Meta has loosened its pocket books and dug trenches in preparation for a political war over antitrust legislation that could rattle its struggling core business. Meta is increasingly relying on a little known lobbying firm called the American Edge Project to oppose popular policy proposals that supporters say will bolster competition in the digital economy.
A new report from the The Tech Transparency Project shows that the organization received a single $4 million donation between December 10, 2019, and October 31, 2020. The Washington Post reported that Facebook contributed to AEP. The report's authors argue that the findings show that Meta may have been the founder of AEP.
AEP spent over $5 million on ad placements last year. TTP claims that AEP worked on the behalf of Meta to fool politicians into believing their voters were against antitrust reforms. One of the polls that claimed Democrats would lose their political advantage if they pursued strong tech regulation made its way onto a newsletter.
The report's authors write that the American Edge Project has succeeded in establishing the specter of a grassroots, bipartisan faade to disguise its corporate goals.
Who is the AEP anyways? The organization was founded just two years ago and is dedicated to the proposition that American innovators are an essential part of U.S. economic health, national security, and individual freedoms.
The firm's position on tech is outlined in the video below.
If our leaders don't change course, American citizens and businesses will become more dependent on authoritarian regimes.
Tech watchdog groups like the Tech Oversight Project have written negatively about AEP, claiming that it deceived its donors by presenting itself as a grassroots nonprofit. The Tech Oversight Project claims that AEP and Facebook worked together to oppose anti-trust reforms and strengthen Big Tech's power.
Big Tech lobbying shops, including American Edge, are now the biggest spenders in Washington because Facebook and the other Big Tech monopolies know the only way to secure support for themselves is to buy it.
A Meta spokesman tried to downplay the significance of the TTP's findings, claiming that it had previously disclosed its involvement with AEP two years ago. The TTP report shows the extent of Meta's involvement with AEP in a way that was previously unknown. The deep ties point to a reality where AEP is becoming an expensive Meta mouthpiece.
The current reforms being considered among lawmakers would do nothing to address the areas of greatest concern to people and could weaken America's competitiveness, according to Meta.
We joined many other organizations in opposition to these antitrust proposals, and we are calling on Congress to pass updated internet regulations addressing content moderation, election integrity and privacy.
Krista Brown of the American Economic Liberties Project said in an interview that the new documents of the TTP are examples of Big Tech.
Brown said that the claims that Facebook is helping small business and the tech sector at large are not true. Meta can no longer act as an effective spokesman for its own policies due to its declining trust in the general public. AEP is all the more appealing because of that. According to Brown, growing support for competition reform has left Meta up against a wall.
According to the report, AEP paid eight of its coalition members between $7,500 and $25,000 in grants. The members drafted white papers and wrote op-eds in favor of AEP's policies. Several of those op-eds tried to tug on some Americans' fears about China, arguing that increased regulation of U.S. companies could lead the country to lose its technological advantage with China.
AEP's spending efforts come as a volley of anti-trust bills are slowly creeping their way through Congress. It could mark a shift in the way companies conduct their business and acquire companies if one of them passes. For years, calls to regulate tech companies have earned the overwhelming buy-in from everyday people, and is one of the fleeting policy issues still able to amass bipartisan support. Big Tech's hired guns are finding it difficult to oppose these policy measures.
According to a survey by Data for Progress, Big Tech's economic power presented a problem for the U.S. economy. Democrats and Republicans supported breaking up Big Tech. It shouldn't come as much of a shock. Big Tech firms have burned their trust in the public many times.
In order to paint its pro-tech cause as a truly bipartisan effort, AEP recruited ex-government officials from both political parties.
After spending the first year of its public-facing existence trying to lift the public's opinion of American tech firms, AEP can now push back against any proposed bipartisan antitrust legislation with a supposedly bipartisan counterpoint.
The general public's appetite for reigning in Big Tech may be starting to cool, even though legislation limiting tech's economic power regularly draws wide support. According to a new poll conducted last week, more than half of US adults favor more government regulation of tech companies, a decrease from the previous year. The number of people calling for less regulation of tech companies doubled. Recent polls show increasing support for tech regulation, but those are noteworthy reversals.
It's difficult for people to keep issues surrounding tech front of mind when there are so many other immediate issues vying for their attention, said Brown of the American Economic Liberties.
It's been proven time and again that Facebook is not a good choice for small businesses that are hurt by Facebook and other large tech companies.
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