big tech

Prohibit State Agencies from Coordinating with Tech Platforms for Content Censorship: legally prevent state officials from pressuring platforms to remove content.

Draft a Digital Bill of Rights / Algorithmic Transparency Act: require platforms operating in-state to disclose when shadow-banning, throttling, or algorithmically altering citizen speech

Incentivize or Fund State-Based “Parallel Platforms”: civic social networks, debate forums, local journalism infrastructure.

Institute a 5% stand-alone surtax on all revenue originating from digital advertisements in Washington State from large tech companies (those with over $1 billion in total global revenue - an exclusive list of Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft/LinkedIn, and TikTok).

• Large tech companies are rapidly becoming the greatest source of wealth in modern society. These large tech companies have been using our data for digital marketing for years, while offering no compensation to us. This is our data and we request compensation.

• The structure of tech companies and their online/cross-state nature makes a tax such as this one very efficient. Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, etc. will not “relocate” because of this--the forum being taxed is of a virtual nature. Big Tech may try to pass costs down, but given their global scale, any impact will be diluted across the entire U.S. ad market—not shouldered just by Washingtonians.

• Estimated revenue generation: $250 million a year. This $250 million will be added with any surplus revenue from the 5-5-5 Plan and the additional tax revenue received from a now-booming Passarella Washington Economy. This total will cover all of the proposed increases in spending in the policy areas of: health care, transportation, the Department of Commerce, education, and The Athens Project.