EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.
Largely lost last week amid the spectacle of President Trump turning the White House into a Covid-19 hot spot was a Washington rarity in these polarized times: Congress doing its job.
The House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust issued a remarkable report of its 16-month investigation into the monopoly power wielded by four of America’s Big Tech companies: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. The 449-page document details the costs and abuses of those monopolies and calls for strengthening antitrust laws and enforcement, including cracking down on mergers and requiring the four behemoths to spin off parts of their businesses.
The subcommittee revived a key function of Congress: the power to investigate, report, and set the stage for legislation. The report itself may become a keystone in a long-overdue dawning of progressive tech reforms.
Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.
Katrina vanden HeuvelTwitterKatrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of The Nation, America’s leading source of progressive politics and culture. She served as editor of the magazine from 1995 to 2019.