More Biden Voters Want Congress to Regulate Tech Companies Than Those Who Went for Trump
A July poll published by Politico found that those who voted for now-President Joe Biden in the 2020 election favor Congress cracking down on big tech companies, as opposed to those who voted for former President Donald Trump—who recently sued some of the most prominent companies.
The poll indicated that 23 percent of Biden voters strongly approve of Congress regulating tech companies, compared to 28 percent of Trump voters. In looking into detailed polls surrounding Biden voters, 30 percent of them consider tech regulation to be a top priority, while 40 percent of them consider tech regulation to be an important, but lower priority.
Twenty-three percent of Biden voters consider tech regulation to not be as important of a priority.
Other pertinent issues in the poll include the Economy, Security, Health Care, Medicare, Social Security, Women's Issues, Education and Energy.
The polls were conducted online and the data encapsulates a "target sample of Registered Voters based on age, gender, race, educational attainment, marital status, homeownership, 2020 presidential vote choice, and region," according to Politico.
On June 11, Congress introduced five bipartisan bills involving companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.
The five bills include The American Innovation and Choice Act; The Platform Competition and Opportunity Act; The Ending Platform Monopolies Act; The Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching (ACCESS) Act; and The Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act.
Each bill tackles issues such as discrimination against competitors, fair business practices, and equal access, to name a few.
"Right now, unregulated tech monopolies have too much power over our economy," Representative David Cicilline, the House's antitrust subcommittee chairman, said in a now-deleted press release. "They are in a unique position to pick winners and losers, destroy small businesses, raise prices on consumers, and put folks out of work."
Trump was suspended from both Twitter and Facebook after the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. In early July, Trump filed a class-action lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter and Google, accusing the sites of infringing upon his rights as a U.S. citizen for banning him from their social media platforms.
Trump stated in a July op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that he was suing to "restore free speech for myself and for every American."
"This coercion and coordination is unconstitutional," Trump wrote. "The Supreme Court has held that Congress can't use private actors to achieve what the Constitution prohibits it from doing itself. In effect, Big Tech has been illegally deputized as the censorship arm of the U.S. government. This should alarm you no matter your political persuasion. It is unacceptable, unlawful and un-American."
