Should the Government Break Up Big Tech? A Soho Forum Debate

Tim Wu vs. Richard Epstein on whether antitrust laws should be applied to firms like Amazon and Facebook.
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"Antitrust should take the initiative to control the size of big tech companies."
That was the resolution of a public debate hosted by the Soho Forum in New York City on March 9, 2020. It featured Tim Wu of Columbia University Law School, and Richard Epstein of New York University Law School. Soho Forum Director Gene Epstein moderated.
It was an Oxford-style debate, in which the audience votes on the resolution at the beginning and end of the event, and the side that gains the most ground is victorious. Richard Epstein prevailed in the debate by convincing 17.48 percent of audience members to change their minds. Wu convinced 2.91 percent.
Wu, who was arguing for the affirmative, is the Julius Silver Professor of Law, Science, and Technology at Columbia Law School. He is also the author of The Master Switch, The Attention Merchants, and The Curse of Bigness.
Epstein is the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at New York University Law School, and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago. His most popular titles include The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government, Why Progressive Institutions are Unsustainable, and Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain.
The Soho Forum, which is sponsored by the Reason Foundation, is a monthly debate series at the SubCulture Theater in Manhattan's East Village.
Produced by John Osterhoudt.
Photo: Brett Raney.

[@spec24]

By the way, saying "it's a prescription for doing nothing" isn't an argument. You'd think someone with an education would know this. Sometimes doing nothing is the right thing to do.

[@Christian-yk8gk]

*So, LOOK... We just need a few things when it comes to big tech:* transparency, no special government protection, and free speech. If someone is offended by certain contents, just block the user. What do you think?

[@gmilitaru]

"free speech" and "no special government protection" are mutually exclusive.

[@gmilitaru]

@solaroid55 Unless the government steps in to protect us from ourselves.

[@VolkColopatrion]

and an internet bill of rights.

[@halasimov1362]

Transparency does not have to mean encryption bans! Encryption is a basic use of the first amendment in my eyes

[@halasimov1362]

VolkColopatrion Sounds nice.. but do you really trust current people in power to not draft a friendly looking noose to hang ourselves and advance their power?

[@spec24]

Yes, the government is so great at creating monopolies, breaking them up and then expecting people to be grateful. This guys ideas are as bad as his haircut.

[@abramgaller2037]

That is an insult to Tim's barber.

[@watchdealer11]

The world thrives when the government doesn't interfere

[@jrdPalacios]

Except for bail outs; that's when we want them to interfere eh?

[@Jpauly1999]

@@jrdPalacios leave them alone and no bail outs

[@gmilitaru]

@@jrdPalacios Bailouts are equally immoral (unless your goal is to protect the short term at the expense of the long term). EDIT: It is despicable that Boeing wants money, allegedly because of the epidemic, because they cannot overcome the costs of their epic fail in providing their customers safe products.

[@JazerMedia]

Except when business becomes powerful enough to bully our government to do it's bidding. Just my two cents.

[@macioluko9484]

@@jrdPalacios No. NO bailouts! As the average American if they feel sorry for Lehman Brothers... All the banks should have gone tits up. We would be in a far better situation today. If you bail out a bank or car manufacturer you HAVE to then bail out the hot dog vendor.

[@pseudo_goose]

Alternative take: The problem isn't big tech and big business, it's big government. The US government doesn't know when to leave the market alone anymore, they have placed so much regulation and control over every facet of our economy. As a result, barriers to entry in many markets have gone _up_, making it more difficult to introduce new competitors to the established oligopolies that are being artificially propped up by the very same legislation that supposedly was trying to make the market better. This is the same reason why minimum wage doesn't help the low end of the working class. It forces them out of the market because nobody is going to hire them over their more competent competitors if their work is artifically overvalued. I'd also like to add that corruption doesn't *cause* an excess of power, it *comes from* that excess. The reason why money has so much power and influence over our government is precisely because *we gave them that power.* If the scope of government were more limited and had less control, less of a direct effect on our lives, there would be less of a reason for companies to buy out politicians.

[@Thoralmir]

Minimum wage laws were originally racist in intent.

[@spec24]

Exactly. Don't you love that these dopes want to give more power to the very people whom corporations are seeking favors from for the very reason that they have power in the first place. The problem is that govt is able to dole out favors because they have power (people have given it to them in the name of "safety") and all this does is grant them more power over more industries.

[@coolbeans6148]

"More centralized server is easier to find the source of the problem " No it isnt, not to mention a centrist system is much easier to infiltrate.

[@onekerri1]

Let's not forget that govt subsidizes these big tech companies.

[@artemiasalina1860]

Do you mean tax breaks? If so, the government should give the small tech companies the same tax breaks. If you mean grants of some sort then it should not give any company any grants.

