After Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey faced difficult questions on the ethics of their respective tech giants, and as the DoJ, in partnership with state AGs and the FCC, launches a wide-ranging anti-monopoly campaign against America’s tech titans, Facebook is reportedly leading a new effort to beef up the industry’s lobbying firepower inside the beltway.
According to the Washington Post, the new pro-tech political advocacy organization will work to convince lawmakers in Washington that Silicon Valley is a key component of America’s economic engine, as well as a valuable bastion of free speech, and thus should not be trifled with.
The new group, called “American Edge”, will use its seemingly infinite funding to run ad campaigns and direct political spending to combat regulators trying to crack down on the tech industry and their “hard-earned” cartel.
“American Edge’s” board is slated to include several heavy hitters, from big-time lobbyists to former politicians, including Susana Martinez, former Republican governor of New Mexico, and former Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania Chris Carney, among others, according to reports.
Since the election of Donald Trump four years ago, Facebook has significantly scaled up its lobbying effort in Washington, spending more than $16.7 million last year alone to influence lawmakers and regulators, according to public records.
One of Zuckerberg’s reasons for creating the group is that any major restrictions against American tech firms could ultimately make Chinese firms more competitive.
However, Facebook has a quite a frosty history on the topic of public affairs, with the company a few years back hiring a GOP-linked PR firm called ‘Definers Public Affairs’ that waged a “guerilla” campaign to deflect blame for Facebook’s many scandals
Across the world, in China, Beijing has also conducted some major anti-trust and anti-monopoly campaigns, including shutting down Ant’s IPO a few weeks ago due to “privacy concerns”.
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