(04-12-2021 09:35 AM)banker Wrote:  

(04-11-2021 01:07 PM)bullet Wrote:  From the article:

"...It changes nothing that these platforms are not the sole means for distributing speech or information. A person always could choose to avoid the toll bridge or train and instead swim the Charles River or hike the Oregon Trail. But in assessing whether a company exercises substantial market power, what matters is whether the alternatives are comparable. For many of today’s digital platforms, nothing is.

It is worth reading the whole thing. Justice Thomas clearly wants to see a case on this...."


And as for the alternative that you simply create a conservative alternative, as soon as Parler became a threat, the left extinguished them:

"...If you hate a platform so much, nothing’s stopping you from making a new one.

That argument feels flimsier than ever these days. When Trump got banned from Twitter, the argument was: So what? It’s Twitter. And Twitter is a private company. Jack Dorsey can boot whoever he wants. And anyway, Trump can go to Parler.

But then Parler got kicked out of the Apple and Google app stores, so the argument became: well, you can still create a website. But then AWS stopped hosting Parler. As Sacks put it: “You shouldn’t have to build a new Internet to post a tweet...."”

I used to be in the “stop using them” camp because I failed to see their power as demonstrated by what happened to Parler. I made the false assumption that they wouldn’t be so bold as to openly collude to crush competition. Sure, they have all individually went Rockefeller to crush competition within their given niche, but to then combine those strengths to block competition is, to me, RICO Act worthy. The issue is they have positioned themselves as owners of the internet. They could cause anyone to be banished today.

Bad thing is that they will enjoy the next 4 years continuing to strengthen their grip knowing that Biden will eagerly repay them for their help in 2020.

It definitely reeked of RICO.

But clearly Google and Amazon have way too much monopoly power without any liberal interpretation of existing laws.