Liberals Wary as Facebook’s Sandberg Eyed for Treasury
In The News Piece in Politico
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Oct. 23, 2016
Lina Khan was quoted in Politico about Sheryl Sandberg's possible appointment as the next Treasury secretary:
Nominating Sandberg would also spark doubts about Clinton’s approach to growing concerns about the sway the biggest businesses have over the economy.
The issue relates to Facebook because of its role as one of the world’s central arteries for information. While agencies outside Treasury play a more direct role in policing corporate concentration, Sandberg’s appointment could disappoint advocates pushing for a more robust anti-trust enforcement in the tech sector.
“If a senior Cabinet member is from Facebook, at worst it could directly interfere” in antitrust actions, said Lina Khan, a fellow with the Open Markets Program at the New America think tank. “But even in the best of cases there's a real worry that it will have a chilling effect on good-faith anti-trust efforts to scrutinize potential anti-competitive implications of dominant tech platforms.”