Posted on 06/12/2021 3:20:09 PM PDT by RandFan
A group of bipartisan House members introduced legislation Friday that would break up Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook.
According to a press release from Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the bills aim to “expand opportunities for consumers, workers, and small business owners by holding unregulated Big Tech monopolies accountable for anti-competitive conduct.”
The legislation has support from both sides of the aisle.
“Not only is self-regulation by Big Tech patently ineffective, but it also comes at the direct expense of workers, consumers, small businesses, our local communities, and the free press,” said Rep. Jayapal — who helps to lead the House Antitrust Subcommittee — in the press release. “From Amazon and Facebook to Google and Apple, it is clear that these unregulated tech giants have become too big to care and too powerful to ever put people over profits.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) asserted that “Big Tech has abused its dominance in the marketplace to crush competitors, censor speech, and control how we see and understand the world.”
(Excerpt) Read more at dailywire.com ...
One thing Dems and Reps can agree on. Big Tech needs to be dissolved.
Then it will get tied up in court for 10 years, and eventually fail because NONE of those companies are even close to monopolies. This obsession people have gotten with declaring every big big company a monopoly just shows how dumb we’re getting. What market do any of those companies have even 50% of? Much less the 80% you need to be a monopoly. Stop people, just stop.
This lady is loony-toons.
She may be appear to be right this once, but I can guarantee you it is for the wrong reasons.
I agree that a takedown of this Pravda is needed-like what was done to ma Bell and all the little Bells-but the big tech entities seem like they function-and meet the definition of public utilities-also like the former Bell-now-AT&T, etc-it would seem to make better sense to just say they are just that-with no power to censor, etc-might be less troublesome than going through all the anti-trust allegations, etc...
Busy work
Not ever gonna happen...
On May 15th, l911, the Supreme Court of the United States declared that Standard Oil was a monopoly in restraint of trade and should be dissolved. Rockefeller heard of the decision while golfing at Kykuit with a priest from the local Catholic church, Father J.P. Lennon.
And Rockefeller reacted with amazing aplomb. He turned to the Catholic priest and said, “Father Lennon, have you some money?” And the priest was very startled by the question and said, “No.” And then he said, “Why?” And Rockefeller replied, “Buy Standard Oil.”
It doesn’t matter that the companies aren’t pure monopolies. Under the law, it doesn’t even matter if some of them were pure monopolies.
The concentration of power, and the abuse of that power to protect their market share is the problem. It also matters that a small group of corporations have such a tight grip on communications services, that they can ‘de-platform’ anyone — even a sitting President of the USA.
You’re probably right about the court time — but, you’re wrong about the merits of the case. It’s long overdue. Ma Bell was broken up for far less.
I agree that a takedown of this Pravda is needed-like what was done to ma Bell and all the little Bells-
Twitter isn’t on the list? C’mon, man!!!
Apple doesn’t belong on that list at all. They don’t have monopoly power anywhere. They don’t censor peoples’ viewpoints. They don’t block POTUS from using their platform because they don’t have a platform.
The worst they’ve done is keep certain apps out of the app store.
Apple respects their customers’ privacy FAR more than any other company out there.
Yeah, let Congress decide who the winners and losers are in the corporate world. They are all so knowledgeable when it comes to business especially with the cartels and all. Heck, let’s just nationalize them now and get it over with.
Monopoly is a difficult argument for them to make. Better to argue they are a public accommodation.
Also, Sen Cruz has pointed out that they seem to mirror political positions of the establishment, AND that makes them quasi-governmental and subject to 1st American arguments.
True, they did-but at least as a public utility they are not able to censor-and their acquired-through-merger-or buyouts are not impervious to lawsuits-there are always ways-perfectly legal ones-to enforce anti-monopoly rules later-but calling them a public utility first would probably speed things up in the courts-which is where this will end up in no time at all...
It VERY MUCH matters that they are not monopolies. Because if we just decide “well they’re big, so they gotta be broken up” then it’s all about whether or not the government likes you. And if they don’t ANY company can get screwed cause “they have power”.
We are supposed to be a society of laws. And when we start saying “don’t care if they’re a monopoly according to the law” then we’re not.
The breakup of Ma Bell was STUPID. We MADE THEM a monopoly on purpose. So that we would have the best phone system in the world. Which we did. And then we broke them up, and now we’re at the bottom of the western world, our phone system sucks, we’re generations behind Europe and Japan. All of whom were smart enough to know that your national phone system SHOULD be a monopoly.
And actually these companies have done NOTHING. Because they are not monopolies nothing they’ve done has broken any monopoly law. They should not be broken up. Nothing good will come from it, other than grossly increasing government power.
They aren’t public accommodation either. They’re just companies. Really big, really successful companies. Of course they mirror the political position of the establishment, they’re big companies that throw a lot of lobbying cash around. That doesn’t make them quasi-governmental, it just makes them the 21st century GM and our politicians corrupt worthless humans. There’s no 1st amendment argument.
Since I have never had any money to invest in anything like stocks, etc-don’t have any relatives who do, either-I suppose I’m totally unsympathetic to anyone who puts money into something risky-I really don’t know anything about investing, either, so it doesn’t influence my thinking at all for good or ill...
Chamber of Commerce Freepers broken hearted.
I feel like I should be against this government interference but I can’t bring myself to object.
Read later.
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