Big Tech breakup idea loses steam as Elizabeth Warren doesn't have Democrats' backing

Tech companies and how they should function has been a focus of many US presidential debates.

Governments globally are both affected by tech and trying to control it. But most including the US government don't understand tech. This is the reason for ideas like the one Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is also a presidential candidate in the 2020 elections proposed.

The idea was simple – Break up big tech companies such as Facebook, Amazon and Google, because their size and market control raises antitrust concerns. Elizabeth Warren alleges that these companies have staved-off innovation and made the industry non-competitive.

It seems like a plan that is not executable because it is targeting the companies, but not the market that enables this behaviour. It doesn't call for the US government to support innovation to create alternatives.

Big tech giants are able to use their power to limit competition and undermine small businesses. You get to be the umpire or you get to have a team in the gameâ€”but you don't get to do both at the same time. We need to #BreakUpBigTech. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/c1p7oX0qtf
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) October 16, 2019

Most Democrats, in the debate on Thursday, disagreed with Warren's plan. Andrew Yang, himself a tech entrepreneur stated that while her diagnosis was correct, her suggested solutions were not. Competition alone will not solve the issues.

"There's a reason no one is using Bing today. Using a 20th-century antitrust framework will not work," Yang stated.

Candidates like Cory Booker, while agreeing with her stand, did not single out any tech company for wrongdoing.

Bernie Sanders did not respond to the question.

California Senator Kamala Harris stated that if tech companies are broken up, it will be difficult to control disinformation and check election interference. Currently, at least there is a command and control mechanism.

To further her stand, she called for the shutdown of Twitter since it has refused to kill US President Donald Trump's account, whose tweets and rhetoric she calls dangerous.

Beto 'O' Rourke stated that while he was unwilling to target specific companies, he would be "unafraid to break up big business."

He has called for an amendment of section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act, and call upon social media platforms to remove content such as the recent El Paso shootings from their platform.