In the Trump administration the attorneys general from several states are preparing a major antitrust lawsuit against several Big Tech companies. That’s why you suddenly saw many news stories over the weekend that Trump is attacking these companies “without evidence.”
Meanwhile, the Never Trump, gimp suit-wearing official conservatives of official conservatism are lining up to talk about how you should never, ever fight back against your enemies, but instead lose gracefully to them. Here’s everything we know so far.
First, Google/YouTube is toast. US Attorney General Bill Barr, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and several other unnamed states are prepping a monopoly antitrust suit against Google. Their accusation is that Google stifles competition in the online advertising space and abuses its overall search dominance to crush smaller companies. Facebook is also directly in the crosshairs of the Justice Department, for pretty much the same reasons.
Meanwhile, the media is claiming there is “no evidence” to back up the claims that President Trump is making against Big Tech. This is hilarious.
Trump retweeted a Michelle Malkin video over the weekend with this message:
“The Radical Left is in total command & control of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter & Google. The Administration is working to remedy this illegal situation. Stay tuned, and send names & events. Thank you Michelle!”
Immediately after Trump sent that tweet, Twitter deleted Malkin’s video from the site and kicked her off the platform entirely. Which I guess proves the media’s point that Trump has “no evidence” of liberal bias on Big Tech sites. There are no conservatives complaining about conservative censorship on Twitter! See! Evidence!
And of course, all of the dorks on the good ship Never Trump have come out of their shame closets to start lecturing us on the sanctity of markets. Libertarians, Little Benny Shapiro and the rest of the Never Trumpers are attacking Trump for “targeting his political enemies.” Uh… yeah… that’s kind of the entire point. Isn’t it weird how YouTube never censors the conservative conservatism of Little Benny Shapiro?
They are Trump’s enemies. They use their power and influence over the online marketplace to pick winners and losers. Guess which category Big Tech lumps known Trump supporters into?
If you doubt that these sites are stifling competition in the marketplace, here’s a quick quiz: If you are a business owner, name the top three companies to spend your online advertising dollars on.
For most small business owners in America, their answer to that will be Google/YouTube and Facebook in the number one and number two spots, and then they start scratching their heads when they try to figure out who number three is. That’s because there is no number three. If you want to advertise your business effectively online to the widest possible audience, you’re pretty much forced to either give money to one of those companies (which hates you) or figure out something else to do with your time.
And to all of the libertarians scolding people on the right over this, with their, “Durr-hurr, why don’t you go start your own Facebook, it’s a free country. Free markets!”
Oh, yeah, why don’t I just go do that? Oh, right, as a self-employed American, I’m paying a 41% tax rate and have to give up nearly half of my profits to the IRS every year after expenses. How much are Facebook and Google paying? Oh, right. Awkward.
What the libertarians and the Never Trumpers would realize if they could stop smoking their legalized dope for a few minutes is that a lot of companies have tried to start their own “Facebooks.” Gab, the free speech alternative to Twitter, has to beg its users for donations every month. If any other company starts to get big enough that it offers even a hint of a whiff of an iota of a threat to Google or Facebook, Google or Facebook buys it for several hundred million dollars and then it disappears.
Facebook just bought Giphy for $400 million. Giphy is a freeware site that a lot of conservatives used to make the hilarious memes that you see on Twitter and Facebook occasionally, making fun of the elites. Any guesses as to why Mark Zuckerberg bought the site for such an astronomical price?
Anyway, the Trump administration’s antitrust suit is set to launch this summer, hopefully with plenty of time left before the election. We’ll keep you posted!
