Free Republic

China's unprecedented crackdown on billionaire businessman and Alibaba founder Jack Ma had raised quite a few eyebrows last year and made headlines all over the globe. Now, a news report suggests that the Chinese government may not be done with its crackdown on major tech firms in the country. It has come to light that another Chinese businessman is facing scrutiny for not complying with the country's anti-trust rules. Ma Huateng (also known as Pony Ma), the founder of Tencent Holdings, met with China's anti-trust watchdog officials earlier this month to discuss compliance at his group. Two people with direct...

Conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation has declined donations from Google and Facebook because of the companies’ censoring of persons and groups with conservative points of view. Outgoing foundation president Kay C. James sent letters to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai explaining that the Heritage Foundation could “not in good conscience accept money” from companies that suppress conservative speech and content. Heritage turned down a $225,000 donation from Google and returned a $150,000 donation from Facebook in October 2020. James made it clear to the Big Tech companies that her organization is assisting Congress to revise...

Leaked documents from the FTC's 2012 investigation of Google show exactly what is wrong with the state of American antitrust enforcement. Eight years ago, the Federal Trade Commission had the chance to face down Google — the giant of Silicon Valley whose power now alters the free flow of information at a global scale, distorts market access for businesses large and small, and changes the nature of independent thought in ways the world has never experienced. Instead, the FTC blinked — and blinked hard, choosing to close the investigation in early 2013. A remarkable leak to Politico of agency documents...

The only way remaining to truly protect freedom of expression and, in turn, our democracy, is by building free and open internet.In a meeting of a House antitrust subcomittee last week, members took turns lamenting the market supremacy of Big Tech — and making pledges to curtail it. Bipartisan consensus on this is refreshing, and it is in fact the charge of government to ensure free markets by breaking up monopolies.Americans, however, should not put their trust in princes. While these hearings make for good campaign ads, Congress has a bad track record of helping Americans, and American innovators can...

News Corp struck a global news deal with Alphabet Inc's Google, the Rupert Murdoch-controlled media company said on Wednesday, in one of the most extensive deals of its kind with big tech. The companies will develop a subscription platform, share advertising revenue through Google's ad technology services, build out audio journalism and develop video journalism by YouTube. The deal comes after years of public feuding between Murdoch and Google, most recently in Australia, where Google has threatened to shut down its search engine to avoid "unworkable" content laws. It is a capstone for the 89-year-old media mogul, his son Lachlan...

HUNTINGTON, W. Va. – A West Virginia newspaper company filed a federal antitrust lawsuit today against Google and Facebook charging the internet giants with monopolizing the digital advertising market. This is believed to be the first lawsuit of its kind filed by a newspaper company against the tech giants for their monopolistic practices. Owner of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette-Mail, The (Huntington) Herald-Dispatch and a half-dozen weekly newspapers, HD Media LLC filed a 42-page complaint in the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. HD Media claims Google has monopolized the digital advertising market to...

App seen as conservative alternative to Twitter has gone dark in aftermath of Capitol riot The now-silenced Parler app that appeared to have played a key role in mobilizing the Trump-inspired mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 had a greater share of users who are either veterans or in the U.S. military compared with other social media platforms. Parler also drew more users from states in the South and in the Mountain West — tracking closely with pro-Trump Republican voters in those states — than from other parts of the country. The findings come from research by...

A group of “free-market and low-tax advocates” are urging House Republicans to back off plans to take antitrust action against Big Tech companies. The Washington Times reported the “conservative activists” authored a 10-page letter to Republican U.S. Reps. Ken Buck (CO), Matt Gaetz (FL), and Andy Biggs (AZ) and it said in part: We fear that today, both sides of the aisle are pushing for the weaponization of antitrust, either as a tool to punish corporate actors with whom they disagree or out of a presupposition that big is bad.

CNN is making no mistake about it: It wants to censor and close Newsmax from broadcasting as a cable news channel. Apparently jolted by the fact Newsmax has skyrocketed to become the 4th highest-rated cable news channel in the country, the liberal CNN is decrying what it calls Newsmax's "election denialism" and is seeking to have it "deplatformed" from cable and satellite systems across the nation.

