Joining us cat zakrzewski the Washington Post john hendel of politico and ilhan omar of axios. Mr. Dalewood would start with you what you think is going to be one of the major issues that the incoming byte Administration May face . Guest one thing that the byte Administration Early on is going to have to figure out what to do is they are inheriting a google transit from the doj and there is speculation about how politically motivated it may have been but never asked about the text of this thing. Its fairly narrow in fairly focused on issues that democrats have raised as well about the market power of google so they have to decide okay almost certainly they will continue to litigate this but do we want to expand this, do we want to try and look at some as state attorneys general who are also investigating google. It has the support of a group of bayji is that there are republicans and democrats looking at the stuff to sell how expansive do we want to go on antitrust . Host do you think it will be more expansive than under a Trump Administration . Thats the expectation. Its sort of over the last couple of years rigorous interest and prosecuting antitrust cases against huge Tech Companies. We have gone from purely a left issue from the Democratic Party to the house judiciary and subcommittee put out a big report making the case of okay heres white google is on apple in facebook has ads on apple as well. Theres certainly energy coming from at this point sort of the center of the party. A lot of folks that seem to be either informally spoke at the campaign or were officially working on it or are part of the transition, they are sort of part of that world of a came from the obama will white house and spent a little time in tech and their not coming back. People are reading into that biden is going to go easy. Im not so sure thats the case. The connection that they still have his more i work for biden and i work for the white house but the center of gravity has changed. Host cat zakrzewski of the Washington Post was the issue that you see . I think i was spot on. I think antitrust is a keyssue especially looking at the transition of teams that biden released yesterday looking at some of the names on that list people like Gene Kimmelman who has been out there talking about these issues front a center so i think iill be huge but the other big issue that im watching is how a Biden Admistration might try to regulate social media companies. Obviously the 2020 election has been a major test of the Election Integrity policies that these companies have adopted over theast few years. I think we are really starting to see a lot of discussion in washington about where to go from there on that issue. Biden during his candidacy did call to revoke section 230 the internet law that provides these mpanies immunity from turner content moderation decisions that figure will be interesng to watch especially with the balae of the senateooks like next year and how the by demonstration tries to push forward on that issue. Will there be a change from the Tramp Administration becse President Trump was often cricizing section 230. That is exactly right. Trump is called for an outright repeal of section 230 but for dairy very Different Reasons from the biden sign you have they are allowing disinformation to flow freely on their services were as the conservative argument is more on these bias ainst some of these companies about going too farn moderating conservative voices. I think the challenge will be wh does an actual reform section 230 look like in a world where we have a divided congres because obviously there is a momentum on both sides regulating companies but what does that legislation look like when you have two very different forces driving that push. Host john hendel from politico yr turn. Guesttheres a lot of urgency around broadband in large part due the pandemic producing lawmakers in and the white house go back and forth as youre trying to get a bigger relief bill and that hasnt happened. When we lk at the biden team noon the incoming byte administration ty have definitely put broadband as a top priority and the pandemic youve seen after the electn president elect biden putting together a task force looking t the coronavirus thinking about how best to help people there and a lot of people who talked about help they point to broadband and they point to the people who can do reme learning and they point to people who struggle to have connectivity at homwhen they need to be home to be safe sometimes. I think thats gng to be huge thing to watch in him weeks and months ahead. The bidecampaign is talked about 20 billion going to rural rock band and certainly we have seen docratic lawmakers talk about other ways to help, giving different stopgap relief to help with consumer billing and things like that. I think youll see se action there and its also notable one of the biggest circuits for President Biden is congressman jim clyburn. Hes been leadi the taos for some of the lawmakers that provided the senate bill on capitol hill. We have had leadership in the house. I think its hard to say its not gog to be front and cenr in 2021 and you have a democratic led ftc who will probably look into using their subsies in different ways to focus on helng students and other different folks out there. Host i want to ask all three of you over the years the democrats and big tech have been very friendly but it seems enough last congress especially that the democrats were willing to take on big tax. Is that a correct interpretation . Yeah i think youve seen a massive shift for both partie over the last four years. I think after the 201elections a lot of frustrations with democrat in interference of big scandals like cambridge analytica. There was consensus on some o these big cpanies the biggest in t world so under the Obama Administration