And in Ireland - the place where European tech regulation goes to die - they've just appointed an ex-Meta lobbyist named Niamh Sweeney to regulate the privacy practices of the US tech giants that pretend to be headquartered in Ireland in order to evade their taxes:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/01/erin-go-blagged/#big-tech-omerta
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This is especially worrying because Meta has a history of binding its former executives with nondisclosure and nondisparagement clauses that forbid them from ever saying a mean word about Meta, or discussing anything they learned while working at the company. There are no ends to the lengths the company will go to in their war on their ex-employees.
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Take Sarah Wynn-Williams, who has been fined $111m by the company's arbitrator as punishment for her #1 *NYT* bestselling whistleblower memoir, *Careless People*. Meta has told Wynn-Williams that she may not appear in public to discuss *anything*, not just her book, and now they've sued her for *standing motionless and silent* for an hour on a stage at a literary festival:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/27/zuckerstreisand-2/#autodisparagement
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When Sweeney was given the job of regulating her former employers, it naturally raised questions about whether she would be legally allowed to criticize - or even talk about - Meta. Sweeney declined to comment on this at all for seven months, and now, at last, she has issued a heavily lawyered statement that seems to affirm that she will be allowed to do her job:
20/
But a close read of her words tells a different story: Sweeney has affirmed that she's not bound by *the same* gag order as Wynn-Williams, but not whether she has *any* restrictions on her conduct in respect of Meta.
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This shouldn't be complicated: if Sweeney is indeed free to vigorously enforce the law against Meta, then she could have published a statement the day her appointment was made public: "I do not have *any* contractual restrictions on my ability to discuss Meta or its current or former personnel." If she is truly able to do this job, then it shouldn't take her half a year to issue a weasel-worded, heavily caveated statement.
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Having narrowly escaped the existential crisis of democratic and legal accountability, Big Tech has captured a string of states: Ireland and the UK, and (especially) the USA. The fears of the Marshall Plan technocrats have been realized: Big Tech is Trump and Trump is Big Tech, and together, they are executing an authoritarian takeover of the USA and countries around the world.
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Without the US as a willing partner, other countries have precious little chance of enforcing their laws (which were originally American laws). Just look at how Apple has point-blank refused to follow Europe's new tech regulations:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/26/empty-threats/#500-million-affluent-consumers
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(Worse: Trump has blacklisted the EU officials who worked on those laws and has permanently barred them from entering the USA, and has now requisitioned *more* official EU correspondence from Big Tech companies so he can locate and punish more of Big Tech's official enemies:)
https://www.euractiv.com/news/eu-urges-us-tech-firms-to-follow-rules-on-handling-staff-data/
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Now that the US state has merged with US tech, every country around the world has motive, means and opportunity to build a "post-American internet" of open source apps running at local data centers:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition
But don't write US enforcers out of the picture just yet! Writing for *The Sling*, Tyler Clark calls for "regionalized enforcement" by US states against Big Tech companies:
https://www.thesling.org/regionalizing-enforcement-agencies/
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You see, it's not just international governments whose lawbooks were rewritten through the Marshall Plan that have access to America's antitrust laws. When Congress wrote the Clayton Act, Sherman Act and other US federal antitrust laws, they explicitly wrote in the power of state Attorneys General to enforce them. That means that 50+ state AGs all have the ability to wield antitrust against US tech giants.
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Congress foresaw this moment, when federal enforcers partnered with US monopolists, trading open bribes for approval for corrupt mergers and other illegal conduct:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/13/khanservatives/#kid-rock-eats-shit
But where the Feds fail, the states can pick up the slack. When states fine US companies and order their breakup, it's a lot harder for those companies to flout those orders - unlike the EU or Canada or the UK, America's state governments are first class actors in the US judicial system.
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That's where Clark comes in: he calls for coalitions of state enforcers to take on US Big Tech, filling the void created by Trump's pay-to-play fed enforcers. A (future) federal statute could enshrine this system through "regional FTC enforcement centers":
https://www.ftc.gov/reports/collaboration-act-report-congress
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I like Clark's idea, but I think he's missing a trick: US regional antitrust enforcement doesn't need to lean on the US government for resources and collaboration. There are national governments all over the world whose antitrust laws were created by the Marshall Plan, and those are the same laws that state AGs have at their disposal. And of course, tech companies' crimes aren't just the same in France and Japan - they're also the same in New York State and California.
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The US government isn't the only game in town. American state enforcers have a global buffet of enforcement partners, and those international enforcers need American collaborators who can collect the fines they levy and enforce the breakup orders they issue. It's a win-win (for the people, for international enforcers, and the states) and a big loss (for Trump's tech companies and his corrupt antitrust dingo babysitters).
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One place this could start: joint hearings that call ex-Big Tech employees as key witnesses, daring companies like Meta to invoke their gag orders. It's one thing to tell Sarah Wynn-Williams she can't talk to a crowd at a book festival, but Meta has taken the position that she cannot speak before a legislature or regulator, either.
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Wynn-Williams isn't alone. The Big Tech companies are laying off employees by the thousands, thanks to their failed 11-figure AI bets. Those ex-employees know where every body is buried. They know where to find the memos that establish their ex-bosses' *intent* to create and maintain monopolies and the hardest part of any antitrust case is establishing intent.
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Together, US states and foreign enforcers have the opportunity of the century - a chance to shatter the power of Trump's tech giants, who are so key to Trump's authoritarian takeover.
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THIS SATURDAY (Jul 11), I'll be at the Idler Festival in #LONDON:
https://www.idler.co.uk/festival/
eof
@pluralistic Her book is an AMAZING WORK OF WHISTLEBLOWING.