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Joe Biden has just dealt a big defeat to big tech | Joseph Stiglitz

US president’s new executive order is an important step towards protecting sensitive personal data

Americans are rightly worried about what is happening online, and their concerns extend well beyond privacy violations to a host of other digital harms, such as mis- and disinformation, social media-induced teenage anxiety, and racial incitement. The Trump administration’s proposal to include this rule in the World Trade Organization did provide for one exception, which ostensibly would allow some regulation “necessary to achieve a legitimate public policy objective”, but it was designed not to work in practice. They recognised that by casting aside big tech’s favoured “digital trade” handcuffs, the Biden administration was reasserting its authority to regulate the large platforms and data brokers that Americans across the political spectrum think have too much power.

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