tool for digital news outlets to claw revenue back from big social networks like Facebook.
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