Is Big Tech getting an antitrust reset? Not quite yet.

Summary

POLITICO Tech Podcast Summary Episode: "Is Big Tech Getting an Antitrust Reset? Not Quite Yet."
Release Date: February 26, 2025
Host: Stephen Overlea

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Introduction

In this episode of POLITICO Tech, host Stephen Overlea delves into the current state of antitrust enforcement against Big Tech companies under President Donald Trump's administration. Despite initial hopes that a Trump presidency might lead to a relaxation of antitrust scrutiny, recent actions by regulatory bodies suggest otherwise. Overlea is joined by Jennifer Huddleston, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, to dissect these developments and their implications for the tech industry.

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Federal Trade Commission's Stance on Big Tech Censorship

Key Discussion Points:

• FTC’s Continued Vigilance: Despite the administration change, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) under new chair Andrew Ferguson maintains Biden-era policies, reinforcing tighter restrictions on mergers and acquisitions. Additionally, the FTC has launched an inquiry into whether social media platforms are censoring conservative speech.

Notable Quote:

“Antitrust is designed to be competition policy. It's not designed to be content moderation policy,”
— Jennifer Huddleston [02:45]

Insights: Huddleston highlights the potential First Amendment concerns arising from the FTC's focus on content moderation by private platforms. She emphasizes that antitrust laws are traditionally meant to promote competition, not to regulate how private companies manage their content.

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Antitrust Enforcement Under the Trump Administration

Key Discussion Points:

• FTC’s Mergers and Acquisitions Guidelines: The FTC has chosen to uphold stringent merger guidelines from the Biden era, which were previously criticized by the private sector for potentially disrupting business operations and innovation.

• Gail Slater’s Role: The Justice Department's antitrust division, led by Trump’s pick Gail Slater, remains in a state of flux as she navigates the Senate confirmation process. However, her recent statements suggest a continuation of existing antitrust cases rather than a significant shift.

Notable Quotes:

“There is a dynamic amount of innovation in the social media space and that the market is certainly responding to consumer demands around content moderation,”
— Jennifer Huddleston [04:51]

“We are seeing a kind of use of antitrust, particularly in the tech sector, that doesn't necessarily reflect the ongoing dynamic nature of this market,”
— Jennifer Huddleston [08:28]

Insights: Huddleston argues that the tech market is highly dynamic, with consumer preferences driving innovation and the emergence of new platforms. She contends that current antitrust actions may not align with traditional competition policies focused on consumer welfare.

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Market Definition and the Evolution of Antitrust Laws

Key Discussion Points:

• Adapting to Modern Business Models: The evolution of technology has led to business models where services like Google and Meta offer “free” products by extracting value through alternative means such as data monetization.

• Antitrust Laws and Market Definitions: Huddleston discusses the challenges in defining markets like search and social media, where consumer interactions span multiple platforms and services.

Notable Quotes:

“Our antitrust standards are still dynamic enough and objective enough that they provide a good way to analyze should there actually be a consumer harm found in these cases,”
— Jennifer Huddleston [12:13]

“It's important to consider what is that experience and how that's changing,”
— Jennifer Huddleston [12:13]

Insights: Huddleston emphasizes the importance of accurately defining markets in antitrust cases to reflect consumer behavior and the multifaceted nature of modern tech services. She warns against narrowly defining markets, which could unjustly target successful companies without genuine competitive concerns.

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Political Dynamics and Future Implications

Key Discussion Points:

• Partisan Views on Antitrust: Antitrust enforcement does not strictly follow partisan lines. While some Republicans support robust antitrust actions against Big Tech, others advocate for a more traditional, consumer-focused approach.

• Long-Term Consequences: Huddleston cautions that expanding antitrust powers can lead to governmental overreach, affecting future administrations regardless of their political stance.

Notable Quotes:

“Once that power is given to the government, that it's very unlikely to be taken back,”
— Jennifer Huddleston [14:35]

Insights: Huddleston highlights the risk of entrenched antitrust policies that may be wielded as tools for various policy objectives beyond promoting competition. She urges both conservatives and liberals to approach antitrust reforms with caution, recognizing the potential for long-term regulatory overreach.

