By Cecilia Kang, David McCabe & Jack Nicas (New York Times)
The tech industry had it easy under President Barack Obama. Regulators brought no major charges, executives rotated in and out of the administration, and efforts to strengthen privacy laws fizzled out.
The industry will have it much harder under president-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Bipartisan support to restrain its power has grown sharply during the Trump administration, and shows no signs of going away as Democrats regain control of the White House. Mr. Biden is expected to take on the Silicon Valley giants on misinformation, privacy and antitrust, in a sharp departure from the polices pursued while he was vice president under Mr. Obama.
“The foundations of the concerns about digital platforms were developing during the Obama years, and yet the major tech issues from the Obama era are still with us and unresolved,” said Chris Lewis, the president of the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge. “The genie is out of the bottle and the issues the public needs resolved are piling up without resolution.”
On the campaign trail, Mr. Biden rarely spoke about technology policy at length. But he has criticized social media companies, like Facebook, that have allowed disinformation to flourish on their sites, and he has expressed concern over power held by a handful of companies in tech and other industries.
