The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of Thought
The Google-Facebook Duopoly Threatens Diversity of
Thought
A political website pulled an article after Google’s
AdSense team threatened to withdraw advertising.
By Mark Epstein Dec. 18, 2017 7:15 p.m. ET
‘A monopoly on the means of communication,” Robert Shea
and Robert Anton Wilson wrote in “Leviathan,” their 1975 novel, “may define a
ruling elite more precisely than the celebrated Marxian formula of ‘monopoly in
the means of production.’ ” Bear that in mind when you hear this next
statistic: In 2017 Google and Facebook have accounted for 84% of all digital
advertising outside China, including 96% of its growth, according to an
industry forecast this month from Zenith, Magna and GroupM.
Those figures should create more than the typical
economic concerns about market concentration. Specifically, the tech duopoly’s
dominance threatens the marketplace of ideas. Beyond advertising, Google and
Facebook control how millions of people find their news. Americans are far
likelier, collectively, to encounter articles via search engines and social
media than on a news site’s home page.
Google is used for nearly 90% of online searches in the
U.S. A Pew survey this summer found that the four most popular social-media
sites for getting news are Facebook, YouTube (owned by Google), Twitter (which
has a Google partnership), and Instagram (owned by Facebook). No more than 5%
of Americans use another social-media platform to get news.
In a November speech, Ajit Pai, chairman of the Federal
Communications Commission, argued that “edge providers” like social-media
websites and search engines “routinely block or discriminate against content
they don’t like.” Mr. Pai cited YouTube’s decision to place age restrictions on
and pull ads from videos by conservative commentator Dennis Prager’s Prager
University, including a video by Alan Dershowitz on Israel’s founding.
He also pointed to Twitter’s suspension of a pro-life
campaign ad from Rep. Marsha Blackburn, an action that would have been illegal
if done by a TV or radio station. Twitter has refused sponsored tweets from
immigration opponents, saying its hate-speech policy is triggered by messages
such as “the fiscal cost created by illegal immigrants of $746.3b compares to
total a cost of deportation of $124.1b.”
Google, Facebook and Twitter place stricter content
policies on advertisers than general users. There are legitimate reasons for
this. The tech companies are sensitive to accusations that they not only profit
from controversial content but also fund it by giving its creator a slice of
the ad revenue.
When virtually all online advertising goes through two
companies, however, they have the power to harm websites arbitrarily. One
political blog that posted an article trying to distinguish the “alt-right”
from white nationalism received a warning email from Google’s AdSense team. An
editor took the article down, explaining to readers that the blog “needs
revenue from the Google ad platform in order to survive.” You needn’t agree
with the editorial decision to publish the article to be troubled by Google’s vetoing
it.
In his 2014 book “Zero to One,” Peter Thiel notes that
because Google “doesn’t have to worry about competing with anyone, it has wider
latitude to care about . . . its impact on the wider world.” If executives at a
Silicon Valley monopoly believe that censoring certain content will push the
world in a positive direction, market pressures cannot sufficiently restrain
them.
Journalists also argue that tech companies are pushing
media toward the lowest common denominator. Social media rewards clickbait—sensational
headlines that confirm readers’ biases. Google and Facebook’s advertising
duopoly bleeds traditional publishers of the revenue needed to produce
high-quality news. At the same time, Google’s search engine is biased against
subscription content, depleting another source of funding.
The bottom line is that Google’s and Facebook’s
advertising policies and algorithms make it less profitable to produce
high-quality journalism from any perspective. Their duopoly also gives tech
executives the power to defund and block content they personally object to
without taking a major hit to the bottom line.
While these two companies have faced little antitrust
scrutiny, the Justice Department has filed suit to block AT&T’s purchase of
Time Warner. But look how Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chief executive,
explained this summer one hope for the merger: “Once we complete our
acquisition of Time Warner Inc., we believe there is an opportunity to build an
automated advertising platform that can do for premium video and TV advertising
what the search and social media companies have done for digital advertising.”
Now the Justice Department’s lawsuit may perversely entrench the Google and
Facebook duopoly.
In October 2016, Donald Trump’s economic adviser Peter
Navarro advocated breaking up “the new media conglomerate oligopolies that have
gained enormous control over our information, intrude into our personal lives,
and in this election, are attempting to unduly influence America’s political
process.” Mr. Navarro chose the wrong target. Antitrust authorities ought to be
concerned about the undue influence of Google and Facebook.
Mr. Epstein is an antitrust attorney and freelance
writer.
Comments
Post a Comment