Don’t buy Big Tech’s nonsense that regulating them is a national security threat

After decades of illegally crushing competition at the expense of consumers and small businesses, the four “Big Tech” giants – Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple – are finally facing their antitrust complaint in Washington.

A bipartisan coalition has formed in Congress in support of the American Innovation and Choice Online (AICO) Act, which would prohibit Big Tech companies from unfairly providing their products with a competitive advantage.

The prospect of passage of this wildly popular bill prompted Big Tech to engage in one of the most desperate lobbying sprees in recent history. Big Tech’s “see what sticks” antitrust smear campaign has included everything from false claims of content moderation to soliciting consultants to spreading the message (which Amazon was caught doing) that AICO will “hurt communities of color.”

Break up the big tech giants – that’s what people want!

It’s no surprise, then, that Big Tech has pulled the oldest trick in the book of American politics: manufacturer concerns about alleged threats to “national security.” Over the past year, Big Tech has shamelessly pushed the assumption that AICO and its companion Open Markets for Applications Act (OAMA) would threaten America’s security.

That’s right: Big Tech would have you believe that a bill stopping Google from exploiting its search engine dominance against competitors is a threat to America’s national defense.

While this assumption is clearly absurd – what exactly would be the “national security” implications of stopping Amazon from giving preferential treatment to its own products in the marketplace? – this is not a shot in the dark.

Indeed, Big Tech has pulled out a gun to raise fabricated “national security” concerns.

The Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), Big Tech’s leading lobbying group, is at the forefront of funding flawed analyzes of the national security implications of antitrust laws. In cooperation with the law firm King & Spalding (whose clients include Google), the CCIA published its own document aimed at “identifying national security threats” allegedly posed by antitrust laws.

Unsurprisingly, the “concerns” they identified were abstract in nature and included the possibility of “undermining U.S. technological leadership.” The CCIA also feigned concern that antitrust laws would undermine “efforts to combat foreign influence and disinformation,” which is an especially funny argument considering Facebook is a member.

Big Tech has also worked hard to drum up support from retired national security figures to feign credibility. A group of 12 former national security officials who echoed the tech lobby’s position were quickly exposed as having professional ties to Big Tech. The CCIA went so far as to repackage an old, out-of-context video of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to portray her as an opponent of antitrust laws. After Protocol, a business and technology policy website, discovered that the video was old “and didn’t even address antitrust reform,” Rice’s representatives asked the CCIA to remove it.

In some ways, you can’t blame Big Tech for wrapping itself in a flag to avoid responsibility. Tech titans are desperate, and if there’s one constant in 21st century American politics, it’s that lies about national security can do a hell of a lot for a shaky program.

But when everyone from conservatives at the Heritage Foundation to progressives at the American Economic Liberties Project (AELP) started criticizing Big Tech’s cynical national security conspiracy for what it is, it’s high time the media stopped taking it seriously.

Notably, a number of former national security officials have supported antitrust efforts, most notably the former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, a retired general Wesley Clark.

Tom Ridge and Janet Napolitano – who respectively led the Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush and Barack Obama – have also supported reining in Big Tech’s monopoly power. In a joint letter, they noted that the preferences of companies like Apple “stand directly at odds with improving application security on their marketplaces.”

Unfortunately, Big Tech may be avoiding meaningless talk about “national security” for one reason and one reason only: the China factor.

The “Competitiveness Coalition,” a newly formed Big Tech front group led by former Republican senator Scott Brown, is spending huge amounts of money on a crude advertising campaign in which it attacks antitrust reform as pro-China.

Big Tech’s shameless targeting of China seems particularly offensive for several reasons. First, Big Tech giants have long proven they are willing to align with Beijing in hopes of gaining greater market share in China. Apple happily engaged in censorship of the Chinese app store in order to continue operating in the country – according to data from 2017 to 2021, approximately 55,000 apps will disappear. New York Times. As for Google, the company worked on a censored search engine project for the Chinese market back in 2018.

As he noticed Washington Post. in 2020. “Apple is highly dependent on Chinese manufacturing, and human rights reports have identified cases of alleged use of forced Uyghur labor in Apple’s supply chain.” (Similar reports have surfaced regarding Amazon.)

Given Big Tech’s willingness to help the Chinese government suppress dissent, it is no surprise that leading Chinese human rights organizations such as the Uyghur Human Rights Project have supported the Open App Markets Act.

But most importantly, the argument that China stands to gain from US attacks on Big Tech is flawed because it is based on a flawed assumption: the idea that monopoly power is good for innovation and that reining in corporate giants will kill America’s competitive advantage.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. On the contrary, the government helps stifle innovation by allowing Big Tech giants to gobble up promising small companies that will dominate the market. Big Tech is famous for its “copy, capture and kill” strategy, a model that makes it difficult for startups to thrive in key fields like artificial intelligence.

Want to fix Big Tech? Stop ignoring sex workers.

As legal scholar Ganesh Sitaraman noted in 2020, for America to maintain its innovation advantage around the world, “more, not less, competition is desirable,” meaning that “(b)encouraging and regulating big technologies will therefore improve innovation, not reduce it. “

In some ways, the “Cold War” rhetoric against antitrust is no different from the lies spread by monopolists during the height of tensions between the US and the USSR. Facing a breakup in the 1980s, AT&T lobbyists tried to persuade the Reagan administration to save them, arguing that maintaining the company’s monopoly on communications systems would keep Americans safe.

Fortunately, in January 1982, the Bell System was ordered dismantled. A quick glance at how history unfolded in the following years gives no credence to the view that breaking up AT&T was a salvation for America’s main adversaries.

As time expires before the August recess, it is critical that Senate leadership brings antitrust bills to a vote.

Big Tech isn’t afraid that antitrust reform will harm “national security”: it’s afraid it will stop their monopolistic business model – and they’re absolutely right.