London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Sep 17, 2025

Democrats And Republicans Are Talking About Breaking Down Big Tech Monopolies

Democrats And Republicans Are Talking About Breaking Down Big Tech Monopolies

Politicians in Congress are talking about returning to the days of robust anti-monopoly enforcement.
There's a growing bipartisan appetite in Congress to crack down on big tech, with progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans preparing to flex the federal government's anti-monopoly powers.

The Senate began hearings this week on antitrust law. Senators expressed different philosophies and concerns, but they all agreed on at least one key point: Tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Amazon have become too powerful.

It's the latest sign that Congress is ready to jump into a decadeslong vacuum created by marginal action from federal regulators as the tech sector became increasingly concentrated. Lawmakers discussed ways both to stop tech giants from growing larger in the future and steps that could be taken to chip away at their existing dominance.

“Why should any dominant corporation be able to merge with any other entity?” Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican, said in a Thursday hearing after rattling off a long list of companies owned by Google. “Why should Google, for instance, or Facebook be able to buy anything else given their dominant size?”

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, also a Republican, blasted tech giants for cornering the online ad market while local newsrooms endure round after round of cuts. Three companies — Google, Facebook, and Amazon — take in about two-thirds of all online advertising dollars. “Every one of these newsrooms have experienced the loss of reporters, which is the loss of journalism, which is the loss of insight of the people into issues,” said Blackburn.

But politicians still don’t agree about exactly what should be done. The Senate Antitrust subcommittee’s new Democratic chair, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, is sponsoring legislation to beef up government antitrust enforcement, tighten rules on which mergers are permissible, and force merging parties to prove their merger would not violate the law, among other measures. She’s trying to get bipartisan support for that and other reforms, which could include Australia-style requirements on tech giants to pay media outlets for producing news. Republicans are leery.

Sen. Mike Lee, the Republican ranking member on the Antitrust subcommittee, said at the beginning of the hearing he opposed government intervention and a “sweeping transformation” of antitrust laws. But before long he, too, was talking about the need to curtail big tech companies.

Lee outlined his concerns about what happened to Parler, a social media platform favored by conservatives that was removed from the Apple app store and briefly taken offline altogether.

Lee questioned whether it’s even possible for upstart competitors to challenge platforms like Facebook and Twitter in the current environment. “‘Build your own’ sounds really nice in theory, but in this instance, I’m not sure it works in practice. Do we have an entry problem?” he asked.

One recurring theme from witnesses during the hearing was the once-robust enforcement of antitrust legislation that dramatically broke up rail and telecom monopolies, had fallen into disuse in modern times. At one point, Open Markets Institute Executive Director Barry Lynn argued that Amazon should be barred from both running a marketplace and selling products on that marketplace — competing against other sellers all while being able to use their sales information against them.

“There should never be competition between the provider of services and the customer of those services,” said Lynn. “It’s a conflict of interest. Traditionally we have always prohibited this — we can trace it back in US federal law to baking policy in the 1860s. There’s nothing new here, what’s new is that we haven’t applied these kinds of rules to these corporations today.”

The political movement toward cracking down on tech companies is anything but an organized coalition. Many Republicans have accused social media platforms of discriminating against conservative voices. Democrats have mostly rolled their eyes at this and argued that the real problem is a lack of moderation allowing disinformation and hate speech to flourish.

Klobuchar told BuzzFeed News before the hearing that she believes there is enough common ground to craft reforms that could get enough bipartisan support to pass a narrowly split Congress. “This is exactly what was going on in the Gilded Age,” she said, drawing a comparison from small companies trying to compete with the likes of Amazon to local farmers trying to negotiate with rail monopolies a century ago.

She closed the meeting Thursday by saying the subcommittee will hold more hearings on how to curtail monopoly power. “It feels like every century we take on laws in this way,” said Klobuchar. “And this is our moment.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
The New Life of Novak Djokovic
The German Owner of Politico Mathias Döpfner Eyes Further U.S. Media Expansion After Axel Springer Restructuring
Suspect Arrested: Utah Man in Custody for Charlie Kirk’s Fatal Shooting
In a politically motivated trial: Bolsonaro Sentenced to 27 Years for Plotting Coup After 2022 Defeat
German police raid AfD lawmaker’s offices in inquiry over Chinese payments
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Volkswagen launches aggressive strategy to fend off Chinese challenge in Europe’s EV market
ChatGPT CEO signals policy to alert authorities over suicidal youth after teen’s death
The British legal mafia hit back: Banksy mural of judge beating protester is scrubbed from London court
Surpassing Musk: Larry Ellison becomes the richest man in the world
Embarrassment for Starmer: He fired the ambassador photographed on Epstein’s 'pedophile island'
Manhunt after 'skilled sniper' shot Charlie Kirk. Footage: Suspect running on rooftop during panic
×