White House outlines principles for Big Tech reform

The White House on Thursday unveiled six Big Tech reform principles, entitled “Enhancing Competition and Tech Platform Accountability,” intended to rein in largely four major US tech companies.

The US needs “clear rules of the road to ensure small and mid-size businesses and entrepreneurs can compete on a level playing field,” the White House said.

‘Months of work’
The six principles are the “culmination of months of work by the administration and engagement with numerous stakeholders,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

A bipartisan antitrust bill has already been introduced to bar the four tech giants—Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon—from favoring their own businesses in search results and other ways.

Six principles
The six principles outlined Thursday include promoting technology sector competition; adopting robust federal privacy protections; rescinding special legal protections for large tech platforms; increasing transparency about platforms’ algorithms and content moderating decisions; and ending discriminatory algorithmic decision-making.

“The rise of tech platforms has introduced new and difficult challenges—from the tragic acts of violence linked to toxic online cultures, to deteriorating mental health and wellbeing, to basic rights of Americans and communities worldwide suffering from the rise of tech platforms big and small,” the White House said.