Big Tech Comes of Age

The American Mind ^ | 01/11/21 | Spencer Klavan

[PoliticallyShort]

What we are up against here is a threat to our freedom of speech which, like digital technology itself, is not quite like anything we’ve seen before. On the one hand, digital media has furnished us with wholly new ways of relating to one another and engaging with the world. On the other, a small cadre of despotic tycoons has now achieved a wholly new kind of stranglehold on public discourse. It is a novel form of attack upon the American way of life, and it will require a novel form of response.

The monopoly that people like Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos now possess is not actually a financial monopoly. As such, the concern about it is not fundamentally an anti-trust concern, though anti-trust law may be relevant to breaking some of their control. In essence, what Big Tech has achieved is a monopoly on American attention and communications channels. As such it is a threat not merely to “muh free market” but, much more urgently, to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which is at risk of being rendered moot by the fact that a few men have unprecedented power to decide what we know, and when. At what other time in American history has it been the case that, if the president of the United States wishes to communicate with the American people through the most efficacious and modern channels available, there exist two or three people above him who can simply tell him, “no”?

[kaktuskid]

Call them what they are, a CARTEL, which is illegal by law in the USA

[Jotmo]

In before the....

“It’s a private company, they can do what they want.” FReepers show up.

I suppose the updated argument is, “if you don’t like it, build you own internet.”

[Boogieman]

Legal? Legal is whatever the uniparty decides is legal, on any particular day, and is subject to change at any time.

[Renkluaf]

One of the things I love about “Big Tech” is the failure to understand history. When they start believing their own press clippings they should be reminded of DEC, Compaq, Novell, Software Publishing, Lotus, Amdahl, Xerox, et al.

[Lizavetta]

And just like that, the left was able to psychologically manipulate half the country to enthusiastically cheer Big Tech's power to control what we see and hear, to define an entire political position as dangerous and thus requiring suppression, and to support canceling, firing, expulsion, defunding, etc. based on what a person THINKS ... only because they did it in the name of taking down Trump.

The dumbing down of the schools and our bread and circuses society has brought us to this point. And the unrelenting legalization of every mind-altering and anesthetizing drug known to man will keep everyone too sedated and apathetic to care.

[MarvinStinson]

That Kathy Griffin’s picture of her holding Trump’s severed head is still allowed on Twitter shows not only the double standard of Big Tech, but the pipe dream of even once-sane Democrats.