Big Tech’s censorship efforts just hit a yuuuge roadblock.
In a statement on Truth Social, incoming (and former) President Donald J. Trump announced that he will nominate competition hardliner Gail Slater to lead the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. Trump argued the appointment was necessary not just to preserve the free market, but also to protect Americans’ liberties.
Trump wrote: “Big Tech has run wild for years, stifling competition in our most innovative sector and, as we all know, using its market power to crack down on the rights of so many Americans, as well as those of Little Tech! I was proud to fight these abuses in my First Term, and our Department of Justice’s antitrust team will continue that work under Gail’s leadership.”
Monopolization and collusion in tech markets often pose direct harms to Americans’ First Amendment liberties. In 2021, just three tech firms — Amazon, Apple and Google — were able to cut off the entirety of America’s access to free speech-oriented social media platform Parler. In 2022, Google denied access to Truth Social for over 40 percent of American cell phone users.
During Trump’s first administration, the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division sued Google for illegally monopolizing the search engine market. The case was decided this year: the Court sided with the Antitrust Division and ruled that Google did, indeed, violate antitrust law in monopolizing the market for search engines.
Originally an antitrust attorney in Ireland, Slater’s first job after moving to the United States was for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). She later worked at Fox News, at Roku and as an advisor to Trump in his first administration. She is currently a policy advisor to Vice President-elect JD Vance. Throughout her career, Slater has been a persistent and aggressive critic of Big Tech firms’ anti-competitive conduct and disproportionate market power.
Slater’s nomination could mark a sharp change in direction for the Antitrust Division. Under President Joe Biden, the Division largely refrained from challenging Big Tech’s market power (though it did continue the Google suit the Trump administration had started).
Biden’s Antitrust Division declined to bring enforcement actions against either Amazon or Meta, even though the independent FTC outlined damning evidence of antitrust violations in its own suits against those firms. In 2022, it was revealed that the Biden administration had secretly coordinated with both Amazon and Meta to censor speech critical of its policies related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump’s announcement was met with swift praise from critics of Big Tech power.
Antitrust scholar and populist activist Matt Stoller wrote: “This is a very powerful statement that Trump wants to take on big tech.”
Legal scholar and Article III Project President Mike Davis stated, “President Trump is making crystal clear he's continuing what he started: The bipartisan antitrust law-enforcement effort to hold accountable the trillion-dollar Big Tech monopolists--particularly Google--that crush competition, shutter small businesses, and censor conservatives and others with whom they disagree. President Trump made the perfect choice with Gail Slater.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that they confirm nominees who will fight Big Tech collusion and monopolization. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable
