President Biden's Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson weighs in on antitrust and Section 230

President Biden's Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson hinted she may be open to a more expansive reading of antitrust laws during her confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 23. In response to a question from Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Jackson said she believes “antitrust laws protect competition and, as you said, therefore protect consumers and competitors and the economy as a whole.” By claiming US antitrust law also protects competitors from being crushed by their biggest rivals, Jackson may be signaling support for a more expansive view of antimonopoly enforcement. (It’s also worth noting Jackson is close friends with another antitrust hawk, Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter.) Jackson also appeared to pour cold water on ongoing discussions by lawmakers — mostly Republicans — to condition the protections afforded to tech platforms under the liability shield known as Section 230 on their adherence to viewpoint neutrality. Such a move would require platforms to avoid labeling, throttling or removing content due to its political bent. In a response to a question from Sen Mike Lee (R-UT) that raised that possibility, Jackson called it “generally impermissible,” under the First Amendment, for the government to regulate speech “along viewpoint lines.”