Most people interested in digital justice are aware of at least one story of Big Tech lobbying weakening or even blocking new laws. These stories are not disparate – they expose a coordinated political machinery that operates across continents, laws, and institutions. Analysing the strategies and tools Big Tech uses to achieve this – its lobby playbook – is essential to be able to counter them.

This was the goal of SOMO’s new series of articles, the Big Tech Lobby Playbook. To do it, we interviewed advocates, activists, and academics from the US, Brazil, the EU, Kenya, India, and Australia. Their experience, spanning six continents, was complemented by analysis of hundreds of official documents, lobby leaks, and media reports.

Pulling these cases together allows us to see the wider picture – regardless of the country or the issue, Big Tech is working from the same manual. With the new alliance with the Trump administration, it seems that these companies have become nearly all-powerful, wielding both control of key digital infrastructure and the might of US trade.

Controlling the narrative

The companies are conscious enough that they will gather no sympathy by appealing to a law’s impact on their bottom line. So they re-frame their concerns around unintended consequences for the economy, consumers, and small businesses. This is how Google and others framed bills meant to control their market power in the EU, India, and Australia.

As an interviewee from India, who followed the failed negotiations to approve a Digital Competition Bill, put it: “The way they twist the narrative feels like gaslighting.”

In spite of working across languages and cultures, Big Tech’s message is often the same: regulating us will kill innovation and hurt the national economy. This has hit a fever pitch with the so-called AI Race. From the US to Australia, Big Tech has told the story of a global race to ‘win’ on AI. It is far from clear what this actually means, but Big Tech has nonetheless led governments to believe that the future of their economies is at stake.

This is not the only narrative tool for Big Tech. They have also not been shy to co-opt the language of digital rights. In Brazil, for instance, Google and Meta labelled proposals to tackle the spread of disinformation as “censorship”, going as far as unleashing religious panic that Bible verses would be banned.

These narratives are emotive and they conceal Big Tech’s interests. They are also deeply flawed. Still, they can work because they are repeated ad infinitum by a wide network of amplifiers.

Creating an Echo Chamber

With their nearly bottomless pockets, Big Tech firms have built an extensive network of trade associations, fake small business associations, think-tanks, and academics. The influence they exert over each varies, but they all contribute to the companies’ lobbying goals.

In Brazil, for instance, Big Tech’s framing of a fake news proposal as religious censorship was spread by trade associations and cross-parliamentary groups run by Big Tech-funded groups.

Some of these groups are also active across jurisdictions. Take, for instance, the think-tank whose members testify at US Congress Hearings, participate in EU public workshops, and write opinion pieces in India and Brazil. All opposing strict antitrust rules for Big Tech – all without disclosing they are funded by Big Tech.

Perhaps most infamously, Big Tech firms have created fake grassroots groups, a practice commonly known as astroturfing. This includes associations claiming to represent small businesses, but that, behind the scenes, are funded and controlled by big technology corporations.

With this network of amplifiers, Big Tech guarantees that its narrative is omnipresent, creating the impression that its message has wide public support. This way, they dominate public and policy debates while obscuring at least some of their influence.

Weaponise Your Own Platforms

One strategy, though, sets Big Tech’s lobbying apart from other corporate sectors: the weaponization of its control of key digital infrastructure to influence political and public debate in real time.

In Brazil, in just one week, Google flooded its own channels with messages opposing Brazil’s Fake News Bill, gave its own ads top billing on search results, and even introduced lobby messages straight into the search engine. Combined with the religious panic already set in, there was no hope left for the fake news bill. This was a masterclass of how market power becomes political power.

This story echoes that of Australia, where, during the negotiations for a News Media Bargaining Code, Meta decided to prohibit all news content in the country – including essential information for victims of domestic abuse and information on the COVID vaccine rollout. Later on, a Meta whistleblower revealed that the chaotic approach to the prohibition was a deliberate lobbying strategy. It worked. Facebook proved that to get what it wants, it is willing to “turn off a country”.

We shouldn’t expect this to be the last time this happens. The same tactics seem to have been used by X and Telegram in Spain recently.

Never Stop Lobbying

Even when Big Tech fails to stop the approval of a law, it does not stop. The companies have a range of ways to continue lobbying. In Kenya, for instance, Uber asked the courts to strike down a new law that limited how much it could extract from drivers. They target the bodies responsible for the technical implementation of new laws, as was the case for the EU’s AI Act.

And we all remember what happened to the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), hailed as the landmark law for data protection and weakened at every turn by Big Tech’s influence in Ireland.

By doing this, Big Tech companies can challenge implementation every step of the way. Perhaps the most effective strategy to overturn an approved law so been perfected under Trump.

Play the Trump Card

Big Tech has long leveraged US trade power to push its agenda, labelling public interest regulation and taxation as discriminatory or trade barriers. Yet, after courting favour from Trump with lavish financial donations and even changes to corporate policies, Big Tech can now export its deregulation demands globally as US officials threaten tariffs to force countries to change their policies.

In 2025, Trump’s reciprocal tariffs threatened punitive levies on countries whose digital laws “harm US technology firms”. A Public Citizen report has found that trade associations representing Big Tech have lobbied the US government to target anti-monopoly laws, data protection, and taxes across 65 jurisdictions.

When Meta labelled an EU Digital Markets Act’s fine as a “multibillion-dollar tariff”, the US was swift to echo Meta and increase trade pressure. US representatives have even explicitly stated that if the EU wanted lower tariffs on aluminium and stee,l it had to change its tech rules.

This alliance with Trump has quickly reaped its rewards as Canada withdrew its Digital Services Tax proposal. India removed its equalisation levy on digital advertising by non-resident enterprises and the e-commerce law.

A Unique Playbook That Threatens Democracy

Many of the strategies used by Big Tech echo those of the Big Tobacco and Oil playbook. However, they stand out due to the bottomless pockets of the companies, their unique alliance with the US trade machinery, and control of key digital infrastructure. Big Tech’s ability to shape the political environment is something that Big Tobacco and Oil could only dream of.

Yet, there is also another strategy looming that is particularly concerning: both in Brazil and the US, there is a growing alignment between Big Tech and the authoritarian right. Also in the EU, there are signs of new coziness between Google, Meta, and far-right parties.

A potential alliance with undemocratic forces, combined with Big Tech’s control of information infrastructure, creates a unique threat to democracy. Already we see Elon Musk trying use X to tip the scales in favour of the German far-right during electoral processes. We do not yet see the full dimensions of its impact, but what is observable is alarming. Lobbying might become redundant if a small group of actors controls the information flows and algorithms that shape elections, not just laws.

The Counter-strategies

From Brazil to India, the EU to Kenya, the tech giants use the same strategies and tactics to shape, delay, or kill regulation that threatens their vast monopoly power and equally vast profits. Whether the battleground is AI, antitrust, or worker rights, these companies work from the same manual. Taking power back from Big Tech corporate giants will require disrupting their global lobby playbook.

Analysing past examples of influence doesn’t just expose Big Tech’s playbook; it also spotlights how civil society and public interest groups are pushing back. From Netlab’s monitoring and complaints regarding Google’s abuse of its economic power to influence legislation. Or Kenyan data workers’ constitutional challenge to the political process that led to a law tailored to corporate interests.

We can – and should – take these lessons and coordinate across movements and geographies to counter the Big Tech lobby playbook.