Posted on 04/30/2022 4:23:06 AM PDT by Kaslin
Lawmakers of both parties are considering legislation that would grant sweeping new powers to an already heavily politicized Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ). Attempting to exploit conservatives’ anger towards Big Tech’s content moderation practices, progressives are proposing the weaponization of antitrust law. Instead of embracing the politicization of antitrust law, conservatives should be asking themselves: when has expanding government powers helped conservative causes?
Republicans only need to look to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to see the perils of an empowered and unaccountable bureaucracy. Less than a decade ago, the IRS was wracked with a scandal after details surfaced that the tax agency was apparently targeting conservative groups. More recently, data security issues at the IRS saw the leaking of information of private taxpayers to ProPublica, an issue still unresolved. Republican lawmakers have cast a skeptical eye at Democrats’ attempt to grant the IRS massive new powers like snooping through Americans’ bank accounts. Some conservative groups have even stated the IRS should not receive one penny more in funding.
An empowered federal bureaucracy does not respect conservative values, and the IRS is not unique in this. Progressives have shown a willingness to utilize federal agencies and any levers of government as an end around to move their policies forward.
Climate activists have pressured the Federal Reserve to take an activist stance in addressing climate change. Progressives like Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) announced opposition to Federal Reserve Chair nominee Jerome Powell over his perceived lack of action on climate change. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) asked resident Biden to declare a national emergency on climate change, which would grant the federal government substantial powers it would not have otherwise have.
Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how quickly government powers can expand, and how slowly they are drawn back. Who could have imagined that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) would be allowed to take the unprecedented step of imposing a federal eviction moratorium? Not to mention the lockdowns and other restrictions put in place. Now, there is the ongoing, and increasingly indefensible pause on student loan payments from the Biden Administration as Democrats use the COVID-19 pandemic to push for the long standing progressive goal of canceling student loan debt.
Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) also introduced legislation that would allow a political appointee to define “health misinformation” during a public health emergency. Now, as she attempts to ratchet up support for her American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICO), conservatives should be questioning how this bill will address any of their free speech concerns. AICO would bestow the FTC with massive new powers to control the growth of the tech sector. It would also break services consumers enjoy like free two-day shipping with Amazon Prime and integrated maps in Google search. Since free speech online isn’t addressed by AICO, conservatives would be forced to count on an increasingly partisan and polarized FTC to aid their cause. That’s an unlikely proposition.
Lina Khan’s bait and switch appointment to head the FTC was an inauspicious start to her tenure. The FTC’s actions under this regime have been nothing short of shocking, including: a departed Commissioner casting mystery “zombie” votes; threatening letters sent to businesses; and a gag order on FTC staff. Not to mention FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter’s remarks that antitrust enforcement should be “antiracist” and encompass a broader set of goals than harms to consumers. The lack of trust Republicans feel towards the FTC is also demonstrated in their unwillingness to give the FTC a fifth Commissioner, forcing Democrats to take the unusual step of utilizing a discharge petition to get their nominee to the floor.
While conservatives are under pressure to “do something” about Big Tech, empowering the FTC and DOJ will not serve their interests. Antitrust is a favored tool for progressives who are more concerned with taking down what they believe to be mis- and disinformation and promoting their own goals than with the speech issues that are top of mind with conservatives. Empowered and unaccountable federal agencies haven’t been champions of conservative policies, and Republicans shouldn’t expect the Lina Khan’s FTC to be any different.
I disagree. We’ve had anti trust laws on the books for over 100 years. The problem WRT Big Tech is we haven’t enforced those laws. Several of the Big Tech companies are obviously monopolies. They have colluded as a cartel and engaged in anti competitive practices. That’s precisely what anti trust laws are supposed to prevent.
When they all act simultaneously to censor and ban someone as they’ve done multiple times, that is collusion.
When they throw a competitor like Parler out of the App Store and out of Google Apps and when Amazon breaks its service contract with Parler in an effort to destroy a competitor to another cartel member (Twitter), that is collusion and an anti competitive practice.
When Google has a greater than 90% market share, that is an illegal monopoly.
When Google and Apple have way over a 95% share of smart phones, when Amazon holds such a large share of web hosting/services, when Google can use its dominant position in web searches to create another near monopoly in Youtube (Youtube alone is 37% of all web traffic worldwide), that is another key indicator of anti competitive practices.
Courts in the past have broken up monopolies on the basis of the indicators above. It needs to happen again. Bust up Big Tech.
Without antitrust law, we would end up with 1 auto manufacturer, 1 cell phone carrier, 1 gasoline producer, 1 credit card company, and 1 bank, all of whom would have woke management; and corporate America would BECOME the government.
Just because the laws have been on the books for over 100 years does not make the laws right. They are unconstitutional and should be abolished.
This isn’t Venezuela. We don’t want to follow the path of progressivism.
Its not the path of progressivism. Monopolies are not the free market. In fact, monopolies destroy the free market. They also inevitably abuse their power and abuse consumers.
Bust up Big Tech.
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