U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, William Barr, said he would aim to investigate whether social media companies have abused their standing to harm competition and what the Department of Justice’s role on consumer data privacy should be in the future, The Verge reports. Speaking at his first confirmation hearing, Barr said while large corporations are not “necessarily bad,” he believes consumers wonder how the large social media companies have asserted their dominance in Silicon Valley. “I also am interested in the issue of privacy and the question of who owns this data,” Barr said. “It’s not an area that I’ve studied closely or become an expert in, but I think it’s important for the department to get more involved in these questions.”
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