White House Drafts Antitrust Order to Investigate Google and Facebook’s Business Practices

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Bravo. Having been one of the early targets of social media censorship on Facebook, YouTube et al, I have for quite some time advocated for anti-trust action against these bullying behemoths. Read my article about this at The American Thinker. We are seeing an unprecedented erosion in our First Amendment rights, increasingly prohibiting the flow of ideas and free expression in the public square (social media). Run by left-wing self-possessed snowflakes, social media giants are indulging their worst autocratic impulses. And because they can, it is getting worse. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Having grown up in the 1970s, I can tell you it was a vastly different country then. It was free. But we aren’t any no longer, and it is time we took back what is ours — our unalienable freedoms.

“White House Drafts Antitrust Order to Investigate Google and Facebook’s Business Practices,” by Ben Brody and Jennifer Jacobs, Bloomberg, September 22, 2018 (thanks to Mark):

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(Bloomberg) — The White House has drafted an executive order for President Donald Trump’s signature that would instruct federal antitrust and law enforcement agencies to open investigations into the business practices of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Facebook Inc. and other social media companies.

The order is in its preliminary stages and hasn’t yet been run past other government agencies, according to a White House official. Bloomberg News obtained a draft of the order.

The document instructs U.S. antitrust authorities to “thoroughly investigate whether any online platform has acted in violation of the antitrust laws.” It instructs other government agencies to recommend within a month after it’s signed actions that could potentially “protect competition among online platforms and address online platform bias.”

The document doesn’t name any specific companies. If signed, the order would represent a significant escalation of Trump’s antipathy toward Google, Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies, whom he has publicly accused of silencing conservative voices and news sources online.

“Social Media is totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices,” Trump said on Twitter in August. “Speaking loudly and clearly for the Trump Administration, we won’t let that happen. They are closing down the opinions of many people on the RIGHT, while at the same time doing nothing to others.”

Social media companies have acknowledged in congressional hearings that their efforts to enforce prohibitions against online harassment have sometimes led to erroneous punishment of political figures on both the left and right, and that once discovered those mistakes have been corrected. They say there is no systematic effort to silence conservative voices.

The draft order directs that any actions federal agencies take should be “consistent with other laws” — an apparent nod to concerns that it could threaten the traditional independence of U.S. law enforcement or conflict with the First Amendment, which protects political views from government regulation.

“Because of their critical role in American society, it is essential that American citizens are protected from anticompetitive acts by dominant online platforms,” the order says. It adds that consumer harm — a key measure in antitrust investigations– could come “through the exercise of bias.”

The order’s preliminary status is reflected in the text of the draft, which includes a note in red that the first section could be expanded “if necessary, to provide more detail on role of platforms and the importance of competition.”

The possibility of an executive order emerged as Attorney General Jeff Sessions prepares for a Sept. 25 briefing by state attorneys general who are already investigating the tech firms’ practices.

The meeting, which will include a representative of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, is intended to help Sessions decide if there’s a federal case to be made against the companies, two people familiar with the matter have said. At least one of the attorneys general participating in the meeting has indicated he seeks to break up the companies….

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Suresh
Suresh
5 years ago

Long overdue. Left/Liberal Pro-jihadi propaganda and lies need to be countered by patriots

Merkel govt funded Pro-jihadi Liberals run propaganda to create more sex slaves out of little children like in UK
https://tinyurl.com/yd9jo5mf

Do these scumbags have any conscience ?
comment image

taxpayer22
taxpayer22
5 years ago

Is Google Evil ?

Achmed Mohandjob
Achmed Mohandjob
5 years ago
Reply to  taxpayer22

No. Just the people that run it and the employees that work for Alphabet, Inc. Can’t blame the truck used in Nice, France, it was the moslem that perpetrated the mass murders.

R. Arandas
R. Arandas
5 years ago
Reply to  taxpayer22

It is exploitative, domineering and manipulative, and fails to be impartial and non-partisan that is for sure.

Underzog
Underzog
5 years ago
Reply to  taxpayer22

Google is evil (despite its old saying)! If the Republican congress had any spine, this anti trust action would not be necessary — but now it is necessary. The lib/commies will spell the end olf our country. As those harassers of Trump administration staffeers said, ” no borers, no walls, NO USA AT ALL”! It is not just a saying on the lib/commie side, but what they are working to accomplish. Leonard Cohen, z’L warned that we would not like what comes after America.

