At the fourth Democratic debate, candidates quarreled over the power of Big Tech and remedies, with O'Rourke, Yang, and others critiquing Warren's plan
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images — And it was all over the place. — Democrats running for president had their most vigorous debate yet …
What made the night matter was that the critique came from inside the field: O'Rourke, Yang, and others forced the most aggressive antitrust proposal of the cycle to compete openly against rival remedies rather than define the party's default. Later coverage shows how much hinged on it — candidate-by-candidate scorecards kept tracking who backed breaking up Big Tech, and once Warren and Sanders exited, the 2020 landscape turned less ominous for the tech giants.
First-order effects
Warren's plan loses its claim to being the field's consensus answer: with O'Rourke and Yang attacking it publicly, every candidate now has to stake out a distinct remedy — breakup, privacy law, encryption rules, Section 230 changes — instead of signing on.
Big Tech's Washington teams get a clearer map of which candidates threaten structural separation versus regulatory fixes, letting them triage engagement across the primary field.
Second-order effects
The giants' political risk becomes tied to primary outcomes rather than fixed: the same coverage arc shows their outlook improving sharply once the two loudest critics dropped out, meaning platform strategy shifts toward surviving primaries, not just the general election.
Rival candidates gain fundraising and coalition room among donors and voters uneasy with breakup rhetoric, splitting the anti-Big-Tech bloc into competing remedy camps.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, tech policy stops depending on any single champion: even after Warren's exit, the candidate scorecards show breakup, privacy, encryption, and Section 230 staying on the agenda, pushing regulation toward becoming a standing bipartisan question rather than one politician's cause.
The Democratic coalition's realignment away from Silicon Valley points toward a durable structure where platform power is litigated election after election, with the intensity set by who survives each primary.
The trend: The Democratic Party's break with its Silicon Valley alliance is turning Big Tech regulation from a single-candidate cause into a recurring electoral fault line whose severity tracks which critics survive each primary.
.@AndrewYang on big tech: “The best way we can fight back against big tech is saying our data is our property. Right now our data is worth more than oil. How many of you remember getting your data check in the mail??” #DemDebate
I'm not willing to give up and let a handful of monopolies dominate our economy and our democracy. You get to be the umpire in the baseball game or you get to be a team—but you can't be both. It's time to #BreakUpBigTech. #DemDebate https://elizabethwarren.com/ ...
YANG, on tech companies: 'We also have to be realistic that competition doesn't solve all of the problems... breaking up tech companies doesn't make our kids healthier... we need new solutions and a new tool kit.' #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/qOJD6LgRrm
Tom Steyer wasn't wrong there. Talking about tech breakups isn't a thing for 2020. It's important, needs to be done, but this isn't the thing that gets you to 270. #DemDebate
Big tech giants are able to use their power to limit competition and undermine small businesses. You get to be the umpire or you get to have a team in the game—but you don't get to do both at the same time. We need to #BreakUpBigTech. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/c1p7oX0qtf
“As usual, Senator Warren is 100% in diagnosing the problem,” says @AndrewYang before criticizing her plan to break up big tech as a way to regulate technology companies & protect privacy. “Using a 20th century anti-trust framework will not work.” #DemDebate
We have a massive crisis in our democracy with the way big tech companies are being used, not just in terms of anti-competitive practices, but also to undermine our democracy. The practices that were abused in 2016 still haven't been addressed. #DemDebate
Four years ago, technology companies were widely seen as having a positive impact on the United States. But the share of Americans who hold this view has tumbled 21 percentage points since then, from 71% to 50%. https://pewrsr.ch/2LLRYeD #DemDebate
Nearly two-thirds of Americans would support breaking up tech firms by undoing recent mergers, such as Facebook's acquisition of Instagram, if it means ensuring more competition in the future. #DemDebate https://bit.ly/31kq3Wq
Trump's tweets incite violence, threaten witnesses, and obstruct justice. We can't crack down on Facebook but turn a blind eye to Twitter. Big tech companies must be held accountable for how they allow him to abuse their platforms. #DemDebate
Here is the thing that no one inside or outside Facebook wants to admit: Facebook's ad system, even just within the United States, is massive and cumbersome. Facebook is not competent enough to enforce its own rules. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... via @RMac18
ACCC: Your content is competing unfairly with news media Facebook: We are not a media outlet we are just a helpless middleman Elizabeth Warren: You run false ads Facebook: Well broadcasters have to run them so https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
For more on the continent regulation dilemmas faced by tech companies (and their attempts at policy), check out this must-read article from @kreissdaniel & @shannimcg: https://doi.org/... https://twitter.com/...
As of 5 p.m. PT on Oct. 14, Biden had the most ads of any candidate removed; Facebook took down at least 117 ads, which were mostly focused on the Trump impeachment effort. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...
“In some cases, Facebook appeared to apply its policies unequally, removing some ads for breaking rules around profanity, fake buttons, and advertising in certain states while leaving others that seemed to do the exact same thing untouched.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...
@CaseyNewton Absolutely. You'd think the American company would care more about allowing fair elections by preventing paid amplification of misinformation while not being an arbiter of truth, and hence dropping campaign ads.
Examples: - Ad is banned bc Joe Biden said “son of a bitch”—not bc Trump falsely said Biden offered $1B to Ukrainian officials to end an investigation of a company w/ connections to his son - Broken landing pages - Ads that look like they have “buttons” you can't actually hit
Biden campaign on this: “Evidently Facebook views our graphic design choices as a greater threat to American democracy than Donald Trump's obscene lies.” https://twitter.com/...
Facebook said last week it allows politicians to lie in ads. So we took at the presidential campaign ads that were taken down this month and found what the company did regulate for: profanity, fake buttons, and mentions of Washington state politicians. https://www.buzzfeednews.co…
Broadcast networks should ban political ads and just do occasional interviews with candidates since they don't need the money and don't want to police political speech. Sounds stupid, right? Exactly. https://twitter.com/...