Michel Euler/AP Photo
The extension generates disclosures for over 200 accounts, and all of the data backing up the information has been made available.
There’s an old joke about how it would be helpful if the loudest voices in our political debates would wear on their suits what NASCAR drivers have on their cars: logos of all the companies that sponsor them, through campaign donations and direct payments. One organization has figured out a way to do that for the debate over Big Tech. More interestingly, it’s a group on the political right.
Big Tech Funding is a Chrome browser extension that adds disclosures to Twitter of what groups or individuals take money from the major tech platforms. That incorporates an entire ecosystem of think tanks, trade associations, academics and their institutions, and other advocacy organizations, all of which often parrot Big Tech arguments while enjoying funding from the same companies.
With the extension installed, if someone in your Twitter feed comments that antitrust enforcement is counter-productive or that breaking up the platforms would only serve to boost Chinese competitors, you might see a warning that says “This person is affiliated with an organization funded by Facebook, Google, and Amazon,” or “This person has received direct funding from Apple and Amazon.”
The extension generates disclosures for over 200 accounts, and all of the data backing up the information has been made available. Liberal organizations like the Center for American Progress and the Human Rights Campaign appear in the list, alongside conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, National Review, and the Law & Economics Center at George Mason University and even nominally centrist/nonpartisan orgs like the Niskanen Center.
Why is a family values–heavy think tank exposing people paid by Big Tech?
While it’s fun to watch Big Tech shills have to endure seeing their paymasters listed below all of their tweets, what makes this interesting is that it’s a project of the American Principles Project (APP), a right-wing organization founded in 2009 that calls itself “America’s top defender of the family” and sees as its mission to “impose a political cost on the Left’s anti-family extremism.” Its founding officials included Jeff Bell, a Nixon aide who helped run Ronald Reagan’s insurgent presidential campaign in 1976, and Frank Cannon, who worked on the Reagan, Kemp, and McCain campaigns. Robert George, the Princeton professor and co-founder of the organization, is a past chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, the leading anti-gay marriage group.
So why is a family values–heavy think tank exposing people paid by Big Tech? “As these companies have become more hostile to conservative values, there’s become more of an understanding on the right of the dangers of concentrated power,” said Jon Schweppe, APP’s director of policy and government affairs. “I cut my teeth in the Tea Party, it was very much ‘Leave these companies alone, let’s deregulate,’ very libertarian. This has changed the way people look at Big Tech companies and corporations on the right.” Indeed, a Gallup poll released Monday found that Republicans have lost faith in the tech industry and big business, with confidence waning by between 30 and 40 points.
APP endorsed the bipartisan bills that emerged from the House Judiciary Committee last month, and has been active in lobbying the few dozen conservatives who would be needed to pass the measures in the full House. Their shift matches a split within the Republican Party on the subject. Last week, Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) established the “Freedom from Big Tech” Caucus with several conservative founding members. But Buck’s effort to rally support for stronger antitrust enforcement against tech companies has been countered by the likes of House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who have been content to bash tech companies for alleged censorship of conservatives while shying away from any aggressive enforcement action.
Democrats are also conflicted from within on Big Tech; these tensions spilled out in a remarkable recent Congressional Progressive Caucus meeting, with Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), who represents a chunk of Silicon Valley, condemning the recent bills and intimating that progressive members are helped by her taking Big Tech money and handing it out to them.
In putting together the Chrome extension, Schweppe tried to include Big Tech supporters on the left and right. But he was surprised to find just how many conservative groups have taken tech money, and wanted to highlight it. “A lot of the groups, they have reputational capital,” he said. “They sound like Tea Party groups: The Kochs, Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Tax Reform. We want to get influencers and journalists to understand, the reason their op-eds are platformed is they’re platformed by these companies.”
Last year, APP got 99 percent of its funding from individuals and foundations, Schweppe said, and has taken no corporate dollars this year. “We’re open to corporate funding as long as the organizations align with us,” he said.
What’s most notable here is how this rather stolid conservative group has been activated into the fight against Big Tech, and seems open to standing with progressives on the issue if it will help reach their goals. “I do think our differences on cultural issues are stark differences,” Schweppe said. “But there’s a lot of room on economic issues as Republicans become more populist.”
It’s questionable whether any critical mass of Republicans will truly embrace economic populism; the Trump years suggest little movement on that front. But on some discrete issues, particularly with respect to Silicon Valley’s market power, there is an opportunity to make change. There the dividing line is less left versus right than reform versus the status quo. Seeing so starkly how the defenders of the status quo, left and right, all take cash from the dominant incumbents helps see that debate more cleanly.
