Democrats wrangle over whether to break up Big Tech in debate first (updated)

The top Democratic presidential candidates wrangled over their differing views on how to take on the unprecedented power of Big Tech, marking the first time the contenders have been asked to discuss the issue on the debate stage. Most of the candidates drew a contrast between their own views and those of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who has called for breaking up top tech companies including Facebook, Google and Amazon. While other candidates agreed the government should take on Big Tech, they said they don't believe "breaking up" the companies will properly address issues including data privacy and market power.

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Sen Elizabeth Warren hit Amazon: "Look, you get to be the umpire in the baseball game, or you get to have a team, but you don't get to do both at the same time."

"I'm not willing to give up and let a handful of monopolists dominate our economy and our democracy. It's time to fight back.... We need to enforce our antitrust laws, break up these giant companies that are dominating, Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Oil, all of them."

She said that in brick-and-mortar retail, Walmart, the largest player, has 8–9% market share, while Amazon has 49% of online sales, partly by serving as a storefront for other, smaller retailers: 

Sen Bernie Sanders broadened the antitrust attack to include finance, media, and agribusiness: "We need a president who has the guts to appoint an attorney general who will take on these huge monopolies, protect small business, and protect consumers by ending the price fixing that we see every day."

Beto O’Rourke blasted Facebook for allowing Trump’s re-election campaign to post a misleading attack ad against Joe Biden on the platform, vowing that as president he would look to place the same restrictions on social media platforms that exist for publishers. That could mean, for instance, seeking to erase tech companies' immunity from lawsuits over user-posted content. “We would allow no publisher to do what Facebook is doing,” O’Rourke said.