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Conclusion

The episode underscores that the anticipated antitrust reset under President Trump has yet to materialize. Instead, both the FTC and the Justice Department continue to pursue stringent antitrust actions against Big Tech, maintaining many of the policies established during the Biden administration. Jennifer Huddleston provides a critical perspective on these developments, advocating for a balanced approach that remains true to the foundational goals of antitrust laws—primarily consumer welfare and market competition.

Listeners are left with an understanding that while political shifts may influence regulatory strategies, the fundamental challenges of defining markets and ensuring fair competition in the rapidly evolving tech landscape remain complex and contentious.

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Key Takeaways:

• The FTC under Andrew Ferguson retains Biden-era antitrust policies, indicating continuity rather than a rollback.
• Antitrust enforcement is increasingly intertwined with political and ideological debates, complicating its application.
• Accurate market definition is crucial in antitrust cases to avoid unjust targeting of successful companies.
• There is a significant risk of antitrust tools being used for broader policy goals beyond competition, necessitating careful consideration by all political factions.

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For more insights and detailed analyses on the intersection of technology and policy, subscribe to POLITICO Tech and stay informed on the Digital Future Daily and Morning Tech newsletters.

Transcript

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[Stephen Overlea]

Will that be cash or credit? Credit. 4 Galaxy S25 Ultra the AI companion that does the heavy lifting. So you can do you get [e-mail] compatible with select apps. Requires Google Gemini Account results may vary based on input. Check responses for accuracy. Foreign hey, welcome Back to POLITICO Tech. Today's Wednesday, February 26th. I'm Stephen Overlea. For four years, the Biden administration took a critical eye to big tech's market dominance, even pursuing a breakup of Google after the company lost an antitrust lawsuit last year. So with President Donald Trump coming back into the White House, the industry has been hoping that he might take it easy. But so far, there are few signs of a big change. The Federal Trade Commission recently announced it would keep Biden era policies in place that put tighter restrictions on mergers and acquisitions and launched an inquiry into whether social media platforms censor conservative speech online. Over at the Justice Department, the direction of the antitrust division is still an open question. As Trump's pick for assistant attorney general, Gail Slater is making her way through the Senate confirmation process. But in a recent hearing, she didn't commit to a major shift in direction. Jennifer Huddleston is closely tracking the administration's antitrust policy. As a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank here in Washington, she tells me there's tension among Republicans about whether antitrust should be used to crack down on big tech. And on the show today, she helps dissect some of the early action in Trump's second term. Here's our conversation. Jennifer, welcome to Politico Tech.

[Jennifer Huddleston]

Thanks for having me.

[Stephen Overlea]

So the new chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Andrew Ferguson, posted on X that quote, big tech censorship is not just un American, it is potentially illegal. And he's calling for folks who feel they've been censored to sort of send in evidence of that. Is there a role for the FTC to play here when it comes to online speech? Is this a political exercise? What's your take?

[Jennifer Huddleston]

We recently saw this new request for information around big Tech censorship come out. And a lot of times when we talk about the word censorship, we're typically talking about government action. So notably, what we see here is a government regulator potentially seeking information or even seeking to intervene in the actions of private platforms. That, of course, raises significant first Amendment concerns if we were to see potential action from the Federal Trade Commission around what private platforms could choose to do when it comes to their content moderation. That being said, one of the other really interesting dynamics in this, for those of us that have watched, particularly the antitrust side of tech, is the sixth section of this request for information that indicates that the FTC is seeking information on questions about whether decisions around content moderation might stem from market power or might otherwise be stemming from what seems to indicate that they're considering whether these are antitrust issues, which this raises a lot of really interesting questions. Antitrust is designed to be competition policy. It's not designed to be content moderation policy, regardless of how you feel about content moderation decisions. In fact, if we see companies broken up, they might have even a harder time engaging in content moderation actions, whether it's to take down problematic content like animal abuse or things that we can all generally agree we don't want on our feeds, or if it's the fact that they feel that they have to, they can't scratch scrutinize information as carefully to leave up more content, either because they just have fewer resources, so they have to apply a more hard and fast rule, or they can't use the same tools.

[Stephen Overlea]

Yeah, this idea that online censorship, as particularly conservatives see it as sort of a symptom of an uncompetitive tech industry, really kind of got some traction during the first Trump administration. It seems like there are some efforts to resurrect that idea. I mean, do you think antitrust enforcement is an appropriate response to concerns about censorship?

