After reading Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinion in Biden vs. Knight First Amendment Institute, I believe he’s itching to turn Big Tech into Ma Bell (common carrier). Former New York Times editor Bari Weiss believes “a few billionaires currently have the power to decide that some Americans’ speech rights are more sacred than others” (she’s all too familiar with cancel culture), and I believe that’s bad for America.
Amazon’s Bezos, Facebook’s Zuckerberg, Google’s Pichai, and Twitter’s Dorsey currently have control over 80% of all digital books, 80% of all social posts, and 90% of all search engine results, meaning four (pro-Democrat) Americans control what you read, post, and see online. For example, The Conservative Guardian’s viewership slumped in September 2020, when Facebook and Twitter began blocking anti-Biden content.
And, in violation of the 1st amendment, Big Tech censored the New York Post a month before Election Day, right after it broke the Hunter Biden “laptop” story. Twitter locked the Post’s account and Facebook blocked re-posts of the story on user feeds (including mine). The tech giants’ flimsy argument was the story was right-wing conspiracy, based on unverified documents, and maybe Russian disinformation. Twitter’s Jack Dorsey now admits a “total mistake” in how his firm handled the Post story.
The double standard is frightening. After allowing millions of leftist conspiracists to post un-verified stories about Trump-Russia collusion, Twitter’s truth czar blocked now-verified information from Hunter Biden’s hard drive. Mind you, Senate Republicans traced Trump-Russia misinformation and money back to the Clinton campaign, and Mr. Biden had some sick sh*t on that hard drive. To say Big Tech interfered in elections is an understatement.
Right now, 59% of Democrats and 70% of Republicans think Big Tech has too much power, economically and politically. One solution is an antitrust break-up, but the better solution is for the Supreme Court (or Congress) to rule these tech giants public utilities or common carriers, which was AT&T’s status when it was the ONLY long-distance telephone service. By the way, I made some outrageous claims about Nixon – without being banned by the Ma Bell monopolists.
Facebook and Twitter grew into media behemoths, and their owners became billionaires, after beginning as “social media” conduits between like-minded family and friends. It was only after Facebook and Twitter became promotional (targeted ads) and transactional (collecting fees) that political outrage became a corporate concern. It cannot go un-noticed how often end users and employees pressure the four Big Tech firms for political purposes.
Look at their despotic behavior. Parler’s app was dropped by the Google store. Amazon banned Shelby Steele’s “Who Killed Michael Brown” documentary, and eBay stopped re-selling used copies of discontinued Dr. Seuss books. YouTube deleted a video by Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) that was critical of some of the COVID-19 science, and former president Trump was dropped from Facebook and Twitter – even when 13% of Democrats and 72% of Republicans beg to differ.
Justice Thomas is crystal clear about the problem: “unprecedented, however, is the control of so much speech in the hands of a few private parties.” Plus, he offers insight to his solution: “laws that restrict the platform’s right to exclude.” In other words, you can bet the court’s conservative majority will put an end to partisan censorship. And the woke billionaires should thank their lucky stars – because Teddy Roosevelt, a true populist, would end their monopolies forever.