US Tech Regulation: the prospects for 2022

In a year with midterm elections, inflation struggles and perhaps a transition from pandemic to endemic, do America’s politicians and appointees have the willingness or ability to advance tech sector regulation? 2022 should be a year where earlier personnel-based or legal ‘groundwork’ starts producing results. But simultaneously Congress’s work on the subject might be at an impasse: Democrats have ineffective majority sizes, and if they lose their majorities in November, they could lose their chances to shape legislation on the subject for much of the decade. For the midterm campaign, Republicans are focusing on the issue of online censorship, but if they win the House/Senate in November the party has divisions to work out – the ‘establishment’ is historically hands-off on business, but many 2022 GOP candidates (with the support of Donald Trump) are saying things about tech breakups that once would have been progressive Democrat talking points.