In some ways, the hearing was a symbol of the ideological influence of antitrust groups that were founded in the wake of the 2016 presidential election and rose in prominence with each revelation of data breaches, privacy issues and disinformation campaigns. 

Freedom From Facebook and Google, a coalition that counts about 19 progressive groups today, was founded to “normalize and mainstream the idea that we need to think about power when we’re dealing with problems, particularly related to huge corporations,” Sarah A. Miller, co-chair of Freedom From Facebook and Google, said in an interview.  

At that time, Ms. Miller said, the coalition’s goal was to tie the public’s growing distrust of the tech industry to the complicated economic issue of market concentration. 

In 2018, the coalition filed a complaint against Facebook with the Federal Trade Commission after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which roughly 30 million users’ personal data was harvested without consent and used for political advertising purposes. 

That FTC probe resulted in a $5 billion fine, the largest in the commission’s history. 

“We were relentless about framing the scandals that were plaguing Facebook in the context of their power and their business model,” said Ms. Miller, executive director of The American Economic Liberties Project, which is one of the coalition’s groups. “Over time, we saw more and more voices come on board with that.