Washington, DC — As policymakers and antitrust enforcers zero in on the extreme market power of Big Tech monopolies and consider crucial policy solutions such as Big Tech break-ups, the American Economic Liberties Project today released two new policy quick takes: “The Truth About Google, Facebook, and Small Businesses” and “Myth vs Fact on Big Tech Monopolies.” The briefs explain how Facebook, Google, and Amazon prey on small businesses as a matter of course, while simultaneously relying on them as props in their PR and lobbying campaigns.

“Big Tech monopolies use their near-limitless resources to mislead policymakers and portray themselves as vital boosters of America’s small businesses and broader economy. The truth is very different,” said Pat Garofalo, Director of State and Local Policy at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Big Tech corporations inspire terror across the commercial landscape. Structural separations, robust antitrust enforcement and other legislative remedies are essential to address their harms.”

Informed by interviews with small business owners, Economic Liberties’ “The Truth About Google, Facebook, and Small Businesses” details the ways that Google and Facebook, respectively, harm small businesses. It includes stories of business owners paying more and more for ads on Google and Facebook while getting less and less in return. It highlights examples of counterfeiting scams that Google and Facebook have allowed to proliferate. And it shows why small businesses fear that Google and Facebook may at any time change algorithms, take their data, or otherwise fatally threaten their business.

In “Myth vs Fact on Big Tech Monopolies,” Economic Liberties systematically debunks the arguments Amazon, Facebook and Google have made to policymakers about their lines of business. Drawing from these firms’ defense against the House Antitrust Subcommittee, court cases, public-facing lobbying materials, and private conversations with legislators and staff, the quick take documents their claims and provides evidence on how they attempt to mislead.

Read “The Truth About Google, Facebook, and Small Businesses” here.

Read “Myth vs Fact on Big Tech Monopolies” here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.