For Immediate Release: April 13, 2020

Press Contact: Robyn Shapiro, rshapiro@economicliberties.us

ECONOMIC LIBERTIES RELEASES NEW PAPER TO TAKE ON FACEBOOK & GOOGLE, JOINS FREEDOM FROM FACEBOOK & GOOGLE COALITION

Washington, D.C. – As Facebook and Google use the coronavirus crisis to launch splashy P.R. campaigns and shore up their power, the American Economic Liberties Project today released “Addressing Facebook and Google’s Harms Through a Regulated Competition Approach,” a working paper authored by Economic Liberties’ Sarah Miller, Matt Stoller and Zephyr Teachout. The paper provides an overview of the policy choices that allowed Facebook and Google to develop a business model toxic to democracy, civil rights, and public health, and breaks down a series of solutions to rein in big tech.

“Facebook and Google are taking wrecking balls to our democracy,” said Sarah Miller, Executive Director of the American Economic Liberties Project and Co-Chair of Freedom From Facebook & Google. “These platforms have represented a toxic threat for years. Now, they are using the coronavirus crisis to entrench their power, amplifying and profiting from deadly misinformation and scammers, lording it over small businesses in distress, and decimating the free press by monopolizing advertising markets. No one should buy into their pandemic PR, while the need to break their power should be crystal clear.”

To address the harms induced by Facebook and Google, Economic Liberties outlines two basic but essential solutions. First, policymakers must break up Facebook and Google so that they are no longer too big to regulate. Second, they must regulate the resulting market practices to prevent reconsolidation and protect essential values such as privacy, nondiscrimination, free speech, and diversity in the public square.

On Friday, Economic Liberties also joined the Freedom From Facebook & Google coalition, a movement dedicated to breaking up and regulating big tech’s dangerous monopolies. As Economic Liberties’ Sarah Miller, who also serves as Co-Chair of the coalition, told Protocol:

“If anything, this crisis has revealed [big tech] to be even more dangerous to people and our democracy: The platforms are allowing deadly misinformation to flourish, profiting off of deceptive and opportunistic advertising for critical health supplies, and accelerating the collapse of local news, all while uncertainty around upcoming elections grows.”

“Addressing Facebook and Google’s Harms Through a Regulated Competition Approach” is available here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.  

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Economic Liberties works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. AELP 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.