MAS
MAS
5 years ago

The investigation will only last until those Google searches of midget porn are revealed. The investigative line staff will not want their internet histories revealed…

felix1999
felix1999
5 years ago

I relate.. this is a totally different country than what I grew up in…
Who will handle the legal aspect of this? JEFF SESSIONS?????
God I hope not. We need someone with a fire in their belly.

Barbara
Barbara
5 years ago

Good. Everyday I google Trump and everyday get only the lies and slander and am disgusted. But on the ground I learn that a factory is coming back to US from overseas in New York State or around Buffalo. I’m Canadian. Grassroots has to post widely every single company that is benefitting and coming back because of Trump policies. The msm is not going to say peep. And even his twitter might not penetrate the wall of sh*t. Grassroots get out and tell what you SEE, not whats on media.

R. Arandas
R. Arandas
5 years ago

The big companies hold too much wealth and power in our society already. NO MORE.

aemoreira1981
aemoreira1981
5 years ago

Social media companies don’t have to cooperate. If subpoenaed, they can challenge the subpoenas all the way to SCOTUS.

Alleged-Comment
Alleged-Comment
5 years ago

They got too big for their small heads. There is nothing you can do about the small heads, but you can shrink their business down to size.

Then, most likely they will do the right thing.

Dusty Rhodes Decker
Dusty Rhodes Decker
5 years ago

I joined the Air Force out of high school in 1964 and when I went back to civilian life, the country was already in the middle of the transformation of what it has become. The 1970s saw the Democrat Party welcome the 60s radicals into its fold and began dividing the country into interest groups. By 1980 I voted for Ronald Reagan as a Democrat and left the party 2 years later. It has come to a head finally and we are in for the fight of our lives. Never vote for a Democrat for anything ever.

Cheryl
Cheryl
5 years ago

unfortunately, there have been some moslems infiltrating the Republican party, so watch out…who would you vote for, a commie demoncrat or a moslem repub? Decisions, decisions…find out who your representative or senator running for office has behind them, what parties supported them, where have they given speeches, who has helped them get where they are now?

knightsstrength
knightsstrength
5 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl

One area to hurt Muslims is with companies who pay the Halal Certification, tax them double as been illegal. The other thing is no rights for Muslim prayers over food sold to Christians and Jews

peanut butter
peanut butter
5 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl

Ellison is a muslim. Obama is muslim. Jeh Johnson (former DHS) is muslim. Evidently Kerry has converted. I even think Clinton has converted, the way she gave Chris Stevens and our Embassy to them. There are plenty more in the demolition party than in the Republicans. obozo planted plenty. And there are 90 more running for offices in our land. You can bet they, too, are running on the democrat ticket. I think you’ve either been sniffing burlap or you’re disseminating false information.

Cheryl
Cheryl
5 years ago
Reply to  peanut butter

there was a republican moslem running for office in CT last year…you are insulting pbj

peanut butter
peanut butter
5 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl

One against the many I have named, and you trying to put it on the Republicans, is not just insulting but shows your lack of logic and reason. Did that muslim win?

Stephen Honig
Stephen Honig
5 years ago

I hope they consider it a monopoly and break it up like they did Shell oil and AT&T.

CharlieSeattle
CharlieSeattle
5 years ago

“White House Drafts Antitrust Order to Investigate Google and Facebook’s Business Practices,”

Weak TRUMP, very weak!!!

The ‘Deep State’ is made up of the corrupt Demo☭rats, MSM, Facebook, Twitter, Google, NSA/CIA/ FBI/DHS, MS-13, Black Lives Matter, A☪LU, ☪AIR, Muslim Brotherhood, DN☭, SPL☭, ANTIFA, Tranny’s, Gays, Illegal Alien Criminals and Seditious …current and …former City, State and National politicians!

RICO racketeering laws apply! They can ALL be arrested ….NOW!

……Prez. Trump, …It’s time to get serious. They are WILLFULLY engaged in “Seditious Conspiracy” and should be in prison for TREASON!

18 U.S. Code Chapter 115 – TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES

law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-115

18 U.S. Code § 2384 – Seditious conspiracy

law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2384

US Code

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

Wake The F#%& Up Sessions! …and get the FTC and FCC busy also!

knightsstrength
knightsstrength
5 years ago

Put the creeps behind bars. Would not surprise me if they do not help fund Clinton.

Hate Google’s spell checker and updates. Many times I have to come back and edit words or change words. You just cannot seem to turn it off.

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