Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Knight First Amendment Institute
Publication Date
1-30-2020
Keywords
technology companies, security, artificial intelligence, antitrust
Disciplines
Law | Science and Technology Law
Abstract
In recent years, scholars, commentators, former tech company founders, and political leaders have made the case for breaking up and regulating big tech companies like Alphabet (the parent company of Google), Facebook, and Amazon. The proposals to break up and regulate big tech companies are specific: Unwind mergers, require tech platforms to separate from businesses that operate on the platform, regulate platforms with nondiscrimination principles drawn from public utilities and public accommodations laws, and adopt privacy regulations. Advocates for breaking up and regulating big tech hold that these companies have become a danger to the economy, society, and democracy. Opponents of breaking up and regulating big tech have put forward a variety of responses, but among them is the assertion that breaking up big tech is problematic in an era of resurgent great power competition, particularly between the United States and China. This argument takes different forms. Some commentators have argued that the United States and China are in a Cold War-style arms race over artificial intelligence (AI); big tech, they argue, is needed to win that contest.
Recommended Citation
Ganesh Sitaraman,
The National Security Case for Breaking Up Big Tech Knight First Amendment Institute.
(2020)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications/1451