Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) becoming the speaker of the House would be a setback to conservative critics of Big Tech who want to reduce the sway of companies such as Google, Meta, and Amazon.
Jordan faced his first vote to become the speaker of the House on Tuesday, when 20 of his fellow Republicans voted against him and left him without the 217 votes needed to cross the threshold.
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The Ohio Republican, who is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has a long history of being critical of social media companies such as Meta and Twitter, alleging that they have engaged in censorship of conservatives. He has avoided, though, using the tools of antitrust enforcement and legislation against tech giants. That has placed him at odds with conservative Big Tech critics such as Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO).
"Jordan has actively subverted our ability to pass legislation to stop Big Tech from rigging our elections for Democrats," Terry Schilling, the president of the conservative American Principles Project, wrote in an op-ed. "He stopped Section 230 reform. He blocked antitrust. And he's offered no solutions of his own."
Jordan's speakership "will make it nearly impossible to move any sensible bipartisan legislation to curb big tech's abuses of power," a tech lobbyist told CNBC. "Instead, you'll see more performative anger over petty issues, designed to redirect attention away from the things that could actually hold big tech accountable."
"A [Jim Jordan] speakership is as good as it gets for Big Tech," the left-leaning Tech Oversight Project posted on Tuesday.
Jordan's views of Big Tech:
Jordan has argued for a more skeptical approach toward Big Tech, grilling the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook, and Google in hearings before his committee.
Jordan supports the reform of Section 230, a section of the Communications Act that protects websites from being held accountable for what third parties post on the platform. He has criticized it as a tool to protect Big Tech companies from being held responsible for their content moderation choices. He has not supported most bills presented by lawmakers that offered amendments to the rules, however.
Jordan is skeptical of the Federal Trade Commission under Chairwoman Lina Khan, a noted critic of Big Tech companies such as Amazon and a proponent of "hipster antitrust" — a school of thought that abandons the consumer welfare standard that guided U.S. antitrust policy for decades in favor of a much more skeptical approach that also considers other factors, such as corporate concentration and income inequality.
The Ohio Republican has used his position as the Judiciary Committee's chairman to pressure Big Tech companies over communications between their offices and federal agencies to see if the government encouraged censorship of content related to COVID-19. His focus has been more on speech than on antitrust or company size.
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Jordan has been at odds with conservatives in the House GOP conference who favor breaking up Big Tech companies because of their content moderation policies. He opposed the antitrust efforts of Buck. At the start of this Congress, he effectively demoted Buck by promoting the libertarian Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) over Buck to lead the Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee.
Jordan has also declined to back leading bipartisan antitrust legislation, such as Sen. Marsha Blackburn's (R-TN) Kids Online Safety Act or Sen. Amy Klobuchar's (D-MN) Open Apps Market Act.