Failure To Contain Big Tech Is The Biggest Failure Of 2020
Failure
To Contain Big Tech Is The Biggest Failure Of 2020
BY TYLER DURDEN WEDNESDAY, JAN 06, 2021 - 16:50 Authored by Charlie Krik via HumanEvents.com,
I’ve waited through the weekend for nearly every major
publication and most of the noted opinion writers to weigh-in on their thoughts
about 2020. Many have hit on the obvious themes: the Chinese coronavirus
pandemic, George Floyd and race riots, the fake Ukraine impeachment scandal,
and, most recently, election fraud.
I’d like to take a different route and offer, instead, my
thoughts on what the year 2020 (now hindsight) wasn’t.
It wasn’t
the year we did something substantial about Big Tech and the incredible
influence and control it has established over our individual and collective
lives.
My friend, Senator Ted Cruz, said in an interview on
Saturday while he was campaigning in the Senate races down in Georgia (races where
Facebook recently disabled the
Republican fundraising pages) that Google was “the most dangerous company on
the face of the planet.” He singled out Google because “[I]t’s the biggest by
far. It is the most powerful by far. It controls the vast majority of searches
people do.”
In the same interview, Senator Cruz referenced the 2019 testimony
of Dr. Robert Epstein before a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on
the Constitution. Dr. Epstein suggested that Google’s manipulated search results
shifted 2.6 million votes to Democrats in 2016, a phenomenon known as the
“Search Engine Manipulation Effect.”
While many people still hold in doubt the true results of the
2020 Presidential Election, and regardless of the eventual outcome, the power
of Big Tech is now consolidated and complete. 2020 was the year that Silicon
Valley boldly and broadly made it clear they would not even attempt to hide
their true intentions: to control America, both in terms of what issues need to
be promoted or suppressed, and what discussion would be permissible regarding
those issues.
There were various events and legal proceedings that happened
throughout the year that, at a glance, give the appearance that we are trying
to do something to affect Big Tech’s control. Thirty-eight states brought
suit against Google in mid-December for suppressing search results and harming
smaller competitors and consumers in the process. Earlier, in October, the Justice Department
launched its own antitrust suit against the “most dangerous
company” for violations of the Sherman Act.
(It will be interesting to see if a Biden-Harris-Biden-directed Justice
Department will continue to zealously pursue the case, however, considering
that Google’s activities, according to Dr. Epstein’s research, tends to assist
Democrats over Republicans.)
Congress also has held multiple hearings to investigate (also
known as sermonizing) Big Tech. Over the course of 2020, various committees
have heard testimony from Sundar Pichai (CEO
of Google, its parent company Alphabet Inc., and the world’s largest streaming
platform, YouTube), Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg,
and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey. Dorsey famously testified twice in a period of 30
days, first saying (on October 28)
that Twitter “did not influence elections,” and then again, on November 17,
when he acknowledged that Twitter’s suspension of the New York Post’s Twitter
account, and the resulting suppression of the Hunter Biden story “was a
mistake.”
Dorsey
might well have said, “Gosh, sorry our deliberate choices and control of
content changed the course of human history. Let’s try to move past it.”
Most recently, President Trump tried to get
Congress to repeal what is referred to as Big Tech’s Section
230 immunity. His effort failed when his veto of the Defense
Authorization Act was overridden. While revoking of Section 230
protection is not the be-all and end-all of solutions to Big Tech’s monopoly
that some have suggested (its repeal would likely lead to a proliferation of
litigation and some unintended consequences), the failure of Congress to act,
once again, demonstrates the true hold that Big Tech has over our ruling class
of politicians.
During the last several months of 2020, when I was barnstorming
the country and speaking in front of a wide range of audiences, I would frequently
make the point that Big Tech had more power over us than the audience even
realized. I would use the example of saying that if the FBI barged into our
auditorium at that very moment and stopped our event, seized all of our phones,
and deleted all of our content, we would ultimately find ourselves in front of
a judge who would deem those actions by a government agency to be
unconstitutional.
However, I would then point out, if Google, Facebook, and
Twitter decided to censor and take down all our posted and shared content from
that event, they would actually be acting within their First Amendment rights.
Before a judge, they would win. They own the platforms. They get to set
the rules of the game.
They have more power to control us than does the FBI, Homeland
Security, and any other agency of government you want to toss in.
THE CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER BIG TECH POSES
Imagine what Big Tech were able to do in 2020, and how it
impacted not just the election in November, but the entire content and
direction of public conversation and debate within the country:
- They distorted the presentation of news
and opinion surrounding President Trump and Ukraine, the subject of his
impeachment, and made it very difficult for Americans to discover that Joe
Biden had actually
admitted to doing what President Trump was falsely accused of doing with
regard to exacting a “quid pro quo” from Ukraine.
- They prevented the dissemination of
information regarding the Chinese coronavirus—in particular, information
relating to the use of HCQ,
actual infection mortality rates,
the efficacy of masks.
- They have completely controlled the
acceptable narrative around the George Floyd incident and the ensuing
riots and responses across the country.
- They suppressed to the point of almost
shutting down the story around Hunter Biden and his corruption
as reported by the New York Post. In fact, some polling
suggests that had they had not done so, Biden would not
have won the election.
- They have randomly and haphazardly shut down
various Republican candidate’s social media platforms,
especially those candidates who are inclined to support the policies of
President Trump. Typically, they did so by citing a “threat of violence,”
without any supporting proof.
The world we are now living in is a world that is being defined
by Big Tech giants. They are deciding what the issues are, what the policy
solutions are, and what conversations can be had around both. Without
the ability to freely exchange information and ideas, there can be no freedom.
People occasionally compare what has been happening in the U.S.
recently with what we saw in Eastern Europe under the Soviet Union’s dominance.
The situations are not the same. In that instance, the government controlled
the media. Had there been social media at the time, they certainly would have
controlled that, too. In this case, Big Tech, not the
government, is deciding what happens. The Silicon Valley
masters of the universe are in charge, and the ruling class are the puppets and
the beneficiaries of their actions, not the owners.
That is both good news and bad news for “we the people.” The
good news is that since the government is not directing the activity, our
leaders have the power to step in and fight back on our behalf. The bad news is
that the power of Big Tech seems almost too great for them to be willing to
stand up against it.
The year 2020 marked the most blatant wielding of Big Tech’s
weaponry we have seen to date. Despite the clear and present danger shown to
us—very publicly and in real-time—we failed as a nation to do anything to
address it. Now, with a new administration close to stepping in, we may have
lost our moment.
It is time to recognize the Big Tech power brokers for what they
have become: providers of a public utility. Just as heat and electricity are
essential to our physical survival, unfettered communication is essential to
our survival as free people. Recognizing them for what they are would be the
first step in regulating their behavior. As someone who believes in free
markets, I do not suggest this lightly. If the Big Tech giants shared my belief
in free markets, I wouldn’t need to suggest it at all.
I hope you get a chance to read this before it is censored
through the combined efforts of Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat,
and Twitter.
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/failure-contain-big-tech-biggest-failure-2020
Comments
Post a Comment