Top Biden adviser Bruce Reed expected to make tech regulation of online privacy, content more likely

President-elect Joe Biden’s top technology adviser helped craft California’s landmark online privacy law and recently condemned a controversial federal statute that protects internet companies from liability, indicators of how the Biden administration may come down on two key tech policy issues.

Bruce Reed, a former Biden chief of staff who is expected to take a major role in the new administration, helped negotiate with the tech industry and legislators on behalf of backers of a ballot initiative that led to the 2018 California Consumer Privacy Act. Privacy advocates see that law as a possible model for a national law.

Reed also co-authored a chapter in a book published last month denouncing the federal law known as Section 230, which makes it impossible to sue internet companies over the content of user postings. Both Republicans and Democrats have called for reforming or abolishing 230, which critics say has allowed abuse to flourish on social media.

Reed, a veteran political operative, was chief of staff for Biden from 2011 to 2013 when Biden was US vice-president. In that role he succeeded Ron Klain, who was recently named incoming White House chief of staff. Reed then served as president of the Broad Foundation, a major Los Angeles philanthropic organisation, and then as an adviser to Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective in Palo Alto, California.

The Biden campaign identified Reed as its top person on tech policy but declined to make him available for an interview.

Reed, 60, became involved in the California privacy campaign in his capacity as a strategist for Common Sense Media, a non-profit set up by Stanford University lecturer James Steyer to advise parents and companies on healthy content for children.