Big Tech has more power and control and are by definition a monopoly. The anti-trust suit is to break up monopolies and give the power back where it belongs,. With us.. we, the people hire them. I think this is long overdue!

Who is suing Google for censorship?

Government is suing google its all here on these two links:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/technology/google-lawsuit.html

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/ted-cruz-big-tech-google-censorship/2020/10/14/id/991948/

That does not regard censorship. It’s an anti-trust lawsuit.

The Newsmax link is not about a lawsuit. It’s the same dumb whining we’ve been hearing for years from conservatives about reality’s well-known liberal bias.

@Goldenfish: “Do explain and make it short.”

I think tha

Yeah, I saw Trumper friends of mine recently talking about how Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, etc, should be broken up. I told them this was a big part of what Elizabeth Warren talked about during her campaign. Of course they were clueless.

Lots of Republicans listening to Q, foreign entities, domestic terrorists are upset their video links and false memes are being deleted. A lot of the Republicans don’t realize where the information comes from, but some do.

They are being deleted in coordination with our FBI and CIA based on where that garbage originates and if it’s false.

As an American it’s hard to be ok with any type of censorship. It’s in our nature to be against it. We are a freedom of speech country, but the messaging being deleted needs to be, it is destroying democracy and our country and other countries around the world.

I am not pro-censorship but Google is a free business. If I had a business that I rented out and I asked that business not to sell any R-rated material or tell conspiracy lies and it is part of my contract then I have every right to enforce that contract. They could yell to the rooftops that I am censoring them but once they signed that contract they have to abide by my rules or get out. They aren’t really being censored if they can move on to another website or create their own. Now if I am censoring stuff that isn’t covered under the contract then that is different. But if you ever read the agreements from top to bottom on any website. You agree that you can pretty much be kicked off or blocked for just about anything. All things you put on their site is essentially their property to do with what they will. No one ever really bothers to read the fine print.

if people don’t want to be censored they can always create their own webpage.

A private company has the right to decide the content on their site, the same as fluther does, an every news source in the country.

I think the issue really is that social media and other tech functions are a whole new aspect when it comes to rights of the company and rights of the individual. You have a company that opens up a business where people can effectively go and post things on their minds. That enters into free speech and free expression territory. So when someone posts something and the company blocks it because they say it is a lie or they don’t like the content, you are bordering on censorship. But to claim it is a conspiracy theory and should therefore not be allowed is wrong since the company automatically assumes to know all. Remember when the truth was that Trump and Russia colluded to steal the 2016 election and that Deep State players were trying pulling underhanded and illegal actions to effectively pull a coup was the conspiracy theory? Well, in the end, those were reversed. But if you automatically silence one side of that equation, you are actually perpetrating lies and trying to block any efforts to expose the lies. To claim you aren’t censoring, that you are trying to avoid spreading lies, that you aren’t biased, and to be honest about it, you would have to block all conversation since all conversations can and probably does have a bit of lies in it.

I have always understood it the way @YARNLADY describes it. You own the platform, you can determine what is posted there. Same as Fox News or Breitbart – they can post what they want on their own sites.

The issue is monopolistic practices. Once you control the market for anything you are able to eliminate competition for that product. Between Google, Face Book, and Twitter they control the market for information. With that control they are able to eliminate competitive sources of information whether that be political information or information about competitors. It is a classic monopoly. There is talk about breaking those companies up just as they did with AT&T back in the 80s. I’m not sure if that is the right thing to do but it has been done in the past. Monopolies are the greatest threat to Capitalism and that’s why there are laws against it.

Some of what Elizabeth Warren said on the topic when she was running for president.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elizabeth-warren-calls-break-facebook-google-amazon-n980911

There are plenty of articles and videos where she talks about it at length.

I understand about monopolistic practices when you’re paying, for example, paying for cable or the power company, there’s limited choices. However, with FB or Google, the user is not the customer. The user is not paying. The user has a choice to go elsewhere. If you don’t like FB, you can go to another social media site. If you don’t like Google, you can use Bing search or any other.

@jca2 I think that’s why Andrew Yang argued that Facebook, Amazon, and Google did their job well, and he preferred Americans get back a dividend from the profits made.

Although, part of Warren’s point was that Amazon is buying up other companies like Whole Foods, and Facebook the same thing, and they become so large that it gives them too much power.

Amazing.