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A Flourishing Internet Depends on Competition


Antitrust law has long recognized that monopolies stifle innovation and gouge consumers on price. When it comes to Big Tech, harm to innovation—in the form of “kill zones,” where major corporations buy up new entrants to a market before they can compete with them—has been easy to find. Consumer...

The personal danger of digital monoculture shows itself when Facebook messages are used in a criminal investigation against a mother and daughter discussing abortion and in “ geofence warrants ” that demand Google turn over information about every device within a certain distance of a crime. In an age of resurgent anti-monopoly activism, small online communities, either standing on their own, or joined in loose “federations,” are the best chance we have to escape Big Tech’s relentless surveillance and clumsy, unaccountable control. The European Union’s new Digital Markets Act (DMA) is a complex, many-legged beast, but at root, it is a regulation that aims to make it easier for the public to control the technology they use and rely on.

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