At least 40 states are filing an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook this month. New York is leading the charge, claiming Mark Zuckerberg is running an illegal monopoly. The lawsuit will be the second major case against a big tech company this year, following the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Google in October.
New lawsuits against Facebook
The lawsuits will focus on Facebook’s abuse of power in the social media market. Facebook is facing harsh criticism from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, as well as President Trump and Joe Biden. It seems the hammer is about to fall on Mark Zuckerberg’s empire.
Democrats believe Facebook and other social media giants are too lenient about the speech they allow on their platforms and they want more censorship and fact checking.
Republicans claim the site is a monopoly run by Leftists who blatantly censor Conservative voices. Facebook tries to play the middle, claiming they support free speech while limiting “hate speech.”
Their definition of hate speech seems to be fuzzy at best and determined by a team of Liberals in Silicon Valley.
Despite the lawsuits and investigations, both Google and Facebook are buying up as many of their rivals as possible.
Last month, Facebook finalized a deal to purchase a new chat service startup called Kustomer for $1 billion, which is the same price they paid for the photo-sharing app Instagram back in 2012. Facebook also plans to acquire the animated image sharing service Giphy for $400 million.
Big Tech CEOs in front of Congress:
Jeff Bezos: ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Mark Zuckerberg: ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Tim Cook: ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Sundar Pichai: ¯_(ツ)_/¯
This is honestly a disgrace. These unaccountable tech oligarchs need to have their companies broken up.pic.twitter.com/kSWUDbtbKh
— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) December 9, 2020
Washington vs Big Tech
Big tech has been blatant in their political bias over the years. Suspending the accounts of Conservatives, limiting the reach of search content and adding warning labels to political speech they deem as misinformation.
On Twitter, you can watch a video of someone being murdered, but President Trump’s allegations of voter fraud have warning labels on them. Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri recently tweeted, “I’ve heard from @Facebook whistleblower who revealed @Facebook and @Google and @Twitter coordinate to censor. Facebook has an internal platform to manage it.”
According to Section 230, these big tech companies are not liable for any misinformation or hate speech and they have no obligation to censor content. They seem to be doing so for political purposes, openly censoring voices on the Right while the Left gets away with far worse.
Senator Hawley also appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show to talk about the Senate’s plans to rein in social media. “The Constitution states we the people are to run this government and this nation, not the big corporations, and unless we do something, they’re going to.”
