WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a former technology entrepreneur, released a statement after the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law held hearing entitled “Reviving Competition, Part 1: Proposals to Address Gatekeeper Power and Lower Barriers to Entry Online”:

“Social media has undeniably reshaped our entire culture and the ways we communicate, and has enormous benefits. However, we have seen that as platforms’ collective influence has grown, so have barriers to entry for smaller platforms. We must level the playing field for startups and make it easier for them to compete on equal terms with the biggest platforms. That is why I introduced bipartisan legislation, the Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching (ACCESS) Act, to encourage market-based competition to dominant social media platforms by requiring the largest companies to make user data portable – and their services interoperable – with other platforms, and to allow users to designate a trusted third-party service to manage their privacy and account settings, if they so choose. I am pleased to see the subcommittee and its witnesses address this important issue and am looking forward to continuing the conversation on how to enhance competition online.”

In addition to the ACCESS Act, Sen. Warner has written and introduced a number of bills designed to protect consumers and reduce the power of giant social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google. Among these are the Safeguarding Against Fraud, Exploitation, Threats, Extremism and Consumer Harms (SAFE TECH) Act – legislation to reform Section 230 and allow social media companies to be held accountable for enabling cyber-stalking, targeted harassment, and discrimination on their platforms; theDesigning Accounting Safeguards to Help Broaden Oversight And Regulations on Data (DASHBOARD) Act – bipartisan legislation to require data harvesting companies to tell consumers and financial regulators exactly what data they are collecting from consumers and how it is being leveraged by the platform for profit; and the Deceptive Experiences To Online Users Reduction (DETOUR) Act – bipartisan legislation to prohibit large online platforms from using deceptive user interfaces to trick consumers into handing over their personal data.

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