Democrats running for president had their most vigorous Debate yet about the power of Tech companies, finally bringing the long-simmering conversation about Big Tech into the mainstream of Democratic politics. From a report: The dozen Democratic candidates quarreled for almost 15 minutes at the fourth presidential debate about topics including digital privacy rights, the monopoly power of companies like Amazon, political fundraising in Silicon Valley, and whether politicians like Donald Trump should be banned from Twitter. It was the first time tech was discussed meaningfully on the Democratic debate stage -- and a sign that the media sees the growing techlash as enough of a concern that candidates should be pressed on it on national television. The combat mostly centered on Elizabeth Warren, the new presidential frontrunner who has made her proposal to break up tech companies like Facebook a cornerstone of her presidential run. Many of her competitors said they were not willing to go as far as her, although several decided to take their own whacks at Silicon Valley from other angles. Beto O'Rourke offered the most direct criticism to Warren's plan, even comparing her approach to Trump's rhetoric about the press. "We will be unafraid to break up big businesses if we have to do that -- but I don't think it is the role of a president or a candidate for the presidency to specifically call out which companies will be broken up," O'Rourke said. "That's something that Donald Trump has done in part because he sees enemies in the press and wants to diminish their power. It's not something that we should do." Andrew Yang, the political neophyte running on tech-infused themes such as universal basic income, said Warren was correct in diagnosing the problem but that "using a 20th century antitrust framework will not work." Cory Booker would only say that his administration would "put people in place that enforce antitrust laws" but declined to sign on to the proposal to break up the tech giants. He did use some of the harshest language on the stage, saying that tech companies were responsible for a "massive crisis on our democracy."

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