It is no small irony that the first U.S. presidential candidate in history to run a socially distanced campaign, Joe Biden, mostly practises distancing from social media. He hasn’t generated the fanatical digital following de rigueur for modern politicians. He’s revealed precious little about his tech intent even as he inherits not one but two antitrust lawsuits against major tech companies. And he even picked a vice president with Silicon Valley connections, but not necessarily for her technology chops.
As president-elect, Biden may not be showing much love for tech, but the tech-obsessed like to speculate about what’s on his mind for the sector by parsing the occasional quote on hot-button issues: antitrust (the non-committal: “Something we should take a really hard look at”); legal immunity for platforms from content posted on them (the impractical: “Should be revoked, immediately”); Big Tech bigwigs (the ho-hum: “Not everyone in the tech industry is a bad guy,” or the overly specific: “Little creeps”).
