and this year has gotten underway,
but the clock is already ticking for the Democratic
led Congress to pass bills regulating big technology.
Republicans expected to gain control of both
the House and the Senate following the 2022
midterm elections. And several bills could be stopped in their tracks.
Joining me now is Evan Greer, director for a fight for the future,
a platform aiming to defend people's most basic rights in the digital age.
Thank you so much for coming on the show. Evan
explain to our viewers why democratic lawmakers would want to push legislation now
and what a Republican takeover might mean for big technology.
Yeah.
I mean it's funny because if there's one
thing that democrats and republicans actually agree on,
it's that these big tech companies are a problem.
Um They may disagree on what those problems are, but there's a lot of agreement.
It's not just inside D. C.
But from people across the political spectrum that these
companies have amassed too much power over what we can
see and what we can say and what we can
do online and that they're abusing our personal data.
Um but you're absolutely right that the
reality is because there's so much disagreement about
what to do about that it's essential that democrats don't sit on their thumbs,
sit on their hands.
They need to get moving
and do something that will actually help.
I think the lowest hanging fruit for them would
be to pass a real federal data privacy bill
to cut off the surveillance.
That really is what drives a lot of the harm
that we're seeing from companies like facebook and Youtube.
So does a Republican controlled Congress
both better or worse for big tech Evan.
You know, I don't know that it's really better or worse.
I think the reality is that lawmakers on both sides have
real concerns about the ways that these companies are doing business.
But again, I think it's essential that lawmakers don't just do something.
They do something that will actually help ordinary people
and do something that leads to a future where
we have more choices if we enact regulations that
are supposed to protect us from these companies,
but actually just end up solidifying the monopoly
power of corporations like google and amazon.
We're not actually making the world a better place.
So it's really important that we don't just do something, but we do something right,
which again, in my view would be a data privacy bill, some antitrust enforcement
and getting some real teeth going around this surveillance capitalist
business model that drives what these companies are doing,
distorting our conversations and undermining our democracy.
It is interesting to see, of course,
these companies based in the US but US regulators clearly not as stringent
and harsh on big technology firms as we've seen their european counterparts,
european regulators b
constantly for years now finding these
big technology companies for anticompetitive practices,
Among other allegations and means
I do want to highlight here.
We've seen a lot of changes though in big technology Evan during this pandemic,
especially in the past 12 months.
I'm just wondering whether or not you think some of these
technology leads,
we're trying to get ahead of some of the changes that might be coming.
Jeff Bezos of course, stepping down from amazon over the summer facebook
rebranding to meta Now saying the top priority for the company is the metaverse.
A AR and VR and then of course Jack Dorsey, yes,
leaving twitter as well now to focus on square or block.
Do you think that these leaders had a sense that change is coming for big tech?
You know,
I think I can't get in their heads or know what's making them make their decisions.
But I don't think anyone would tell you that this
is not going to be a watershed year for uh,
not just big tech, but all technology.
The decisions that we make about technology and the policies that govern it
are going to affect our Children and our Children's Children.
And I think we need to be asking ourselves not
just what policies are needed to protect us from technology,
but what policies are needed to lead to a world where technology is a
force for justice and for liberation rather than a force for greed and exploitation
and that's what human rights advocates around the world
are calling for and that's what I think lawmakers should
be listening to and break down Evan to the issues
that are divisive that republicans and democrats disagree on,
and then the ones that they do agree on.
Sure.
So obviously there's a lot of disagreement
around things like online speech and content.
Moderation, broadly speaking,
democrats have often argued that platforms are not moderating enough.
Republicans have argued that there moderating too much, I think, you know,
for human rights folks,
we sit in the middle and recognize that these platforms do have too much
power and they're wielding it in ways
that often disproportionately harm marginalized communities,
activists, sex workers folks living outside the US, arab and muslim folks.
Um so while the conversations dc often don't necessarily approach
the reality on the ground or on the web,
um we see that there's, you know,
disagreement there around things like section 2 30 around, uh you know,
whether the government should be getting more involved in platforms,
moderation practices, but again,
where I think there's real agreement is around
the scale and size of these companies,
we've seen some bipartisan efforts around antitrust enforcement and around
the ways that these companies are abusing our data.
Um there's significant bipartisan agreement about that.
Um,
and I think the most likely thing that we could see move or that
I hope we'll see move will be finally enacting a data privacy law,
the U.
S.
Uh it's it's a travesty at this point,
that we don't have basic protections for our personal data,
Which affects every single person out there,
whether they're very active online or not.
Okay, Evan, we got to leave it there. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
2022 is going to be a big year. No doubt about that.
That's Evan Greer, director for fight for the future.