Liberty Expose: Big Tech Vs. The United States

There’s no doubt of the modern conveniences that have come with the digital age. People are able to exchange ideas at instantaneous speeds and businesses can use consumer data to predict what the latter might be interested in buying. But among conservatives and progressives, this has created a new set of problems. For conservatives, social media sites are targeting right-wing content far more than content from progressives. Right-leaning pundits are claiming this is discrimination that amounts to a violation of First Amendment rights. There is also bipartisan security concern with Big Tech companies’ (i.e. Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc.) access to personal information and the privacy vulnerabilities this may entail. Security breaches of Facebook and other sites threaten the financial well-being of hundreds of millions of Americans; and if foreign powers were able to gain access to this information, the consequences would be disastrous.

Because the internet is still a relatively new area, lawmakers face a plethora of issues in creating policies to tackle these issues. This article will be split into two sections: first, I will discuss censorship of conservative outlets in online media sources; and second. I will examine the call to break up Big Tech over scandals that have plagued the industry.

Conservatives v. Social Media

Few issues have enraged conservatives on digital politics more than social media sites “censoring” members of the ideology. Sites like Google have been called out for using an algorithm that pushes fact checks on conservative slanted news sources like Breitbart, while not doing the same with progressive outlets like Vox.  Alt-right pundits (Laura Loomer, Jacob Wohl, Alex Jones) accuse sites like Twitter and Facebook of breaking their First Amendment rights by banning them, but anyone who knows anything about constitutional law knows that this would not hold up in court. The First Amendment under the Constitution only acts as a way to protect the public from the government, there is nothing that deals with grievances of the public with private companies. I have no sympathy for members of the alt-right who get banned from social media as their divisive content serves no purpose except to harass others, but sites like Twitter and YouTube need to provide a clear picture of what constitutes a violation of its terms and services.

To rectify this issue, there are some options Congress could look into preventing the targeting of one political ideology over another. Republicans like Josh Hawley of Missouri, along with Don Trump Jr., have suggested changes to 47 U.S. Code Section 230 of the Protection for Private Blocking and Screening of Offensive Bill. Currently, the bill targets issues such as content that may promote abuse or harm to another individual (sex trafficking, exposure of obscene content to children, and other illicit activities). The proposal would add a clause that prevents social media and other online sites from banning individuals because of their political beliefs. As I stated previously, conservatives cannot claim abuse of freedom of speech because there is no abuse being committed by the state. Ultimately, it is also up to individuals to understand that they are responsible for what they post. If a user posted something that is highly dubious or repugnant, then the social media platform should be able to handle it how they see fit. Not every issue should require government action.

Breaking Big Tech

Tech companies are also currently weathering attacks by both sides of the aisle for a variety of security issues, primarily dealing with private data and the question of whether they are assisting adversaries of the United States. Google was facing accusations by the Trump administration of assisting the Chinese military with censorship technology and creating a new search engine just for the country, while also “dropping out of the bidding for a Pentagon cloud-computing contract … saying the project may conflict with its corporate values.”* The company’s flagship search engine was closed in 2010 because Google’s employees did not want to support state-sponsored censorship for their product, but under new leadership, this policy has changed. Google has also expressed its disinterest working with the US military, an action Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos criticized back in October.

Then there is the controversy Facebook has been enduring for years. The Cambridge Analytica scandal which involved the political consulting firm that used the data of millions of Americans collected by Facebook in its effort to get Donald Trump elected. The popular social media site is also in talks with the Federal Trade Commission to pay a “multi-billion dollar fine that would settle the agency’s investigation into the [company’s] privacy practices.” These issues and many more undeniably threaten the security of billions of people who use the site.

In response to these issues, Massachusetts Senator and Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is calling for a break-up of these companies to halt their growing influence To do this, Warren is proposing a ban on tech companies “from moving into different lines of business where they can abuse their power as middlemen.” This has been a common issue that has caused the downfall of many companies, such as Quidsi, which was a popular online retailer of baby products that was driven into the ground by Amazon’s predatory prices. Big companies are able to stamp out the competition with their vast resources even though slashing prices to below market prices is technically illegal under longstanding antitrust laws. Warren’s call to arms against big tech companies has earned the praise of several Republican Senators, including Josh Hawley, and Ted Cruz which suggests that Congress may be able to work out a bipartisan compromise on this issue.

Conclusion

In sum, the benefits of the internet are plenty, but there are many issues society faces with the birth of the digital age. Tech companies yield an inordinate amount of power over the content we are exposed to and have nearly unfettered access to consumer information. Suppressing conservative content is certainly an issue but Republicans should seek other means of exacting change than pushing for more regulation. On this issue, individuals need to understand that they are the ones who are responsible for what they post; but, social media platforms should not unfairly target one ideology over the other and make it easier for users to understand what is expected of them on these sites.

While proposals offered by members of Congress to break up tech companies may sound popular in Washington, they will not go over well to the American consumer. However, the United States must bite the bullet and take action against these companies for betraying the trust of their consumers. There does need to be better enforcement of existing antitrust laws to prevent massive entities like Amazon from killing competition outright by engaging in predatory pricing. The free market thrives on competition, and while the U.S. should not prop up failing companies that cannot adapt in a changing economy, Big Tech cannot be allowed to flaunt long-existing regulations.

*- Edit: after this article was finished, Trump said that Google is “fully committed” to the U.S. military, not the Chinese Military