Control over internet content ranks among the most powerful tools on planet Earth, and Big Tech corporations have exploited their position. The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a long-anticipated anti-trust lawsuit against Google, and the likes of Twitter and Facebook could be next.
According to reports, Google controls upwards of 90 percent of all searches worldwide, and the few competitors it has have repeatedly complained that the division of parent company, Alphabet Inc., inserts itself as the default browser across wide-reaching devices. By partnering with other Big Tech outfits, Google has effectively eliminated competition on a global scale.
Alphabet Inc. has exponentially expanded its stranglehold on content by acquiring companies that include artificial intelligence, human health, drones, autonomous vehicles, and purchased the popular video content platform — YouTube — in 2006. Google emerged as the internet’s veritable gatekeeper, forcing users to accept its policies and practices or be pushed out. Along with the DOJ, 11 states reportedly joined the litigation in what lawmakers are calling “long overdue.”
“Today’s lawsuit is the most important anti-trust case in a generation,” Missouri Senator Josh Hawley reportedly said. “Google and its fellow Big Tech monopolists exercise unprecedented power over the lives of ordinary Americans, controlling everything from the news we read to the security of our most personal information. And Google, in particular, has gathered and maintained that power through illegal means.”
Lawyers from Google shot back, decrying the lawsuit that threatens to break up the massive corporation as a partisan effort by Republicans and President Donald Trump. It’s true that Google and sister companies such as YouTube routinely impose their liberal values by suspending or deleting conservative content. YouTube has shut down Prager U, and Texas Senator Ted Cruz has called Google out for censoring conservative voices. A recent undercover investigation by Project Veritas points to alleged First Amendment violations by the corporation.
“Trump says something, misinformation, you’re gonna delete that because it’s illegal under whatever pretext,” a Google manager was reportedly taped saying. “If a Democratic leader says that, then you’re gonna leave it like that, so I’m like, okay, you’re not following one way or the other. You are just plain and simple, trying to play God.”
Despite its political bias, state attorneys from Democrat-run New York and Colorado reportedly have Google under investigation and may join the DOJ action. In Congress, Democrats appear to have no love for Google as even left-wing extremists such as Rhode Island Representative David Cicilline are calling for the breakup.
“It is critical that the Justice Department’s lawsuit focuses on Google’s monopolization of search and search advertising, while also targeting the anti-competitive business practices Google is using to leverage this monopoly into other areas, such as maps, browsers, video, and voice assistants,” Cicilline said.
Few doubt that Google has overstepped into a monopoly that stifles competition, forces use across platforms, and suppresses free speech. But the recent efforts by Twitter and Facebook to shut down a substantiated Joe and Hunter Biden corruption story published by the New York Post also has GOP lawmakers incensed. Given the disproportionate control the pair have on social media content and the seemingly criminal censorship, DOJ action also appears overdue.
Google and twitter and facebook CEO’s are controlling the way we think , how we should vote, and what we should read. This is America we have the first amendment ! We are free to think and feel how we want. The media just sends out the rafical left views. We need to stop these big Tech companies!
Facebook is doing the same….I posted a joke about the Democrats without nudity or foul language. Facebook suspended me for five days. Yesterday Facebook went back in my post for a month and came up with a post about Democrats and they suspended me for thirty days. If the same post were about the Republicans nothing would happen….Facebook is blocking things they don’t want out in the open even if it’s a joke.
Not fair.
Long overdue by at least 10 years
Jew boy Zuckerberg, needs to go! Him and his Chineese wife are trying to destroy America! Kick him out of facebook,break it into little pieces. These 2 assholes are communists, they are liers & cheats. Who made this jew the ruler of the truth. Its against the law to only print what U want! Go to hell jewboy, & take that useless wife of yours back to China!
it’s true what you said. i think the freaking chinese wife has a lot of influence on him. they have also employed a lot of communist chinese a nd muslims in that site. they have suspended me for a month too.
I heard someone in government approached him while he was struggling in college (apparently not too smart but big time gullible and easily led) to start a front to collect personal information on people that the government couldn’t do legally and supply it to them for scurrilous reasons. The deal was to make him incredibly rich and supply them with personal information on everything they could collect. Does any of this should at all familiar? He doesn’t look or sound like the sharpest knife in the drawer. I have wondered how accurate the rumour was many times since I heard it. Then we have the entire google thing and social media companies who seem to be in bed together. They seem to be joined at the hip if not worse. Just something to think about.
I think Google exec’s and Facebook and Twitter need to look back at Bell telephone. For you kiddos the first 30 years of my life they were the only phone company in America. Until somebody took them to court in an anti trust case.
Just give us back Free Speech, give us back the First Amendment of the Constitution that you stole from us.
Get rid of these company’s. They have made too much money on their sites. How dare they think we can be influenced by what they say and write. Send them to Communist China and see how long they last there. Never to be seen or heard from again. Sounds like a great plan.
Working in IT in a public school, I am privy to their desires to add Google because Tech Coordinators don’t want to be told that they are not doing their job and providing the most “up to date” teaching tools.
The truth is that Google has been paying or providing incentives to administrators to push their system into a district. They have paid school administrators and College professors to write favorable articles about Google Education.
I can tell you that we have been trying to integrate Google devices and programs into the school and it has failed more often than it has worked. Google software is not made to work on a network and does not talk to other software due to its proprietary nature. This school has paid outside companies to create a “bridge between Google and other companies that we utilize. We have set up Google at the base of our network and given them autonomy. This has caused many issues with our Active Directory setup and frequent issues with users and policies.
Google has created their own internet by removing Verisign as the network Watchdog on Chrome and implementing their own safety filters designed to allow them access to all that you are and “push out” anyone who does not pay them advertising money. We have been blocked while on Chrome because they will not allow us to go to certain sites because they are not Google “friendly”. When doing a search, you are first directed to http://www.google.com and then they decide if you are allowed to go forward and they then put their “friendly sites” in the first several pages of your search. This has caused Chrome to be very slow.
Teachers are upset because they are being forced to convert their numerous files into Google format. This is not effective because they do not convert well in format and they become locked PDF’s.
The school is paying a lot of money to use Google, a system that no business uses and no college acknowledges. The Chromebooks that only go to Chrome browser are woefully lacking in quality parts and break down every week. We paid extra for extended warranties because of it. Parents also pay an Insurance to cover accidental breakish that happens all the time. We send out dozens of these a week for repair.
Our students leave and are ill-prepared at the next level. Colleges are now forcing incoming students to take Microsoft Office classes because public schools are not teaching it.
In response to one reply that we should send Google to China, we can’t do that because Google is not allowed in China. Or Russia.
The US is finally going to fine and hopefully break up the worst company the internet has ever seen. This after nearly all other developed countries have already fined them billions of dollars, and won. What is Google’s response? Nothing! They are worth 800 Billion $! They fear no one.
You are a smart cookie. Just wished you were in our school. There are just a few teachers that actually teach these days. When my son asked a question the teacher would tell him to google it. He was failing now he is in another school and he is excelling in all classes. He’s back to all A’s and B’s.
He graduates this year. Keep up the good work.
THIS SHOULD HAPPEN TO “TWITTER”…………SHUT THEM DOWN?????????? FOR GOOD!!!!!!!