you can see very close retionships there but the biden team has been very open aut their concerns. Theyve been writing letters to facebook and talking about the dangerous trap on t network. Its t kind of rtoric that will make a much bigger challenge for Tech Companies and the Biden Administration is probably tryin to higher up a lobby around that. It will be one of the biggest stories over the next few months an they will position themselves dealing with members of both parties whether its senator josh hawley and Lindsey Graham or nancyelosi talking about whathey see as failing in these compani. Guest some of the people we are seeing inlved in the transition Gene Kimmelman being a great example coming from Public Knowledge the Public Interest group. He was part of the divisionf the doj at a time when they were lax about tech csolidation. Biden had some others who similarly came from the obama doj or the obama ftc a the sense that you get is that oka we are just going to see a total return to both norms ofllowed allow the merger first and expression later in more if we make a mistake lets apply a little more scrutiny here. Guest jumping off that pointing at the transition teams i thought it was telling that we didnt see bigtime lobbyists from google, from apple on that list and we did see a few people from amazon services. In general there was a lot of tech representation but typically it was from less controversial companies, the drop boxes and Smaller Companies that havent been as much of an antitrust in washington site think we are seeing a lot of representatives particularly after that congressional report came out recently about the runoff where they accused tech of this behavior that gives the democrats the advantage to push forward with aggressive antitrust action aimeat the industry. Host how important was social media durin this campaign and what changes do you think we will see Going Forward . I think it was critical given the fact that a lot of the traditional forms of campaigning could happen during the pandemic. Predicted on the democratic side not to hold rallies and not engage in the entire campaign and even doorknocking and traditional canvassing. To invest in social media and watch the selection play out and away that is much more extreme and apparent than in 2016. Go ahead kyle. Guest very much so. In 2016 it was a stage were certainly the Trump Campaign very effectively used targeted advertising and general Facebook Advertising and facebook content. It was still sort of although we were eight years removed from the first major social Media Election it was the one where i think arguably the engagement on social media actually potentially swung the election and so we sort of saw for one thing more political spending this cycle on the facebook and youtube than had ever been and more on line political spending acrosstheboard even though a number of platforms most notably twitter dropped political ads altogether. There was a major focus, i think more than the traditional electioneering advertising, the biggest factor, the biggest burst that social media had in the cycle was a repository for inflammatory ctent and misinformation frankly. And we are continuing toee that play ouobviously in the postelection period. Host john hendel its a interesting seeing people say how important this is during pandemic as well. Thats something that congresswoman ocasio corz brought up this past week when people were talking about what is the Democratic Party right w and instead of blaming the press is etoric and not doing so well in the house races the point she looked too was no, no we need to go digital. That sho were a lot of it different younger members are looking to. They realize its a party and you are seeg the effect of some who were abl to do digil outrage really well. Aoc is a member who has said big region sodas President Trump review see more and more memrs have that and you are seeing that in congress as well. The thing thats interesting tech ceos multiple times this ear testified before congress saying that different numbers and figure out how dwe package this as far as our socia media and senator ted cz doing essentially a trade group sparri with twitter ceo jack dors ahead of the hearing bear. Thats not inherently advertising but its a social media identi and presence to find new ways to do anytng really in washington. I think it can also make it more tricky because its even more theater and more swmanship and its hard to do sometimes add a hearing where you have seen people for years asking questions to get the sound bite th they want. Now its not just the sound bite but its how do we take that sound bite package at on socia media and to rely drive that home. Very often this to a specific audience and thats the other part of it too. We are able to target that audience and a whole different way. Host and looking down the road a little bit checking the political discourse that we have seen on social media in this election cycle are we coming to a point where the social media sites are going to be silent toward an opinion as some of the news channels are and this leads to the rise of parlay the new conservative site etc. That is sort of a waitndsee thing to republicans in particular as said earlier that the chief grvances we feel that we are being censored. There is anconservative bias and moderation decisions. The thing with facebook and twitter both are, you know, fairly allpurpose platforms. We use them to stay connected with friends and family and share cap videos and whatever news and is there anything more in in each market for something that is all screwy about politics all the time . We will see. It is an interesting time. There have bn various insurgents over the years that have not managed to catch on but maybe this time is different. I would just mention that think