[@gmilitaru]

It may be that the duration of a lot of the patents issued the big tech by the government(s) is excessive compared to their technical and economic relevance. Copyrights are also allowed a depreciation period way too long compared to any other immovable business assets. It is these exclusive rights (improperly relabelled as "property") that allow inefficiencies accumulate in the major big tech established players. Breaking up companies is very much like rearranging chairs on the Titanic to avoid overcrowding the the deck.

[@spec24]

Patents and copyrights have to go. I used to be a staunch supporter of the idea of IP. After much study, and being beat down by reason, I had to come to the conclusion that not only are IP laws a violation of ACTUAL property rights, they actual stifle innovation and creativity. The founders were very intelligent, but they sure screwed that portion of the Constitution up.

[@abramgaller2037]

The government should break up Big Government.Antitrust laws are nonsense on stilts.All the excesses sited by Tim originated with the government,not private companies,including and especially barriers to entry.Government should not be involved with commerce and industry.

[@DVHeld]

You know you've gone off the rails when you see efficiency as a bad thing. Wu is a loon, clearly. He even cited the Microsoft web browser case where the antitrust case was dropped because by that time there was no case at all, as competition materialized in a natural and organic way. His mention of that case made me completely lose any hope that he would make any interesting argument in the future.

[@andersjohnson9565]

1:07:50 Wu is correct that regulatory barriers to competition are among the main reasons that the tech giants are so dominant.

[@ronpaulrevered]

Let's see Epstein vs. Kinsella debate on patent and copyright law

[@halasimov1362]

Problem is they are part of the intelligence apparatus of the Military Industrial Complex oligarchy. More complex than most realize.. Much more a problem than people realize also! We must defend individual liberty and the bill of rights. Can't be a platform and a publisher at same time!

[@nicmart]

Why is that meaningfully different from being a printer and publisher at the same time?

[@burp114]

14:40 "The question of whether or not we should discipline tech monopolies is in some sense a question about whether you believe in democracy" *laughs in Hoppe, so to speak*

[@abab1978]

A person who's read a few books debating with an academic who's an encyclopedia in himself. Loved how Richard doesn't even indulge in one personal attack! Absolutely owned Tim! Winded him up!!

[@stephenpaul7499]

As a bit of a 'lefty' I was hoping to agree with Tim but Richard is just so darn compelling.

[@onekerri1]

The elephant in the room is that TECH COMPANIES SENSOR SPEECH!

[@bcshu2]

Kerri a lot of businesses and organizations due. So what.

[@MeanBeanComedy]

That's their right to. You don't have the right to say whatever you want AND be on someone else's property.

[@bcshu2]

Exactly. Magazines DO NOT have to publish any advertisement they don’t support or agree with, newspapers DO NOT have to publish every letter to the editor, retail stores DO NOT have to sell every single book that may want to be included or even every music track ... on and on. You do not have the right to use someone else’s property any which way you choose. To be sure there are issues with online activity but claiming they are censoring speech is hallow.

[@spec24]

It's a consequence of people's choices!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@coolbeans6148]

It's also a consequence of people's choices when people vote in a socialist society...Does mean we should allow it.

[@dantean]

Hard to see how this could be a libertarian's question in the first place. NO, government should not be breaking up ANYTHING.

[@halasimov1362]

Sublime Music Channel But they should not be above the law! They should be a publisher or a platform. If they change our voices, defame us, and/or block our efforts to influence our peers should be able to answer in court!

[@coolbeans6148]

But it should

[@onekerri1]

FYI, the govt runs big tech.

[@voswouter87]

Regulating these companies will just result in them buying off some bureaucrats and blocking their competition. It's exactly what happened in the problematic industries he mentions and why those industries are dominated by monopolies.

[@secondsandthings]

Not regulating is just kicking the can down the road - Free speech, censorship and data privacy issues aren't going to go away just because new companies rise up and old ones fall

[@voswouter87]

@@secondsandthings It's kicking the can down to individual choice. If you think data privacy is important, you're free to suffer the result of not using the platforms that violate it. You should not be allowed to force your preference on others. That's terrorism. It's sad that people are being censored, but lets look at the cause. A culture where any disagreement is seen as a horrible thing. Government contributes to this because the other person might influence it. So instead of doing live and let live, other people's opinions could seriously affect you. They won't let you live your life, so you can't really let others live their life. Additionally compare the situation in the US to the Europe. In Europe the government is less restricted and able to regulate these platforms. As a result they're also able to regulate other speech and thousands of people are getting arrested for their opinion every year. Which is much worse than getting your account removed. If you really believe government is capable of benefiting society, in reality not fantasy, please show an example of that.

