Biden’s call for Big Tech crackdown boosts long-shot antitrust push

President Biden’s boost for an antitrust reform proposal targeting tech giants during his State of the Union address was embraced as a win for supporters backing the bill to limit dominant tech companies from preferencing their own products and services. 

During the roughly one hour and 13 minute speech, the president urged Congress to strengthen antitrust enforcement and “prevent big online platforms from giving their own products an unfair advantage.” 

The president’s support, though, may do little to move the needle on the issue — especially in a politically divided Congress — as powerful tech groups continue to push back. 

Biden’s comment was seemingly a nod to the bipartisan American Innovation and Choice Online Act. The legislation aims to block dominant companies from giving preference to their own goods or discriminating against rival products. In practice, that could mean that Amazon would not be able to place its own products at the top of search results or that Google would be prevented from highlighting its own services in its search engine results.

The proposal advanced last Congress out of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, but failed to make it into law last year after tech groups spent millions on lobbying efforts and ad campaigns to kill the bill. 

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), a lead sponsor of the bill, called Biden’s comments on antitrust a sign of “momentum.”

“President just brought up my bipartisan shipping bill, antitrust tech bills AND ticketing issue! Momentum!,” Klobuchar tweeted during the speech.

Biden’s call to action was the first time a president has mentioned antitrust in a State of the Union since former President Carter in 1979, according to The American Presidency Project document archive. 

“For the movement, this is an important moment that shows that Big Tech’s era of unchecked power is coming to an end. Holding Tech giants accountable isn’t just good policy. It’s a political winner, and Biden’s State of the Union is Exhibit A,” Kyle Morse, deputy executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, said in a statement. 

“It’s time for Members of Congress – on both sides of the aisle – to heed his call, stand up for the American people, and get this done,” Morse added. 

Sarah Miller, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, said the speech “sends an unmistakable message to the rest of the Democratic Party that the President expects his Party to ‘finish the job.’”

In addition to the nod to the proposal to rein in “Big Tech” dominance over small businesses, Miller applauded Biden’s speech for boosting support for banning “junk fees” on tickets and ending noncompete agreements for workers. 

Biden’s State of the Union address was his latest call for support behind antitrust reform. The president penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal last month with a similar message to Congress calling for support efforts to boost competition in the tech sector. 

But even the boost from the president may not help get the bill across the finish line.

Supporters face an even tougher landscape this Congress, with Republicans in control of the House pledging to prioritize a tech agenda focused on content moderation, based largely on unfounded claims of social media companies using an anti-conservative bias to censor content. 

Republicans have been setting the stage for that agenda since before they took control of the House. In December, incoming House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sent letters to Apple, Amazon, Google parent company Alphabet and Microsoft asking for information about the companies’ “collusion with the Biden Administration” to “suppress freedom of speech online.”

The GOP forged ahead with its plan Wednesday during a hearing focused on former Twitter employees’ decision to limit the spread of a New York Post story about President Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

Antitrust reform advocacy groups made a mad dash toward end of last year to encourage congressional leaders to bring the American Innovation and Online Choice Act to a vote, along with another aimed at boosting competition in the app store market, before Republicans took control of the House. 

Although the American Innovation and Online Choice Act has support in both chambers, GOP leaders in the House have not made antitrust a priority. Jordan was not a supporter of the bill, either, meaning the committee will likely not call it back for discussion this session. 

At the same time, supporters of antitrust reform are still facing a powerful coalition of tech companies and associated industry groups that are not backing down from the fight against the bills. 

The Computer and Communications Industry Association’s “Don’t Break What Works” campaign elevated their previous criticism of the bill in a statement responding to Biden’s speech. The association names Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta among its members.

The tech industry trade group claims the proposal would “break products” like free Google services or Amazon’s two-day shipping. 

“We remain concerned that the President’s rhetoric tonight reaffirms commitment to those same, flawed policies,” said Chandler Smith Costello, a spokeswoman for the push against the legislation.

“We encourage the administration to focus on the issues that are most pressing to American families and businesses rather than continuing to pursue an agenda that remains unpopular with American consumers,” Costello said. 

Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) and supporters of the antitrust push have called those arguments a form of scare tactics that misrepresent the bill.

“These are gigantic monopolies. And one of the great challenges with monopolies is with tremendous concentrated economic power comes political power,” Cicilline previously told The Hill.

“We knew this was gonna be a tough haul, but it’s not going away. We’re gonna come right back at it,” he added.