[Jennifer Huddleston]

It is. Short answer no. As I kind of indicated, I have issues with the use of the term censorship in this context anyway. But since that's the term that's been used, we'll use it for the sake of this conversation. But if anything, I think what we've seen is that there is a dynamic amount of innovation in the social media space and that the market is certainly responding to consumer demands around content moderation. That, you know, we've seen increased competitors. We've seen competitors trying different models, whether it's something like Elon Musk buying Twitter Now X and changing the content moderation there. When a certain group of users didn't like that, you saw things like Blue sky and Mastodon and Discord kind of gain traction in certain communities. And similarly, we've seen this time and time again that whether it's conservatives that feel they don't have a voice on mainstream platforms going to things like Trump's Own Truth, Social, or whether it's individuals on the left that are concerned about some of the content moderations that they've seen from various platforms going to places like bluesky, that the market is providing a response and that there are a lot of different dynamics in content moderation.

[Stephen Overlea]

Back in 2023, the Biden administration implemented stricter guidelines for reviewing mergers and acquisitions. And it was not a policy that was particularly popular with many in the private sector. But just recently Ferguson announced that the FTC is going to continue to follow those guidelines. There is not a lot of Biden era policy this administration is keeping in place. Was that announcement surprising to you?

[Jennifer Huddleston]

It is and it isn't. As you mentioned, the merger guidelines were highly criticized for the way they could disrupt mergers and acquisitions, which could impact both large and small companies as well as consumers. Mergers and acquisitions aren't just about benefiting big players. They're about providing a variety of exit strategies for particularly innovative companies. People who may want to build a product that's better integrated into another product, or who may want to be serial entrepreneurs, who may not want to take the time to constantly be running a business or taking it public or raising another round of funding. They want to come up with the next idea. So it's important that we have a system that allows this dynamic because in the end, it's consumers who will benefit from a healthy merger and acquisition system. What we have noticed though, is that in the prior Trump administration, as well as in some of the conversations around antitrust in the current Trump administration, is that there is a wing, particularly amongst kind of populists, that seems to favor a very Lina Khan or Neo Brandisan or progressive approach to antitrust. Something that's really shifting away from that consumer welfare standard that has long been an objective law and economics based standard. And it's perhaps looking at antitrust enforcement more as a tool that can be used for different policy goals. And this is why sometimes you'll hear folks kind of make the comment about quote, unquote, conservatives, the members of the Republican Party who will say Lina Khan was right on certain things and why at times you might hear, say, Senator Josh Hawley and Senator Amy Klobuchar sounding very similar on certain points when it comes to competition or antitrust.

[Stephen Overlea]

Well, I know that there were many in the tech industry hoping that there would be an antitrust reset under this administration. And do you take this announcement as an early sign that that's not going to happen?

[Jennifer Huddleston]

We also have to remember that many of the antitrust cases started under the prior Trump administration, I think it was incredibly likely that we were going to see this concerning shift away from what had traditionally been a more objective approach to antitrust, something that was very much steeped in kind of this law and economics tradition, to something that had seen antitrust as a tool that could be used for these other policy goals. While those policy goals may look different in a Trump administration than in a Biden administration, particularly when it comes to leading tech companies, I think we do have this ongoing risk that we could see this used for things well beyond competition purposes and that who actually loses out in those cases are consumers.

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[Stephen Overlea]

You know, the DOJ obviously also has an antitrust mandate. And Gail Slater is expected to be confirmed soon as the next assist Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust. From my understanding, talking with folks and covering Gayle in the first Trump administration, she tends to be viewed as, I think, a little bit more moderate or more traditional in some ways of her antitrust views. I'm curious how aligned you anticipate the DOJ and the FTC will be under these respective leaders.

[Jennifer Huddleston]

You know, that of course, is going to be one of the questions. As you noted, we do see antitrust enforcement from both the DOJ and, and the ftc. During her confirmation hearings, there certainly were conversations around would she continue the enforcement against Big Tech. She indicated that, you know, she certainly was going to have to look at the resources of the cases, but there certainly wasn't an indication that she planned to drop any of the cases that the DOJ was leading against the tech companies. So while a lot remains to be seen, I think what we continue to see is that unfortunately we are seeing a kind of use of antitrust, particularly in the tech sector, that doesn't necessarily reflect the ongoing dynamic nature of this market, but is instead really looking at these particularly successful companies and drawing a lot of scrutiny to them, not on the basis of these objective economic standards, but on the basis of their success. It's not looking at are they successful because consumers like them, because they responded well to consumer demand and they're Market leaders, which is something we should want to apply, applaud, and want companies to be successful. It's seeking to scrutinize and treating with suspicion that very same success.

