Biden Calls for Limiting Tech Companies’ Use of Personal Data, Targeted Ads
WASHINGTON—President Biden called on lawmakers of both parties to come together to pass legislation to hold big technology and social-media companies accountable, accusing some in the industry of exploiting users’ personal data and endangering children.
In a Wednesday opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Biden said the legislation should protect users’ privacy by putting in place limits on how companies use, collect and share personal data. He recommended limiting targeted advertising and banning it altogether for minors.
The president reiterated his long standing push to rewrite Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields companies from liability for content a user posts on their sites. In addition, Mr. Biden pressed for more information about the algorithms companies use to filter information to users.
“We must hold social-media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit,” Mr. Biden wrote.
He also called for greater competition in the tech sector. “To realize that vision, and to make sure American tech keeps leading the world in cutting-edge innovation, we need fairer rules of the road,” he wrote. “The next generation of great American companies shouldn’t be smothered by the dominant incumbents before they have a chance to get off the ground.”
The tech industry says it faces substantial competition, and companies have broadly supported a national privacy law as long as it doesn’t disrupt core advertising businesses.
Newly empowered House Republican lawmakers are planning a raft of investigations into the Biden administration and recently formed the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. That panel is expected to probe what some Republicans say have been efforts by the Biden administration to influence content hosted by companies such as
parent Meta Platforms Inc. and
Alphabet Inc.,
owner of YouTube and Google. The White House has said it raised concerns about misinformation to social-media companies, particularly about Covid-19.
Mr. Biden appeared to criticize the committee in the op-ed. “We’ve heard a lot of talk about creating committees. It’s time to walk the walk and get something done,” he wrote. A spokesman for the House Judiciary Committee, which houses the new subcommittee, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Following November’s midterm election, which ushered in divided government in Washington, Mr. Biden has increasingly emphasized policy areas that he believes can win bipartisan support. In last year’s State of the Union address, the president outlined his push for bipartisan legislation to rein in big technology and social-media companies.
Privacy legislation, especially addressing the collection of data about children’s online activities, has long been an area of interest on Capitol Hill, though lawmakers have failed to hammer out a broad, bipartisan compromise. Mr. Biden’s support could help restart those talks. Meanwhile, the op-ed cited a privacy rule-making under way at the Federal Trade Commission that aims at similar issues.
Rep.
Cathy McMorris-Rodgers
(R., Wash.), the new chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, said in a statement that Mr. Biden was right to call out “risks posed by Big Tech” and urged him to work with Congress “rather than trying to address these harms unilaterally through executive action.”
Republicans also want to examine Section 230, but the parties differ on their goals. Mr. Biden said he wants “companies to take responsibility for the content they spread.” Republicans tend to see Section 230 reform as an opportunity to counter a perceived bias against promoting conservative viewpoints. Tech companies say they make content-moderation decisions without regard to political views.
Online competition, another area Mr. Biden highlighted, was the focus of bipartisan legislation that tech companies successfully fended off during the last Congress. Those bills face a high hurdle because the Republicans who now control the House, including Speaker
Kevin McCarthy,
have criticized them in the past.
Write to Andrew Restuccia at [email protected] and Ryan Tracy at [email protected]
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