Over the evening and morning of 8 and 9 January 2021, these were some of the article headlines on TheGatewayPundit's home page:...Twitter Bans President Donald Trump — PERMANENTLY...Trump Campaign Banned From EMAILING Supporters After Being Suspended By Mail Service Provider...YouTube Terminates Steve Bannon's War Room Podcast — One of Top Podcasts in US — Thousands were Watching at the Time!...Google Removes Parler from App Store Amid Reports That Trump is Joining the Platform...Big Tech Launches Massive Coordinated Cyber Attack on 74,000,000 Trump Voters — GOP SILENT...Parler Goes Down After Trump Joins Social Media Platform — Apple Threatens to Remove Parler...

Former Facebook insider Alex Stamos tells @brianstelter: "We have to turn down the capability of these Conservative influencers to reach these huge audiences... There are people on YouTube for example that have a larger audience than daytime CNN."

On the heels of the breach of the U.S. Capitol, Big Tech companies have swiftly censored the President, the emerging social media platform Parler was effectively shut down, and there are growing calls for no-fly lists. Does the assault on the Capitol warrant such a response? “We’re living in a gigantic lie that is reminiscent of the Reichstag fire,” argues talk show host Dennis Prager, founder of Prager University. This is American Thought Leaders, and I’m Jan Jekielek.

"It could be never," he said. "We don't know yet."..."It's hard to keep track of how many people are telling us that we can no longer do business with them," said Matze...Matze said Parler had also been booted from online payments service Stripe and from American Express and had lost its Scylla Enterprise database. Parler could not send SMS messages after being banned by Twilio and could not use Slack to contact its "jury" of paid and volunteer users who make Parler content moderation decisions...

BREAKING: Parler sues Amazon for antitrust violation, breach of contract and unlawful business interference. Asks federal judge to order Amazon to reinstate the platform — John Kruzel (@johnkruzel) January 11, 2021 Parler is suing Amazon for antitrust violation only a day after Amazon disappeared the app from the internet.

Parler CEO Mark Matze said today that his company have been dropped by virtually all of their business alliances after Amazon, Apple and Google ended their agreements with the social media service. “Every vendor from text message services to email providers to our lawyers all ditched us too on the same day,” Matze said today on Fox News. Matze conceded that the bans could put the company out of business while raising free speech issues, calling it “an assault on everybody.” “They all work together to make sure at the same time we would lose access to not only our...

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has told the country’s media to censor reporting about Alibaba’s anti-trust investigation. The company’s billionaire founder, Jack Ma, hasn’t been seen in public since the probe started. People close to the matter say that Chinese leader Xi Jinping was involved in the decision to halt the IPO of Alibaba’s affiliate company Ant Group back in November—after Jack Ma publicly criticized China’s financial system.

On Dec. 23, 2020, President Donald J. Trump signed into law the Criminal Antitrust Anti-Retaliation Act (the “Act”), which prohibits employers from retaliating against certain individuals who report criminal antitrust violations. The Act was sponsored by Senator Chuck Grassley, passed the Senate on Oct. 17, 2019, and passed the House of Representatives on Dec. 8, 2020. “We thank the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives for their bipartisan commitment to criminal antitrust enforcement,” said Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. “By incentivizing disclosures of anticompetitive conduct, the Act will strengthen the Antitrust...

* News broke that China is now formally investigating Alibaba for antitrust violations. * Alibaba has a vast network of investments and either directly or indirectly invests in almost all areas of technology in China. Targets for the probe look to have ample avenues. * Both China and Alibaba look to walk the tightrope here to preserve Alibaba's global reach and prestige while limiting its domestic power. * I continue to hold shares due to the valuation however I am not adding until more clarity is achieved. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The news of China's investigation into Alibaba (BABA) was somehow both shocking...

On Wednesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a massive antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, claiming the social media giant has harmed competition by buying up smaller companies like Instagram and WhatsApp to squash the threat they posed to its business. Forty-seven other state and regional attorneys general are joining the suit. The lawsuit centers on Facebook’s acquisitions, particularly its $1 billion purchase of Instagram in 2011. In addition to its acquisition strategy, the attorneys general allege that Facebook used the power and reach of its platform to stifle user growth for competing services. “For nearly a decade, Facebook has...

A recent report claims that a group of at least 40 states led by New York is set to file an antitrust lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook as early as next week. A recent report from CNBC states that sources believe that a lawsuit could be filed against social media giant Facebook as early as next week. A group of 40 states led by New York have been investigating Facebook for possible antitrust violations and plans to file a lawsuit against the company, according to four sources. The lawsuit would be the second major case taken against a major tech...