Joe Biden should stay above the populist anti-tech fray. This is why | Opinion

With his anti-innovation comments in the State of the Union, President Joe Biden officially joined the shortsighted, anti-tech fray, calling on lawmakers to pass the deceptively named American Innovation and Choice Online Act. That is the last thing America needs right now.

Conservatives and progressives that support this kind of legislation remain ready to take the populist hammer to America’s biggest tech companies, with little regard for the long-term consequences. Each has their own seemingly separate reasons, but many of these can be traced back to political vendettas. And for what? Do we really want to risk America’s national and economic security to settle a grudge?

Conservative ire is focused on content moderation. Social media platforms have often banned far-right extremist political content, claims that the 2020 election was stolen, or COVID-related conspiracies. As such, the conservative project to punish the tech titans is almost entirely about claims of "unfairness" to conservative voices on social media — regardless of the fact that social media algorithms often give an advantage to conservative content. In fact, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has openly supported AICOA on the grounds that it could stop platforms from banning apps like Parler, a breeding ground for conspiracies and hate speech.

And then there’s the progressive left. The most radical arguments from the left rely on the idea that being a large company is inherently dangerous. But they provide no specific reasons that bigness is harmful or acknowledge the advantages of scale for consumers, small business users, developers, and others. By undermining exactly what makes platforms so valuable, the kinds of anti-innovation legislation Biden and progressives like Sen. Elizabeth Warren are championing would be highly destructive to the tech ecosystem and American leadership in technology.

The first suspicious detail is how precisely this legislation targets just a few companies that politicians are railing against. AICOA was written deliberately so it only applies to four companies — Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook. Massive companies like Walmart, which still has the highest revenue of any U.S. company and has a lengthy history of growing through acquisitions, evade scrutiny under the bill. 

Legislation authors argue there’s an inherent conflict of interest when a company owns a platform and promotes its own products on that platform. The idea that one shouldn’t compete on one’s own platform has never been applied outside of this attempt to dismantle digital platforms. Retailers in many industries like Kohl’s, Target, Kroger, Walmart, Best Buy, Lowe’s and PetSmart all sell "house labels" that they own alongside more traditional brands. Tech companies frequently provide enormous value to consumers with "house" products — everyday names like Google Maps, iTunes and more.

America’s tech sector is one of the most successful and most innovative parts of the US economy. To put it bluntly, tech companies are so big because they’re incredibly valuable for consumers and small businesses alike. And they’re our most important sources of rapid innovation and technical progress. Yet lawmakers have included bills like AICOA that would make companies think twice before investing in emerging technologies and developing integrated services.

Stifling innovation for vague ideological reasons is just shooting ourselves in the foot. American technology policy should not be focused on arbitrarily punishing the most successful companies in America’s most successful industry. This path would replicate the many failures of European tech policy: overly regulated, under-invested, and with few success stories compared to the US.

America’s tech sector is also one of the few sectors where America’s flagship companies directly compete with China’s state enterprises. The Chinese government is a genocidal, authoritarian nightmare and American policy on all levels should be focused on promoting civil liberties abroad and counteracting China’s attempt at outpacing American innovation in technology. These bills would hobble America’s most successful technology companies, and in doing so will cede enormous power to their Chinese competitors.

While these anti-tech bills seem to be on life support, Biden’s endorsement is likely to breathe new life into them. There are certainly several ways in which the tech sector should work to reduce harmful effects on society, but those issues should be addressed specifically and precisely, and with the tech sector at the table. Brushing the industry with broad “big is bad” strokes won’t solve those problems or benefit consumers. And overregulation that constrains the ability of our technology champions to innovate is a disaster in the making for our national interest.

Leaders on both sides of the aisle — Biden, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries — should take note: if any of these bills become law, they will leave both the U.S. tech sector and the country as a whole worse off.

Jeremiah Johnson is co-founder of NYC New Liberals and the Center for New Liberalism, part of the Progressive Policy Institute.