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Comment by harikb | Hacker News Reader

> Then there's the obscenely large amounts spent by big tech on lobbying in washington and PR in the media and in places like right here.

Any data here? I would have thought compared to other industries, tech hasn’t spend nearly enough! Few people occasionally tweet our Google or Facebook having donated $2700 to one republican superpact or another. This has to be peanuts compared to any real money involved.

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Google has had the largest (or nearly so) lobbying spend for the past few cycles and in 2019 Facebook and Amazon are the top spending corporations. Spending a few million more than the defense contractors.

https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders

There is no database of PR spending, but it’s telling that a study conducted by Edelman, the worlds largest PR firm, found Tech to be the most trustworthy sector. A cynic might say they are pandering to an important client base.

> There is no database of PR spending, but it’s telling that a study conducted by Edelman, the worlds largest PR firm, found Tech to be the most trustworthy sector. A cynic might say they are pandering to an important client base.

Survey showing that people trust tech is evidence that tech is corrupting our politics. Jeez, talk about confirmation bias. A PR firm could also use a negative trust score to sell a firm on how they need more PR.

first hit for the first search string that came to mind "facebook lobbying spend"

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/23/facebook-and-amazon-lead-tec...

$4M isn’t that much, even just in one quarter. Look at the oil/gas or health insurance industry if you want to see what a real lobbying bill looks like.

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