A contingent of Democrats has unveiled plans for a clampdown on Big Tech companies that critics say look a lot like tough regulations in Europe – setting up a potential clash with Silicon Valley in upcoming elections, sources told The Post.
The liberal backers of “Project 2029” want the next Democratic presidential candidates to pursue a major crackdown that includes a social media ban for kids under age 16, limits on the Section 230 tech liability shield, stronger default privacy settings and tighter restrictions on AI chatbots.
Some critics note that backers of the plans have also promoted the EU’s controversial tech regulations. Reset Tech, the policy firm that co-authored Project 2029’s “Kids Over Clicks” agenda, received a $2 million grant in 2024 from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations — and the cash was earmarked for “encouraging effective enforcement” of Europe’s Digital Services Act.
The EU’s sweeping 2022 clampdown requires Big Tech firms to moderate content and protect user privacy. The law has been criticized by the Trump administration as a vehicle for censorship and discriminatory fines against American firms. President Trump himself has compared the fines to a hidden tariff on American industry.
Project 2029 does not explicitly endorse any European tech laws, and stops short of EU rules on policing misinformation and hate speech with the help of big fines. However, the group’s website notes that the European Union is among several countries that have begun “implementing age restrictions for social media.”
In the last two years alone, the European Commission have levied more than $7 billion in fines against Meta, Google and Apple for various violations. Elon Musk’s X has also been targeted over alleged hate speech on its app.
In 2022, Reset Tech CEO Ben Scott, a former Hillary Clinton adviser, described the Digital Services Act as “nothing short of a paradigm shift in tech regulation.”
Reset Tech did not immediately return The Post’s request for comment.
Project 2029 also wants to ban cellphones for kids during school. So far, Kids Over Clicks has drawn support from likely 2028 presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Democratic New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill and American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten.
Calls for an aggressive clampdown on safety flaws in social media and AI have bipartisan support, according to Evan Swarztrauber, a former FCC policy adviser and principal at CorePoint Strategies.
Still, he adds that Democrats are risking a repeat of 2024, when Silicon Valley titans threw their weight behind President Trump on concerns that the party was too hostile toward the tech industry – and too willing to turn a blind eye when countries in Europe and elsewhere imposed penalties.
“Republicans should be careful not to let Democrats outflank them on those kitchen-table issues,” Swarztrauber said. “However, Democrats also risk going too far and further alienating a tech industry that turned on them because of the Biden administration’s hyper-regulatory approach.”
The Project 2029 proposals are sure to trigger fierce pushback from Big Tech firms that have ramped up lobbying efforts around social media and AI regulation in the last few years.
“The Digital Services Act gives European regulators direct leverage over what platforms let their users say,” said Robert Winterton, Vice President of Public Affairs at the right-of-center tech policy group NetChoice.
“Importing that approach to the United States would put the government in the middle of speech decisions the First Amendment keeps out of its hands,” Winterton added.
“It’s one thing for your home country to want to regulate you,” added another tech policy executive who requested anonymity. “It’s another thing for your home country to be supportive of other countries regulating you. There is a history of tech executives already moving away of Democrats who are looking to Europe to regulate us and not defending us abroad.”
Chad Maisel, the executive director of Project 2029 and former Biden Domestic Policy Council member, referred The Post to the group’s “Kids On Clicks” mission statement, which was written by Reset Tech’s US Director Rishi Barwhani.
“The choice that some pose between optimism about technology on the one hand and protecting kids and the values of the American people on the other is a false one,” Barwhani wrote. “Today, the harms many children experience online undermine trust in the entire technology sector — making it harder for the lawmakers who want to champion the innovation economy America needs.”
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg has been a vocal critic of the EU’s fines, describing then “almost like a tariff” and “sort of like an EU-wide policy for how they want to deal with American tech” during an appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast in January 2025.
The Facebook founder also blasted the Biden administration for failing to defend the US tech industry from foreign penalties.
“The US government should be defending its companies, not being the tip of the spear attacking its companies,” Zuckerberg said at the time. “When the US government does that to its tech industry, it’s really just open season around the rest of the world.”
Project 2029’s leaders told Semafor in June that it’s trying to capitalize on what critics have called a “Big Tobacco moment” for social media by positioning Democrats at the forefront of the safety crackdown.
“Most high-profile political issues are already coded and claimed by one party or the other. Kids’ online safety is the exception,” Reset Tech’s Bharwani told the outlet. “The next president has the ability to run on these issues and enter the White House with a clear mandate for action and a day-one policy blueprint that they can coalesce congressional leaders around.”
Even if they were embraced by a presidential candidate, a major social media crackdown on par with what Project 2029 has proposed would face an uphill battle in Congress.
Legislation at protecting children online, such as the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act, has stalled for months due to disagreements among Congressional leadership about what a comprehensive package should or should not include.
Meanwhile, Europe’s strict laws and massive fines emerged as a flashpoint in high-level diplomatic talks with the Trump administration. In February 2025, President Trump signed a memo pledging to “combat digital service taxes (DSTs), fines, practices, and policies that foreign governments levy on American companies.”
Vice President JD Vance has blasted the Digital Services Act and regulations like it as tools for “authoritarian censorship.”
“Of course, we want to ensure the internet is a safe place, but it is one thing to prevent a predator from preying on a child on the internet, and it is something quite different to prevent a grown man or woman from accessing an opinion that the government thinks is misinformation,” Vance said during a speech in February 2025.
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