[Stephen Overlea]

How do you respond then to folks who say, you know, the business models that underpin so much of the tech industry are just fundamentally different than how business was done when a lot of our antitrust laws were written, you know, in some cases a century or more ago that, you know, these companies, for instance, Meta or Google, are all free. They don't charge consumers a price, but they do sort of extract value from them in other ways. And this argument, I guess that our antitrust laws are antiquated and need to be modernized in some capacity.

[Jennifer Huddleston]

So I think that our antitrust standards are still dynamic enough and objective enough that they provide a good way to analyze should there actually be a consumer harm found in these cases. I think what we often see in the conversation and what a lot of the debate actually comes down to, if we are able to take a step back from some of the kind of heightened emotions around some of the tech issues, is this question of market definition. What actually is the market for something like search, for something like social media? And what we see time and again is that government regulators or proponents of these breakups try and define the market as very narrowly something that's so specific that of course, Google could be the only market for Google, or Facebook could be the only market for Facebook. But that doesn't necessarily take into account how consumers actually experience the market. All the different ways that we may search, even if we don't think about it that way, you know, that we're speaking to our iPhone, that we're also going on TikTok and searching for video, that we're going to a review site, that we're engaging on all of these things. Same thing when we think about social media, that we are using a variety of platforms, typically for a variety of different needs, let let alone the other types of user generated content like review sites or things like that. So I think it's important to consider what is that experience and how that's changing. We're having all these conversations at a moment where AI may fundamentally disrupt what it means to do a lot of our daily tasks, what it means to do a lot of our technology in a very exciting way. But that may also mean that by the time we see these cases getting farther along, let alone any remedies in the cases coming to pass, that the industry could have totally changed in a way that had nothing to do with the claims in the underlying antitrust and competition cases.

[Stephen Overlea]

Right. The market just sort of changes and evolves faster than litigation can play out. We were talking earlier about the politics of antitrust and how they don't exactly fall neatly on partisan lines. And the former FTC chair Lina Khan having some support from Republicans, including folks like Vice President J.D. vance. From what we've seen so far, how do you see those politics playing out as we get deeper into this second term from President Trump?

[Jennifer Huddleston]

Well, I think we've seen some early indications that at least in the tech sector, we're likely to continue to see a lot of action from the ftc, from potentially the doj, in continuing the cases. So I think that from a technology point of view, there are concerns that we're continuing to see a more European approach even coming to the something that seeks to engage in a focus on competitors rather than on consumers. In terms of what we will see if we'll see any of the legislation that has been discussed in the past come about, I think it's perhaps too soon to say in this Congress, given a wide range of things, but I do think this dynamic is concerning and is worth noting that we are seeing a certain group of conservatives shift away from the more objective law and economic approach to something that would allow the government to use what is a very powerful tool to intervene in the economy, to intervene in various markets, and that once that power is given to the government, that it's very unlikely to be taken back. So I think that would be kind of my word of caution, perhaps to conservatives who might be seeing a House, Senate and White House that all have a R by them, is that recognize that if you give this power to this administration around antitrust, that it's something that can be used in the future by an administration that might have a very different viewpoint. And same thing to those on the left that might be willing to give an agency or an administration power when it's their folks that are in charge, to recognize that this tool allows a lot of intervention into the potential economy and into the potential markets. And that's something that should be really treated with care.

[Stephen Overlea]

Got it. Well, listen, Jennifer, appreciate you being here on Politico Tech.

[Jennifer Huddleston]

Thanks for having me.

[Stephen Overlea]

That's all for today's Politico Tech. If you enjoy Politico Tech, please subscribe. And for more tech news, subscribe to our newsletters, Digital Future Daily and Morning Tech. Our managing producer is Annie Reiss. Philip Frobos helped produce today's episode. I'm Stephen Overleigh See you back here tomorrow.