[@secondsandthings]

​@@voswouter87 examples are the traditional monopoly regulations that they mentioned. There are regulations around the environment too. There are many regulations of capital markets to prevent insider trading etc. Food and safety regulations prevent us from needing to research every food item to know its safe for consumption... Considering the scale and the stakes involved it makes sense for some regulation in tech. Even something as basic as "passwords can't be stored in plain text" would go far to benefit the security of people who are not. familiar with tech. Sure, individuals can do research, but at the end of the day having basic regulation means it's one less thing for people to worry about.

[@voswouter87]

​@@secondsandthings "the traditional monopoly regulations" So you're in favor of government giving companies monopolies, because that's the result of such policies. The more an industry is regulated, the more monopolistic it becomes. "regulations around the environment" Lets take an example 'free air act': Of course politicians told all kind of fairy tales about how great this law was. But the pollutors got in and bribed some bureaucrats to add a page to the law. Saying existing polluters where allowed to keep polluting. Results: - Politicians get public credit for 'doing something' - Government protects polluters against actual public accountability. 'Even something as basic as "passwords can't be stored in plain text" would go far to benefit the security of people who are not.' How is the government going to check this? Whatever checks can be implemented will slow down development so much it will do far more damage than the rare password hack. "but at the end of the day having basic regulation means it's one less thing for people to worry about." Business can be regulated by the consumers just fine. No need to bring in a terrorist organization.

[@secondsandthings]

​@@voswouter87 I'm referring to the fact that there is regulation against monopolies as an example of where the government did something good for the society. Extreme pollution definitely got reduced. Sure it's not perfect but much better than before due to regulation. The ozone hole being reduced is a clear example. Governments can't check all things during implementation - but the can give fines if regulations are broken. I.e. if un-hashed passwords are leaked fines can be applied. Most companies hash passwords already because it's easy to do and takes little time - not implementing it is usually seen as laziness and negligence amongst software developers. The point here is to have industry experts advise on what's reasonable and not reasonable. Business can't only be regulated by just consumers. There are too many products out there. No individual can research every single product or service they're using - and they can't research every single product or service the suppliers of their products are using. Sure some people can spend their lives being incredibly educated about everything. As a society we assign certain groups to be in charge to be educated and enforce certain things so the rest of us can use our time and brainpower on other things

[@artemiasalina1860]

So if I work for Google writing code and they pay me for it because they find the code useful, how is that materially any different than if I was working independently writing the same code and then selling it to Google later on?

[@justinpaul3110]

Tim Wu cannot adequately explain why the government could have the knowledge, wisdom, and foresight to be trusted to know at what point a company should be broken up.

[@coolbeans6148]

When it starts violating human rights or sabotaging other companies through non competitive practices

[@DaddyBLUE90S]

Great debate. I learned a lot.

[@seanjenkins331]

The American dream requires there be open competition for innovation in markets. Big tech acquisitions, campaign donations and the stifling of labor unions is making that far less reachable for the populist of working class/lower middle class families

[@willgreen9719]

Jesus, debate made for radio.

[@platinumsun4632]

I have to rewrite this :( Even if I agreed with breaking up of other firms which I do not. I don't think it could ever for these sort of tech companies. They are big because people want them to be even with there being so many alternatives. People just don't want to use them. Give me a product or service made by one of these companies with no alternatives. I can think of none, other than perhaps RAM manufacturing. My first comment was longer and in more detail but ive no interest in rewriting them. "So as a practical matter, let's say the govt breaks up Facebook into a bunch of little Facebooks, what do you think will happen? People will spontaneously aggregate to one of the little Facebooks in order to talk to each other. Now you have a big Facebook again. In order to break any social media site up and make it stick, you're going to have to make illegal for people to migrate from one to another. You'll have to assign people to sites and not allow them to leave." -ArtemiaSelina I said something similar to this though, just found this in the comment section so here you go if you can't find they're original comment.

[@christophergood2314]

I worry more about CCP in control of Big Tech. Than I do Big Tech. Why USA government probably will step in...

[@DataJuggler]

I think a debate on 'Is It Time To End The Fed' and / or 'Should We Outlaw Lobbyists?' would both make good discussions. I am a libertarian, but I still agree these companies are anti-competitive. Ask Alex Jones if you need proof. Also very interesting both are too scared to name the G company.

[@bcshu2]

Data Juggler as far as I know, most businesses would prefer to knock out their competition. That’s the whole point. So saying tech companies are anti-competitive isn’t elucidating anything that isn’t applicable to pretty much all business.

[@nick7072]

>anti-competitive So what? Why should you be forced to help your competitors?

[@MeanBeanComedy]

"We want to protect the free market... By adding new government regulations!"

[@homewall744]

Allowing mergers was a mistake for similar industries because they reduce competition. Of course, if the competitor is about to go under, the merger is fine. In the longer run, competition is better than synergy. For MSFT, it was fine they had the monopoly on OS, but to give competition on the apps that run on it. Besides, there is Linux and MacOS (and other Unix flavors). Patents sound good, but small players can't afford to enforce it. You have to find those stealing your IP, then sue them which takes years and hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you try to sue a big player, they will counter sue with hundreds of patents that you'll then have to defend against. In the end, the one with the money wins in patent battles, now who actually owns the IP. All that said, our goal was to be acquired by a bigger player, hopefully so the bigger player could enter the market and compete against our bigger competitors. But allowing our competitors to buy is would mostly be to reduce competition, not to acquire or technology and patent. I'm okay with Epstein's general view, though, which is to act when you see bad actions, not just to prevent a future imagined bad actor. We did see how Amazon first fought having to collect sales taxes from states they have no nexus in. But once they got big enough, then they flipped and decided everyone should do this. It's because the biggest guy can handle the regulations and complexity and confusion and hit to the bottom line, keeping smaller sales from growing. How to fix this is hard because government won't fix the problems it creates.

[@PedroFerreira-ys9eu]

Quem está aqui pelo ANCAP.SU deixa o like

[@andersjohnson9565]

55:13 Innovation in Silicon Valley is indeed on the decline, and the VC's know it. But they are betting (correctly, I think) that future innovation will come from elsewhere, not that it will decline worldwide.

[@spec24]

Same ol' shit, same ol' complaints. How about, instead, we trying something different and NOT have the gov't involved? What's that old saying about insanity? Yeah.

[@Cat-sv7zu]

An tech monopoly is not appealing it's frightening like driverless cars..the more our lives become tech based.Too easy to be controlled by someone else. There will always be a battle between good and evil or as we see today freedom and socialism. We have an illusion of freedom now but it is being chipped away. We need alternatives just dont know the best way to achieve that. Encouraging competition seems best

[@NewWorldDAO]

The Facebook break up example is not a good one. Instagram and WhatsApp or nothing like each other and they are nothing like Facebook. It can’t be Monopoly if they’re not the same.

[@JacobthePoshPotato]

There are a lot of Epstiens.

[@josiahcambies5199]

BRUH Obama and trump gave dislikes

[@ludwigvonmises2491]

Tim, read Austrian Economics or Milton Friedman, please.

[@MeanBeanComedy]

Stick to the latter. Sowell, too. Chicago is much more practical.

[@coolbeans6148]

39:00 you dont have break up the operating system, just provide the open source code.

[@MilwaukeeF40C]

Antitrust is wack. Fuck that shit.

[@christiensebastien2442]

Do I bet hat guy? Hmm...first

[@spec24]

Repeat after me, Tim: "I do not own other people's shit"

[@justinpaul3110]

Come on...put the wingnut comedian back in the video.

[@BoonTobias]

In economics, free trade by definition requires anti-trust laws. Companies seek to maximize profit and the real life consequence is them crushing or taking over competitors and becoming rent-seeking monopolies.

[@BoonTobias]

@solaroid55 what? where do trusts come in now? In a free market by definition you have inumerable small companies competing against each other. Where, why and how would they form trusts? And even according to that little game theory you just espoused, the result (of 1 firm backstabbing the other) is the same whether with 2 monopolies or 1000 small competitors. Big companies lobby government to regulate their competitors out in order to create barriers of entry so as to further entrench their rent-seeking empires. Anti-trust laws promote free markets. I really don't get your point. Maybe you can illustrate with a case study or provide a link.

[@MilwaukeeF40C]

Nothing close to a true monopoly has ever happened without the help of the government.

[@AceHardy]

👑

[@QuanNguyen-mo3jv]

It sounds weird, but natural monopoly is a good for the society. Companies have to compete against each other for limited resources like investors' money, human capital, etc. Consumers vote with their wallets, and the winning company will get the most resources. Or do you want to give limited resources to losers? Finally, remember that in a lawsuit, no matter who wins, lawyers always make money. So be skeptical with them, rather than capitalists.

[@VolkColopatrion]

now more than ever.

[@Ayinall]

What is needed is ETHICS. DARPA (ARPA) developed the Internet. Breaking up AT&T made phone bills skyrocket.

[@MilwaukeeF40C]

And AARP is preventing costly land lines from being abandoned.

[@nicmart]

You could not be more wrong about phone costs. They dropped rapidly. ATT was created by federal regulations that encouraged monopoly, as also happened with cable TV.

[@Hedgeflexlfz]

Yes

[@MilwaukeeF40C]

gay

[@hallowemusic]

Yes!

[@MilwaukeeF40C]

Hell no.