An ad for Senator Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign advocating the breakup of large tech companies just got censored on one of the platforms she wants the government to regulate.
Sen. Warren proposed to break up tech giants, but when she tried to run an advertisement about her idea to break up Facebook on Facebook, the social network took her ad down.
It completely proved her point about the power of social networks, even though Facebook ultimately decided to run the ad after Politico reported on their decision to censor Warren because she used their logo in her video spot.
The Warren for President Facebook ad which the platform censored and finally restored reads:
Three companies have vast power over our economy and our democracy. Facebook, Amazon, and Google.
We all use them. But in their rise to power, they’ve bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field in their favor.
It’s time to break up these big companies so they don’t have so much power over everyone else. If you agree, add your name now.
Senator Warren’s ads lead to this petition to break up the big tech companies.
“A message on the three ads said: ‘This ad was taken down because it goes against Facebook’s advertising policies’,” according to Politico’s Christiano Lima.
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The former Harvard law professor quickly took to Twitter to scold Facebook for proving her point about the need to reign in America’s big tech companies.
Curious why I think FB has too much power? Let's start with their ability to shut down a debate over whether FB has too much power. Thanks for restoring my posts. But I want a social media marketplace that isn't dominated by a single censor. #BreakUpBigTech https://t.co/UPS6dozOxn
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) March 11, 2019
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“We removed the ads because they violated our policies against use of our corporate logo,” said a Facebook spokesperson to Lima. “In the interest of allowing robust debate, we are restoring the ads.”
The Massachusetts Senator is proposing to keep Amazon from replacing other retailers with its Amazon Basics products, keep Apple from being a seller in its app store and seeking to keep Google from engaging in self-promotion through its dominant search engine.
But her plan for Facebook is nothing short of a breakup to separate the world’s largest social media company from its wildly WhatsApp and Instagram apps.
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“America has a long tradition of breaking up companies when they have become too big and dominant — even if they are generally providing good service at a reasonable price,” Warren wrote in her Medium blog announcing the policy.
“Current antitrust laws empower federal regulators to break up mergers that reduce competition. I will appoint regulators who are committed to using existing tools to unwind anti-competitive mergers”
There is no doubt that social media networks and tech companies have an outsized impact on the day-to-day lives of Americans.
Senator Warren is the only major party candidate from either party discussing the awesome power of those companies and explaining them in the context of America’s historical use of government authority to break up monopolies to protect citizens from unchecked private power.
Amazingly, it only took the Senator a few days to prove her point that Facebook’s overwhelming control of what media gets shared in America and that should concern every Democratic primary voter.
