Democrats made a strategic alliance with Silicon Valley during Barack Obama’s presidency that they would be wise to shake in the face of a second Donald Trump term. Since the Obama era, Big Tech CEOs have portrayed themselves as champions for climate action and social justice, defenders of reproductive rights and fundamental freedoms, and thus allies to Democrats and progressives. “The good guys” of corporate America. But those days are long gone. And it's time to stop giving them a free pass.
Leading up to this year’s election, these same CEOs showed their true priorities: zero oversight, bigger government contracts, and unfettered monopoly power superseded years of lip service about social responsibility, protecting our democracy, or even U.S. national security.
We have agreed that every other industry ought to design its products safely. Why not social media platforms?
A recent YouGov poll found that two-thirds of Americans agreed misinformation on social media has gotten worse since 2020. And by now, so many Americans cannot distinguish fact from fiction that legitimate politics can barely function. An October Ipsos poll found that voters who answered factual questions about political issues like inflation and immigration incorrectly were more likely to prefer Donald Trump over Kamala Harris.
This means there’s no downside for Trump and his MAGA propagandists to keep spewing out lies on Big Tech’s platforms. And that’s to say nothing of the Russian, Chinese, and Iranian election interference that was even more rampant.
None of this happened by accident. Elon Musk ended content moderation when he bought Twitter and turned it into X. Meta, TikTok, and Google cut tens of thousands of trust and safety jobs, axed fact-checkers, and ended transparency tools. This unquestionably made platforms less prepared to address election-related disinformation and made the public less able to understand the content in their feeds.
Why? The answer is simple: profit. Spreading lies and conspiracy theories makes tech platforms so much money that they design their products to actually amplify those bad-faith actors despite repeated calls from lawmakers and the public to do better.
Despite numerous tongue-lashings (and crocodile tears for the cameras) before Congress, it’s business as usual for these CEOs. The Facebook Files revealed that they’ve put a value on the life of a child (it’s $270). Their engagement-at-all-cost algorithms are designed for profit and not to protect against sexual predation or degrading children’s mental health.
We have agreed that every other industry ought to design its products safely. Why not social media platforms?
It turns out that pushing MAGA conspiracy theories and driving our children to depression and self-harm is a lucrative business. Facebook alone made more than $1 million running ads falsely claiming the 2024 race would be rigged or postponed and that the country might be “headed for another civil war.” Google made money off hundreds of YouTube right-wing disinformation videos with tens of millions of views. Altogether, social media apps make more than $11 billion a year off children, including $2 billion off kids under 13.
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The CEOs knew the stakes were high this year – they were warned by lawmakers and researchers across the country and the globe – yet they chose profit and servility to Trump over preparedness and transparency.
Indeed, almost every single one of these CEOs lined up to kiss Trump’s ring before the election. Google’s Sundar Pichai has reportedly been courting Trump for months; Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg vowed to stay out of the election and deployed the time-tested strategy of playing to Trump’s ego with overt flattery. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, instructed his editors not to endorse Kamala Harris. Apple’s Tim Cook called Donald Trump directly for help dodging European regulations. And Elon Musk put in $130 million to ensure a Trump win.
Under Trump, they know the government will stop trying to rein in their abuses and let them freely trample the American people in pursuit of ever-higher profits. That’s also why these companies have deployed an army of lobbyists and lawyers to block legislation and go to war against Biden administration enforcers at the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice.
I don’t want my children or yours to grow up in a country where Big Tech companies traffic in hate, division, and exploitation, which lead to real-world violence, depression, and suicide. It’s time to draw a line: we’re done accepting this. We’re done watching U.S. companies abandon their responsibility to safeguard the integrity of our citizens, democracy, or society.
After letting these companies distort our political discourse for the third presidential election cycle in a row and poisoning ourselves, our children, and our neighbors for profit, Americans are ready to say: enough.
So. What are we waiting for? Let’s pass the Kids Online Safety Act, right now, which would force tech platforms to put children over profits, before a Big Tech-friendly Trump administration and its allies in Congress water it down. And state and federal antitrust enforcers must continue to keep up the pressure on Big Tech — because forcing these companies to face the music has strong bipartisan support. Republicans, including the incoming vice president, love to rail against Big Tech; well, with a likely governing trifecta in 2025, they should put their money where their mouth is. Democrats cannot come to the rescue.
And it’s time to show Big Tech CEOs that, even for them, there are limits to what money can be allowed to do.
Big Tech is not untouchable. In America, no one is above the law.
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