On September 22, Bloomberg reported that a draft executive order was circulated in the White House that would instruct the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate online platforms, such as Google and Facebook, for alleged antitrust abuses and biased content. This might sound like a good thing at first, but bringing concerns about political bias into antitrust enforcement would be a departure from the independence agencies currently maintain in investigations, and move the U.S. toward an anti-innovative environment. The draft order appears in the midst of increasing hostility between the president and Silicon Valley, which weakens the appeal of the United States as a home for innovation.
Prominent Republicans, too, are beginning to share Trump's dislike of big tech. On August 30, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) asked the FTC to look into competition abuses by Google, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions met with state attorneys general on September 25 about the “stifling of the free exchange of ideas” by tech platforms. The closed-door meeting centered around the political bias of these platforms, rather than any legitimate economic harm to customers. The recently drafted executive order would fall in line with these recent Republican moves to attack the Silicon Valley firms they dislike.
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