Facebook is leading an effort behind the scenes to launch a new political advocacy group aimed at taking on the growing chorus of US lawmakers and regulators calling for reining in Silicon Valley, according to a new report.
The organization, called American Edge, will work to gain support on Capitol Hill through “a barrage of advertising and other political spending,” according to the Washington Post.
American Edge will argue in its ads that Silicon Valley is a critical piece of the US economy, as well as a beacon of free speech, three people familiar with plans for the organization told the paper.
The group formed in December and registered an accompanying foundation last month in Virginia.
The paper reports that current structure appears to allow American Edge to essentially take advantage of tax laws — the group will be able to raise money and spend on political advertising, but will not have to disclose the identities of all its donors.
A Facebook spokesperson could not be immediately reached for comment by The Post.
An American Edge spokesperson told The Post, “The American Edge Project will partner with a diverse set of companies, associations and others to promote the benefits of innovation and drive a public-facing conversation about the importance of protecting American technology for our future.”
In a statement to the Washington Post, the company confirmed its involvement in the development of American Edge.
“The U.S. leads the world in technology and we should be proud of that fact and promote it. We’re working with a diverse group of stakeholders to help build support for our industry, and while we’re leading an effort to start this coalition, it’s one of many we are contributing to and supporting.”
The move by Facebook comes as the social media giant faces more critics in Congress than ever before, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle calling for the company to be broken up.
Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have become outspoken critics, with both publicly supporting breaking up the social media conglomerate.
Warren is such a staunch foe of the tech giant that she included a plan to break the company up as part of her presidential primary campaign platform.
The Democrat’s proposal would have forced Facebook to undo its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg was so aghast at the Massachusetts senator’s plan that last year, when Warren was still in the race, he told Facebook employees during a meeting that he was ready to “go to the mat” and fight for the company if she became president.
“If she gets elected president, then I would bet that we will have a legal challenge, and I would bet that we will win that legal challenge,” Zuckerberg told his employees, according to audio obtained by The Verge.
“And does that suck for us? Yeah. I mean, I don’t want to have a major lawsuit against our own government.” But “if someone’s going to try to threaten something that existential, you go to the mat and you fight,” he continued.
Warren responded at the time in a tweet, “What would really ‘suck’ is if we don’t fix a corrupt system that lets giant companies like Facebook engage in illegal anticompetitive practices, stomp on consumer privacy rights, and repeatedly fumble their responsibility to protect our democracy.”
After Facebook announced the launch of its Oversight Board, a 20-member, Supreme Court-style body that will focus on issues of hate speech and harassment, Hawley argued that the move further proved his belief that the company should be broken up.
“This is how powerful @Facebook is, how much speech it controls, how much of our time & attention it claims: it now has a special censorship committee to decide what speech can stay & what should go. Facebook basically making the case it should be broken up,” he tweeted last week after the announcement.