Fresh off his second-place finish — behind only former President Donald Trump — in the presidential straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ top priority heading into this year’s legislative session is custom-fit to appeal to the CPAC crowd: going after Big Tech social-media companies for their alleged anti-conservative bias.

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California Democratic Reps. Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney are upset with what they perceive as “misinformation” coming from right-wing news outlets like Fox News, Newsmax and OneAmerica News Network, and now they’re seeking to enlist the nation’s cable companies in the campaign to shut it down.

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The government’s roadmap for ending Covid restrictions in England commits it to steps that may increase the rate at which the virus spreads. Some of that is unavoidable. But even as we reopen, there is more that we could do to mitigate the risk, and get us to the summer – and normality – without a resurgence.

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This week, Facebook blocked news articles on its apps for all Australian users, and is blocking Australian news articles for users worldwide. This is a drastic step, but it is probably the least bad option the company has left. The Australian government has forced it into this position, with an attempted shake-down of Big Tech that leaves Australians worse off.

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Background…

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) has introduced the Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act (CALERA), sweeping legislation that, if enacted, would change the antitrust rules not just for Big Tech, but for the whole economy.

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Background…

The process of writing and passing laws in the European Union primarily involves three institutions: the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council of the EU. The Commission proposes legislation, and the Parliament and the Council approve, amend, or reject it.

The Parliament is the EU’s legislature. It represents all EU citizens and is directly elected by them. The Council of the European Union represents the governments of the individual member states. The European Commission is the EU’s politically independent executive body responsible for drawing up proposals for new European legislation and ensuring, together with the Court of Justice, that these laws are properly applied by member states. It consists of one commissioner from each member state, for a total of 27.

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Competitive markets are important not just because they affect the price of things we buy, but also the look and feel of where we live, and even where we go when we die.

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Background…

In antitrust law, the Consumer Welfare Standard (CWS) directs courts to focus on the effects that challenged business practices have on consumers, rather than on alleged harms to specific competitors. Critics of the standard claim this focus on consumer welfare fails to capture a wide variety of harmful conduct. In addition to believing that harm to competitors is itself a valid concern, critics of the CWS believe it leads to harmful concentrations of political and economic power by biasing antitrust enforcement against intervention. Under this view, the CWS contributes to such harms as environmental degradation, income inequality, and bargaining disparities for labor. 

But…

Returning to a pre-CWS state of the law would lead antitrust enforcement to become confused, contradictory, and ineffective at promoting competition. The CWS makes antitrust economically coherent and democratically accountable.

However…

The CWS is agnostic about how much antitrust enforcement is necessary. Indeed, many advocates of more vigorous antitrust enforcement are also defenders of the CWS. The standard uses objective economic analysis to identify actual harms and to recommend remedies when those harms are not outweighed by countervailing benefits to consumers. While the issues the CWS critics care about may be important, antitrust law is a bad way to address them.

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After a disastrous pandemic response that led to one of the worst death rates in the world, the UK’s vaccination programme is finally giving it something to be cheerful about. The UK bought early and broadly, prioritising speed and betting that – although it did not yet know which vaccines would work – at least some would make the cut. These early investments made it possible for vaccine manufacturers to invest in more production capacity early on.

In contrast, the EU was slow, prioritised cost reductions, refused to waive liability for vaccine firms if something went wrong, and focused on a smaller number of vaccines – some of which, like France’s Sanofi vaccines, have suffered setbacks.

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