ILSR organized and participated in a briefing, cosponsored by more than 40 local and national economic and racial justice, small business, and antimonopoly groups, making the case for Congress to break up Big Tech.
The House Antitrust Subcommittee is currently wrapping up its year-long investigation into the monopoly power of big tech platforms, and will be publishing a report on its findings soon. ILSR and its allies used this briefing to demonstrate the political will and strong policy arguments for the Subcommittee to include breakups in its final report.
ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell spoke on the briefing’s first panel, pointing to the simplicity and efficacy of breakups over other, more complicated regulatory regimes. She noted that Amazon’s dominance over multiple lines of business creates fundamental conflicts of interest that can only be solved through a structural breakup, followed by forcing behavioral changes to the way the corporation does business. The fantastic lineup of speakers included leaders of the Athena Coalition, Action Center on Race and the Economy, American Economic Liberties Project, Demand Progress, Demos, Open Markets Institute, the Partnership for Working Families, and more. Especially notable was the cosponsorship of several local and national small business organizations, who have had a growing voice in the fight to break up Amazon.
The briefing was viewed by hundreds of people, and included opening remarks by the Subcommittee’s chairman, Rep. David Cicilline. (Stacy’s talk starts at 10:30):
Watch the full briefing here.
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Photo via Open Markets.
