Biden’s top technology advisor has a history of cracking down on Big Tech, and he may land a major role in the new administration

• It appears more and more seemingly that President-elect Joe Biden‘s administration goes to return down exhausting on Massive Tech.
• The Biden marketing campaign’s high know-how advisor, Bruce Reed, helped draw up strict privateness laws for California, and has publicly argued that tech firms must be held answerable for dangerous content material on their platforms.
• It isn’t clear but whether or not Reed will get a place within the Biden administration, although Reuters reviews he’s anticipated to take a “main function.”

As tech giants put together for the handover of energy from President Donald Trump to President-elect Joe Biden, indicators are mounting that the brand new administration is getting ready to clamp down on them.

Reuters reported Sunday the Biden marketing campaign’s high advisor on know-how, a veteran Biden staffer known as Bruce Reed, has a historical past of advocating for insurance policies that curb the ability of Massive Tech.

Per Reuters, Reed helped in negotiations between legislators and the tech business in writing up the strict 2018 California Shopper Privateness Act, designed to rein in how a lot information tech firms are allowed to vacuum up and promote on about customers with out their information.
The New York Times reported November 10 that Reed was main Biden’s workforce of tech advisors, and in a press release to Reuters, the Biden marketing campaign confirmed Reed as its high advisor on tech coverage. It isn’t but confirmed whether or not he’ll get an official place within the administration, although Reuters reviews he’s anticipated to be assigned a “main function.”

Reed additionally co-authored a chapter in a just lately printed ebook on tech known as “Which Facet of Historical past?: How Know-how Is Reshaping Democracy and Our Lives.” In his chapter, Reed argues towards Part 230, the a part of US regulation that protects tech firms towards being answerable for the content material their customers put up.

Reed and the ebook’s creator Jim Steyer, CEO of the nonprofit group Widespread Sense Media, which focuses on youngsters’s publicity to the digital world, argue that Part 230 endangers youngsters because it permits dangerous content material to go unchecked on social media.

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“If [tech companies] promote adverts that run alongside dangerous content material, they need to be thought of complicit within the hurt […] If their algorithms promote dangerous content material, they need to be held accountable for serving to redress the hurt. In the long term, the one actual strategy to average content material is to average the enterprise mannequin,” Reed and Steyer write.
Reed was Biden’s chief of workers from 2011 to 2013.

Part 230 has already turn out to be a political battleground for both Democrats and Republicans, and Biden mentioned in an interview in January that he’s in favor of revoking the law.

One in every of Biden’s high press officers Invoice Russo this month additionally signaled that Massive Tech — and Fb particularly — might be in the administration’s crosshairs.

Fb is reportedly planning to woo Biden by rolling out new vaccine and climate change features.