one of the things that make it hard for me to derstand if this is truly taking off independently or it is just a flash in the pan is the fac that a lot of the conservatives who are posting on this new sit still posting on facebook and twitternd they are crossposting to all these platforms and i havent seen us in the vacant shift where someone is totally blast facebook and twitter to go to these alternative so i think it istill really remains to be seen but i do think it will be interesting to watch next week when we a expecting the ceos of both facebk and twitter to testify how the talk about the rise of this n conservative alrnative because one of the questis we hear from the right a lot is perhaps these companies have too much power and point to these content moderation decisions as a talk about the antitrust issues and so the thing interesting will be easy to see how this comes up next during this hearing and whether or not the ceos of facebook and twitter point to this is a sign of competition in the industry. I totally agree with katz point there and i think the biggest side of that is President Trump himself is still actively treating everyday on twitter. He could delete his own account at any point but instead he really wants to be there and onset engagement and dies on that and, you know, even if he has some money grievances with the company he is not getting off there. Hes not seeking parlay or one of these other places out there on the internet pretty wants to be where he thanks the action is at. I think that is the broad reaching forums in this way so youll see him on their tweening but then you see him raging against the company and issuing an executive order to go after some of the Liability Protections and, you know, thats the ongoing battle that i think will still be the case but i ultimately think there will be activity on the other platforms, not surprisingly but i thi at the end of the day they will not see them turn away from the biggest platform. Go ahead, kyle. I was going to say as well they are politically useful dynamic. You know, posting whatever you want on it needs platforms only to your followers, you know, there i certainly a place for that but you know, where you can kind of setp this dialect where you can try to make the case that for instance, twitter in particular had read around the election aggressively about labeling a hiding trump tweets that were misleadingbout the electoral press. En you can make the case that okay, these are the mainstream masters of the universe and josh hawley calls them the new robber baron they are the elites and they are trying to stifle us. I thk that is a compelling narrative to a lot of rightcenter people in this untry that just obvious will not play on a wide open platfo platform. I want to talk about some of the Ballot Initiatives that were on in 2020 bird california, michigan, massachusetts all passed overwhelmingly Ballot Initiatives that deal with privacy and they all went on the side of more privacy. What should that telus . I think it will tell us there will be appetite for more negotiation on capitol hill. If you saw Industry Groups always been troubled by some of these data efforts and they immediately, you saw several Different Industries issue a stement saying we see whats happening in california and elsewhere so lets get folks on capitol hill of the federal level to come back and negotiate which is incredibly har we seen an attempt at that in the last two years and while begins and stracts, despite some real good faith conversations in good faith working groups, months of talks they come back to the same a few sticking points about whether federal law should be preempting any of theseules that come out and in some of these efforts. U are seen concern about whetheronsumers should have righ to sue some of these big tech cpanies and based on where we see things in the nate right now where it will be probably very tight margins and a little unclear wther republicans will hold the senate oremocrats might just barely get it but i think that will show it will still be hard and need to be bipartisan. That makes it one of the biggest objectives in the new congress but its hard to say whether th will have more luck than in the past two years,lthough i think the Biden Administration might be a bit more of an active partner on that. The Trump Administration srted to jump in on privacyut they retreated la year so they not been quite as vocal in some of those efforts. Host cat. Its unclear to me how much momentum thereill be. I think there is a lot of obviously the voters have spoken in these states and there is a lot of consumer demand for privacy legislation and we are seeing it o both sides but we have constantly seen, especially over the last two years even dating back a decade, s much gridlock on this issue of passing bipartisan privacy legislation. I think it might be a uphill battle, particularly in the early days of the Biden Administration. I just dont know how mh of a prioty it will be amid the other discussions aboutconomic relief in the conavirus pandemic. Host kyle dai, what you see happening at the fcc . So, you know, i think what john said is on point and that will be the top priority from the start and it will be, you know, universal broadband and particularly to address some of the inequalities that have been exposed or exacerbated by the pandemic. I think we will see a push to probably accelerate and expand some of the existing programs and you know, but the on that at this point the Net Neutrality fight is in the rearview but, you know, it was a Signature Initiative of the obama fcc and so even if its purely symbolic i dont think we will be too terribly surprised to see that brought back. We will continue to see, you know, businesses as usual at the fcc heard there are that will be too terribly politicized an