Trump’s attorney general pick wants to investigate the Justice Department’s role in Big Tech
President Trump’s nominee for attorney general, William Barr, said at his first confirmation hearing today that he would look into whether Silicon Valley social media companies were abusing their market position to stifle competition and what the Justice Department’s role should be on the issue of consumer data privacy.
The question that prompted the response came from junior Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) who dedicated his allotted time to asking Barr about issues surrounding data privacy and the centralized power companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google have on the market.
“I’d like to have the antitrust [officials] support that effort to get more involved in reviewing the situation from a...