Barry Lynn Testifies to Senate Antitrust Subcommittee: Make Google, Facebook, and Amazon Safe for Democracy by Enforcing Traditional Non-Discrimination Rules
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 3, 2023
CONTACT: Ashley Woolheater,
woolheater@openmarketsinstitute.org
Lynn Voices Support for Senators’ Tech Reform Bills but Urges Them to Go Further to End Discrimination from Internet Gatekeepers
WASHINGTON - Open Markets Executive Director Barry Lynn testified on May 3, 2023 at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights on “Competition in the Digital Advertising Ecosystem.”
In his testimony, “How to Make Google, Facebook, and Amazon Safe for Democracy Through Traditional Non-Discrimination Rules,” Lynn shared Open Markets’ support for legislation to rein in big tech abuses including the AMERICA Act, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) and the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), but urged Congress to go further:
“We view these [bills] as vital to rebuilding a more competitive and open Internet and more democratic markets for news and debate. That said, we do not believe these ideas – even taken together – are sufficient to address the full array of threats posed by the power and control concentrated in Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft,” said Lynn.
He invoked former Senator Al Franken’s 2017 remarks at an Open Markets event in which the former Committee member called for neutrality – a concept long central to the health of our democracy -- to be applied to internet gatekeepers like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft: “no one company should have the power to pick and choose which content reaches consumers and which doesn’t.”
The need to rigorously apply neutrality and non-discrimination principles to governing our online markets and communications channels is even more urgent today.
View video of the hearing here.
Read Lynn’s written testimony here.
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