The Most Powerful Person in Tech Is … David Cicilline?

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- When David Cicilline was approached at the beginning of the last Congress about becoming the ranking member of the antitrust subcommittee  of the House Judiciary Committee, his first inclination was to say no. Cicilline, a Democrat from Rhode Island, knew almost nothing about antitrust law. “Even as a practicing lawyer, this was not my field of expertise,” he says.

But he eventually agreed to take the post, and spent the next two years getting up to speed on the complex issues surrounding megamergers, oligopolies, concentration of power and, not least, the societal problems posed by Facebook and Google, which he calls “the platforms.”

Today, with the Democrats in control of the House, Cicilline has become the chairman of the subcommittee. And he has big plans. Suffice it to say that if someone were to ask me who is going to be the most important person in tech in 2019, I’d rank Cicilline well ahead of Mark Zuckerberg. My interview with the congressman, which I’ve edited and condensed, took place Friday.

Joe Nocera: When did you start to realize that antitrust was such a huge issue?

David Cicilline: I was the co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, which develops the agenda for the Democrats, and it became clear to me that one of the central issues was the economic concentration of power and the corresponding concentration of political power that resulted in fewer choices, higher prices, and so on. And the more I thought about it, the more it became clear to me that this economic challenge, where people are working harder and harder and not getting ahead, and this enormous concentration of wealth at the very top, this wasn’t just by accident. Part of the reason it wasn’t confronted successfully was because there hadn’t been a lot of serious attention to antitrust and competition policy — both in Democratic and Republican administrations. And so it made me realize that if we’re going to be serious about taking on income inequality and getting this country working for working people again we had to take this competition issue on directly.

JN: There is a lot of talk about the need to rethink the antitrust statutes, or at least enforce them differently. What are your views?

DC: We have to look at the existing antitrust architecture. Most of it was designed at the time of large railroad monopolies. It was a very different economy. I think it is well past time that we update and modernize our antitrust standards. And one of the things we need to look at is whether those standards are still relevant, looking at their impact on communities and wages and labor competition.

JN: What are your thoughts about Facebook and Google — the two big internet platforms?

DC: There are two primary issues: How do we restore competition, and how do we protect rights online? These platforms are really the gatekeepers. And they are not only the gatekeepers for information, which has implications for our democracy, but the kind of discriminatory conduct they engage in has the potential to harm consumers in a very serious way. So we have to make efforts to prohibit anticompetitive behavior online and I think we have a lot of work to do to protect privacy. One of the best ways we can approach the privacy issue is use portability and interoperability approaches. To me that is a competition-based solution. If you don’t like the way we protect your privacy, or the way we control your data, you have the ability to move it to another platform.

JN: So your plan would give people the ability to take all their information that resides with Facebook and move it to a competitor?

DC: Yes, but the only way that’s going to work is if the competitor is completely interoperable with the other platforms that you use. The European Union is doing this, so it is not impossible. That should be our first approach because it is a competition-based solution. Let’s see if the free market will solve the problem. But in the end you want to have a system where you have control over your data, and you decide how it gets used and who it gets shared with.

JN: Of course, the platforms will fight that to the death, because being able to share your data is at the core of their business model.

DC: Yes. But I think in the end these platforms are going to realize that to the extent they can’t sustain the trust of the consumer about the use of their data, it will ultimately hurt them. They rely on people having confidence that their information is not being misused.

JN: What other ideas do you have to fix the problems with the platforms?

DC: So much of the value of these platforms is based on the value of their algorithms. The time has probably come for the agencies to be able to audit algorithms to make sure they are not being applied discriminatorily based on false data or conclusions. There is a great book written about the real dangers of algorithms and what is embedded in them in terms of bias and discriminatory behavior. It’s called “Weapons of Math Destruction,” by Cathy O’Neil.  It’s fantastic.

JN: What is your approach going to be as the subcommittee chairman?

DC: I hope the way we approach this work is we’ll do a number of hearings early on to look at the antitrust statutes, especially as they apply to platforms. On most of this stuff, there aren’t easy answers. We’re not going to approach this, like, “Here’s my solution.” We’re going to bring in great technologists and some of the greatest thinkers in the country to help us think about the best solutions. If you look at the impact of these platforms, they really are the gateway; I think on the news side, two-thirds of Americans get their news from one of these two platforms. The consequences of the misuse of these platforms in terms of sharing, trustworthiness and so on is serious, and we’ve seen the consequences of that in the presidential election. So we want to get it right.

JN: Facebook says it is determined to fix its problems itself.

DC: Nobody should expect these technology platforms to regulate themselves. They have proved that time and time again. And sadly, not only have they proved that they can’t regulate themselves but they have proved that even when issues surface they can’t be counted on to be honest and transparent about what happened. Our job is to figure out the responsible way to regulate these large platforms so that we are promoting competition, protecting privacy and making them responsible stewards of lots and lots of data.

JN: Do you expect the platforms to cooperate with the subcommittee?

DC: There is a lot of reason to be concerned about the industry’s resistance to responsible regulation given their past behavior. Having said that, I expect the industry to work with us in a collaborative way, because they’re going to want to get this right. You don’t want to impose a regulatory scheme that does real damage to the openness and accessibility of the internet. But regulation has to come. It is not a question of whether the platforms are willing to be regulated. It is my hope that this can be done in a thoughtful way, with them as partners. But if they don’t, we’ll do it ourselves.

JN: How quickly do you think you can get bills passed?

DC: The role we’ll play is twofold. The first is to really raise the consciousness of the American people. Maybe people don’t know all the words — monopsony, and antitrust, and market power — but they know the system is rigged. Part of the task of this committee is to explain to people why this stuff matters. This is impacting your life. This can give you access to lots of products in the market, to lower prices, to protect your privacy, to have access to reliable, accurate information. And secondly, here is what we think are some solutions, which will emerge from our hearings. And I think we will pass legislation on this, and then we will have the responsibility of making the case to the Senate and maybe move the public to demand change.

JN: How do you think the Republicans will react to your new antitrust thrust?

DC: I’m optimistic that we’ll pass some stuff in both chambers. Historically this has been an issue where there has been bipartisan support. I mean, pro-competition policy has been one of the talking points of the Republican Party. I have had a number of Republican colleagues express interest in this issue. So I’m hopeful. What’s more, there is actual excitement about this. For a long time, people didn’t pay attention to this issue. I’m hearing from lots of colleagues that this is going to be an exciting committee to be on. We’re going to be doing work that really makes a difference in how the economy works. I think this moment for antitrust is different from any moment in the last 20 years.

JN: Are you going to ask Mark Zuckerberg to testify?

DC: Absolutely.

JN: What are you going to do if he says no, like he did in Europe?

DC: He’s not going to say no.

Its full name is the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law.

In addition to being a mathematician and author, O’Neil is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stacey Shick at sshick@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Joe Nocera is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business. He has written business columns for Esquire, GQ and the New York Times, and is the former editorial director of Fortune. He is co-author of “Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA.”

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