Warren Delivers Remarks at Freedom From Facebook and Google: Break Up Big Tech
Washington, DC - Today, United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) delivered remarks at Freedom From Facebook and Google's virtual event calling to break up Big Tech.
The full text of her remarks is available below.
Remarks by Senator Elizabeth Warren
May 27, 2021
Hello! Thank you for inviting me to join you today! I'm sorry we couldn't do this in person, but I'm grateful for this chance to pass along this message. I want to start with a big thank you to the Freedom from Facebook and Google coalition for bringing us together today. You all do powerfully important work to drive bold, progressive change forward. And I am grateful down to my toes for all that you do.
I also want to give a special shout-out to my colleague, Congressman Mondaire Jones. Go Mondaire! Congressman Jones is off to a running start in Congress and I'm thrilled that he's here with us today.
Thirty years ago, Facebook, Google, and Amazon did not exist. Now they are among the most valuable and best-known companies in the entire world. Now it's a great story - but it is also a story about the dangers of monopolies and anti-competitive actions.
Today's Big Tech companies have grown so giant and so powerful that they threaten our economy, our society, and our very democracy. They have bulldozed competition, used private information for profit, and tilted the playing field against everyone else. In the process, they have stifled small businesses and innovation. And they have threatened our democratic processes.
We must hold these Big Tech companies accountable and break them up, so that there's real competition - and so that our democracy is not held hostage to their desire to make more and more money. We need to make sure that the next generation of great American tech companies has a chance to grow and flourish.
And to do that, we need government regulations that make sure that everybody - even the biggest and most powerful companies in America - that everybody plays by the rules. We need to stop this generation of Big Tech companies from throwing around their political power to shape the rules in their favor. We need to stop them from throwing around their economic power to buy up every potential competitor.
Just this past year, the FTC and 48 states recognized what I've been arguing for a long time: companies like Facebook snuff out competition. That's exactly what they did when they bought Instagram and WhatsApp. And this case demanding that Facebook unwind those purchases is a huge first step in the fight to break up Big Tech.
As Big Tech companies like Facebook and Google face growing scrutiny, we have a huge opportunity in Congress to make big, structural change and to finally hold these powerful companies accountable.
We do that by enshrining strong antitrust principles into new legislation, we do that by reviving serious antitrust enforcement at both the FTC and the DOJ, and we do that by fighting monopolies in any industry that threaten our economy, our society, and our democracy.
If we all make our voices heard, we can take power away from the wealthy and well-connected in Washington and we can put it back where it belongs - in the hands of the people.
So to all of you here, I'm grateful for all that you do -- and grateful for all that you will do. Keep up the great work. It's an honor to fight alongside you.
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