After two years filled with privacy scandals, antitrust fines, and disturbing revelations, legislators on both sides of the Atlantic are finally beginning to come up with policy proposals to address the numerous threats posed by unchecked digital monopolies. In the UK, the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee has published a scathing report recommending stricter regulations on social media companies, as well as transparency requirements and penalties. In the US, too, there is a growing awareness on both ends of the political spectrum of the dangers caused by the scale of digital platforms, their opaque algorithms, and lack of effective management.

Earlier this month, Axios published a white paper drafted by the office of Senator Mark Warner (D-Va) that contained 20 policy proposals on how to regulate social media platforms. The paper—aimed at stopping the spread of disinformation online, protecting user privacy and promoting competition—includes such proposals as requiring tech platforms to clearly label bot accounts and making them liable for failing to take down “deep fakes” or manipulated audio/video content, as well as comprehensive GDPR-like data protection legislation and handing the Federal Trade Commission more power to “police data protection and unfair competition in digital markets.” While the paper stops short of calling for a breakup of tech giants such as Google and Facebook, it does include a number of proposals that, if implemented, would necessarily force some of the major platforms to radically change their business model. One of those is to label certain services, such as Google Maps, as “essential services,” a designation that would require tech platforms to provide access to these services on “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory” terms (FRAND) and prevent them from “engaging in self-dealing or preferential conduct.“

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