Call Congress: End Big Tech monopolies

 

What do Amazon, Meta, Google, and Apple all have in common? These corporations own so much of the tech market that they get to decide how you experience the internet and how technology impacts our communities. This often results in us having to play by the broken rules of Big Tech companies who use their bigness to undermine our democracy, suppress competition, and abuse our personal data to make money. But this could all change soon. The Senate is set to vote on crucial antitrust legislation in the coming weeks that will fundamentally challenge Big Tech monopolies. The Open App Markets Act (OAMA) and the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICO) will make it more difficult for Big Tech companies to get bigger by limiting how they acquire competing companies and curbing a company’s ability to traffic to their own platforms instead of others. These bills have bipartisan support and it’s possible that these bills could be voted on this week.  Can you take a few minutes to call your Senators today? Let’s tell Congress that it’s time to end Big Tech monopolies and pass antitrust reform. Click here to get connected to your Senator. CLICK TO CALL CONGRESS Passing antitrust reform is so important and puts the power back in the hands of users while making it more difficult for corporations to skirt accountability and regulation from agencies like the FTC and the DOJ.1 Big Tech has spent $36 million trying to shut down these bills and we need your help to put as much pressure as possible on Congress.2 Legislators need to hear from you, their constituents, that taking on Big Tech will give back to users the fundamental freedom to choose — to choose how to experience the internet, to choose how to spend our money, to choose how to connect with other people around the world. Kairos is joining Fight for the Future and dozens of organizations across the country in urging our elected officials to take action on Big Tech monopolies. Will you join us? Click here to call your Senators and urge them to support antitrust reform. Until tech works for all, Rico, Kairos Campaign Manager   Sources: 1. “What the antitrust proposals would actually mean for tech,” Protocol, 1 October 2020. 2. “Big Tech Has Spent $36 Million on Ads to Torpedo Antitrust Bill,” The Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2022.

Tell Your Senators: No more Big Tech monopolies

 

Big Tech lobbyists and their allies in Congress are trying to stop two bills that would break up their monopolies and allow for more competition: Congress is considering the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, a bill that would protect small businesses and consumers from gatekeeper companies that control what content people see online. Congress is also considering the Open App Markets Act, which would strengthen consumer protections and stop Big Tech companies from stifling their competitors on app stores. Send a message to your senators: Urge them to protect consumers and take on Big Tech. Remember: Big Tech’s lobbyists are likely throwing everything they can at your senators to convince them to sink these pro-consumer bills. In a bitterly divided Senate, every vote could be the difference between victory and defeat. And Senate leadership needs to know that these bills are popular and must be brought to the full Senate for a vote. So your senators need to see messages from constituents flooding into their inbox. We need to show them that the people really care about stopping Big Tech from robbing us of choices online! Please send your senators a message urging them to pass anti-monopoly bills and rein in Big Tech. Thanks for taking action, George Public Citizen

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Sign the petition: John Oliver vs. Big Tech

 

On Sunday night's episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Oliver made a strong case for Congress to act now to pass two bills that would help break up Amazon, Facebook, Google, and the Big Tech monopolies:

"It's not that tech companies are inherently bad because they are big, it is that they are engaging in anti-competitive behavior. And here's where, unusually, I actually have some good news.

Because there are two bills before Congress right now with bipartisan support that could curtail some of Big Tech's excesses. But for reasons that we will get into later, if they don't pass in the next month, they are unlikely to pass at all."

Oliver then called on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to bring the bills to a vote now. "We have a very small window right now to actually do something about this," Oliver said. Will you help take up his call and urge the Senate to act?

Sign the petition: Tell Senators to vote YES on legislation that would help break up the big tech companies!

ADD YOUR NAME

One of these bills, S.2992, would help protect the small businesses that sell their goods on Amazon. Many of them have complained for years that Amazon abuses its power to undermine to their businesses. Here's how Oliver explained it:

"Basically, it is Amazon's playground, they make the rules, and they do seem to win a lot of the time. And as this expert points out, if they are competing with you, you're basically dead."

Amazon is busy lobbying hard to prevent these antitrust bills, which have bipartisan support, from coming up for a vote -- because they know the bills will pass. These bills will help reclaim our economy, our democracy, and even the internet itself from corporate monopolists. As Oliver put it:

"These bills would crack the door back open for innovation and nudge the internet back toward what it was supposed to be from the start. A revolutionary tool that expanded global access to information."

We need to make sure Senators hear that message from constituents like you. Will you speak out in this critical moment?

Add your name: Tell your Senators to ignore the corporate lobbyists and instead vote to break up Big Tech! 

Thank you for stepping up and speaking out,

Robert and the team at Demand Progress

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join our special LIVE call to Bust Big Tech on Monday!

 

Big Tech titans like Amazon think they own our government and our economy — paying lobbyists to make sure they can invade our privacy, escape liability, and build monopolies. That’s why Our Revolution and our partners are fighting back by organizing to push transformative legislation to challenge their unlimited power. Learn more on Monday’s official Bust Big Tech call! We’ll discuss key bills in Congress that can reduce this monopolistic behavior, and we will give you the tools to take action with us. In solidarity, Our Revolution

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TOP NEWS: Democratic AGs Position Themselves as 'Last Line of Defense' If Roe Falls

 

May 09, 2022

Top News

Democratic AGs Position Themselves as 'Last Line of Defense' If Roe Falls Dana Nessel refuses to enforce a "draconian" abortion ban from 1931 "that will endanger their lives and put at jeopardy the health, safety, and welfare of the lives of each and every woman in the state of Michigan." by Jessica Corbett As Schumer Tees Up Vote to Codify Roe, Progressives Urge Elimination of Filibuster "If Republicans can end the filibuster to install right-wing judges nominated by presidents who lost the popular vote in order to overturn Roe v. Wade," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, "Democrats can and must end the filibuster to keep abortion legal and safe." by Kenny Stancil Congress Urged to Reject 'False Choice' of Tackling Big Tech Monopolies or Protecting Privacy "Big Tech cannot, and should not, choose how it will be held accountable in a time when its damaging effects are becoming clearer by the day," stressed more than two dozen advocacy groups. by Brett Wilkins

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• ISPs Under Fire for Sabotaging Biden FCC as White House Touts Broadband Program • In Rebuke to Biden, Mexico Says No Nation Should Be Excluded from Americas Summit

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