The Big Story: Where Trump and Biden stand on tech policy. With the election in full swing, President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden are wrapping up their respective campaigns. Ahead of the impending election, we wanted to take a look at where the major party candidates stand on some critical tech and startup issues.
A recent analysis of the candidates’ tech records by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation found that Joe Biden has laid out a more concrete tech agenda for his administration, while President Trump continues to focus on tax cuts, trade deals, and claims of anti-conservative biases by large tech platforms. While the Trump administration has moved to restrict the H-1B visa program, a critical way for tech companies to access talented foreign-born workers, Biden has voiced support for less restrictive H-1B policies. A Biden victory also means that the Federal Communications Commission would have a Democratic majority, giving Democrats the opportunity to reinstate the Obama-era net neutrality rules—which helps startups and other digital platforms effectively compete against more established online competitors—that were repealed in 2017. Both candidates, however, have voiced support for modifying Section 230—a critical law which lets Internet companies of all sizes host and moderate user content without being sued out of existence—although they radically differ in their approaches.
President Trump, a vocal critic of Section 230, is likely to continue moving forward with efforts to roll back the bedrock Internet law during a second term. Earlier this year, the president issued an executive order on “preventing online censorship” that directed federal agencies, including the FCC, to examine Section 230’s liability limitations. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced earlier this month that the agency will move forward with the administration’s petition to review Section 230, and the Senate is set to consider the nomination of Nathan Simington—a senior adviser with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration who played a significant role in drafting the petition in front of the FCC—after Trump withdrew the renomination of Republican FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly. Joe Biden has also called for Section 230 to be “revoked, immediately” on the grounds that Internet platforms should be held liable for allowing misinformation and harmful content to proliferate on their platforms, although he has not laid out a definitive approach for doing so.
Regardless of who wins, however, the president-elect needs to work with Congress to enact long-term economic recovery and relief policies so that U.S. companies—particularly startups and small businesses—can weather the pandemic and continue to grow. Engine has proposed a series of targeted relief solutions to better support the entrepreneurial community, including a designated “startup fund” to help direct relief to early-stage companies that have to compete for funding with more-established competitors, and more expanded forgivable loan programs. The next administration should work to include these startup-centric proposals in the next COVID relief package to ensure the nation’s economy recovery following the pandemic.
Policy Roundup:
Section 230 hearing devolves into political attacks on big tech CEOs. The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing this week with the CEOs of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to ostensibly discuss Section 230, but the hearing largely focused on unsubstantiated claims of political bias by large tech companies and included little discussion of substantive legislative proposals. While Section 230 provides early-stage platforms that host and moderate user-generated content with the liability limitations needed to attract investments, launch, and grow, policymakers largely ignored discussing the devastating impact that repealing the law would have on the startup community in favor of politicized attacks on the companies ahead of next week’s presidential election. The Senate Judiciary Committee is planning to hold another hearing on Nov. 17th with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to discuss "the platforms’ censorship and suppression of New York Post articles” about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s son.
DHS proposes replacing the H-1B visa program.The Department of Homeland Security released a proposal this week to effectively replace the H-1B visa lottery, the program which lets companies petition for the chance to employ high-skilled foreign talent. The Trump administration said the overhaul—which would award H-1B visas to applicants beginning at the highest salary on down—was needed to curtail U.S. employers from hiring foreign-born workers for lower wages. This new process is likely to be particularly harmful to international students. As we noted just last week, high-skilled foreign workers play a significant role in fostering innovation and startup activity across the U.S. tech sector, and limiting tech companies’ access to these talented individuals could make it more difficult for the country to attract and attain the best entrepreneurial minds.
FCC votes to uphold 2017 net neutrality repeal. The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 to maintain the agency’s 2017 repeal of the net neutrality rules after a federal appeals court ruled last year that the FCC must consider the impact of the rule rollback on public safety, the Lifeline program that supports broadband for low-income Americans, and the agency’s ability to regulate pole attachments. The Obama-era net neutrality protections required Internet service providers to treat all online traffic the same—a mandate that helped keep the Internet a level playing field and supported the growth of nascent startups.
Legislation would invest $900 billion to promote workforce of the future. A group of House Democrats introduced legislation this week—the 21st Century Jobs Act—that would invest $900 billion in research and development for emerging technologies and public school STEM education in order to create a more technologically proficient U.S. workforce.
Startup Roundup:
#StartupsEverywhere: Bloomington, Minnesota. TheraTec is a digital health startup whose platform can help improve patient outcomes while lowering costs of care. We recently spoke with Tony Hyk, CEO of TheraTec, to learn more about the company, policy challenges they’ve encountered, and what they see on the horizon.
Join us next month for a conversation about capital access policy. Engine is hosting a webinar on November 18th at 4 p.m. ET to discuss access to capital policy and how startups can work with policymakers to drive solutions to capital access barriers. We will explore some of the challenges that startups face when accessing capital, the unique roadblocks faced by underrepresented founders, and how COVID-19 has impacted the startup community. RSVP here.
#EngineStartupSpotlight. Each Wednesday, Engine is spotlighting a different startup on social media to highlight the policy issues affecting their business. Read this week’s spotlight here, or reach out to us here to be featured.
