Big League Politics Douglas Rathbun was previously an attorney with the Competition Policy and Advocacy Section of the DOJ. He is now doing public policy work for the Big Tech monolith who he was previously tasked with regulating, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Congrats to longtime Department of Justice Antitrust Division staffer Doug Rathbun on your new public policy job at Facebook! pic.twitter.com/eCS0P2aYty
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) March 30, 2021
The Revolving Door Project noted how this is just the latest instance of a rigged system rewarding its corrupt actors with money and prestige.
âAt Facebook, Rathbunâs public policy work will no doubt entail rubbing elbows with his former colleagues. His task, presumably, will be to attempt to sway their decisions in favor of his new employer as it faces increased regulatory scrutiny from the DOJ and an ongoing FTC lawsuit. But DOJ officials should see Rathbun for what he is: a turncoat looking to undermine the mission of the Antitrust Division to the advantage of Big Tech,â they wrote.
The advocacy group explained how the rules are written to allow individuals like Rathbun to be able to cash out on their influence. He is far from the only recent former federal bureaucrat who is making bank after betraying the American people.
âRathbun is following the path of Trump-era leaders like Alex Okuliar (who joined Morrison & Foerster this month) and Julia Schiller (who rejoined OâMelveny & Myers), as well as ostensibly career officials like former Bureau of Competition Director Ian Conner, who recently joined Latham & Watkins,â they wrote.
âAt Facebook, Rathbun joins fellow revolver Barbara Blank, who left the FTC for Facebook last year. Politico recently revealed that Blank was the lead antitrust staffer when the FTC failed to sue Google in 2012 for illegally monopolizing mobile internet searches, ignoring the recommendation of staff investigators,â the Revolving Door Project added.
As federal bureaucrats regularly sell their souls, intrepid lawmakers from both political parties are uniting to put forth substantive legislation that would reign the Big Tech monopolies in, as Big League Politics has reported:
âReps. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) have introduced the âBreak Up Big Techâ act to bust up the Silicon Valley monopolies enabled by big government regulations.
The legislation would remove special immunities given to Big Tech firms under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act if they acted as publishers rather than neutral platforms.
âBig tech monopolies like Google and Facebook have made billions of dollars by creating online platforms that monetize our private information, use manipulative and destructive algorithms, and act as publishers choosing what information they want to censor or publish. They undermine our freedom of speech and treat us and our attention as the product, monetizing it to line their pockets with more money without any regard for the damaging consequences,â Gabbard said.
âThis bill removes the legal immunity that service providers have taken advantage of to act with impunity, while maintaining Section 230 protections for those who provide truly neutral social media platforms or search engines without the use of manipulative algorithms,â she added.
âBig Tech monopolies continue to censor and manipulate users without consent or liability. The Break Up Big Tech Act revokes liability protections for bad Samaritans and instead empowers users,â Gosar said.
âI am proud to work with Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard on the Donât Push My Buttons Act, Stop the Censorship Act, and now the Break Up Big Tech Act to reform Section 230 and protect online consent and free speech instead of censorship and manipulation,â he added.â
These conflict of interests show exactly how tilted the tables are in favor of the China-owned corporate elite. The American dream is dead because of institutionalized corruption that the public has been conditioned to tolerate.
