Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced recently that she will refuse any donations larger than $200 dollars from executives in tech and media. This is very on brand for the presidential candidate, as she has already made a promise to breakup larger tech companies like Facebook and Google. She fears that these companies have way too much power in their industry and make it difficult for any competition to enter the market. She also fights against big tech exces using donations to have influence in congress on whether they pass or block certain legislation that impacts their companies.
She has already made herself enemy No. 1 in Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s eyes, as he was recorded saying in a meeting that he would “go to the mat” to fight Warren if she became president. The current Sen. has brought up the idea of separating Instagram and WhatsApp from Facebook in the past and the immediately rubbed Zuckerberg the wrong way, even though ultimately the trio remained intact. She also made a point about how Facebook doesn’t fact check the political ads on the site, and refused to remove a false ad made by the Trump reelection campaign. To prove her point she ran her own false ad and even pointed out that there was a lie within the ad.
Now that the major brands and companies are predominately tech and media based there is no surprise that they would try to use their money and support to gain political preferences. In 2016, Facebook and Cambridge Analytica had one of the largest election based scandals ever, which resulted in a $5 billion fine to Facebook. Politics and the tech industry will never be separate entities again.
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