Facebook and Google control more than 73 percent of all U.S. digital advertising and 83 percent of the recent growth in what amounts to more than $20 billion per quarter.
That might not be a threat to freedom of speech and freedom of the press unless those two companies – this mega-duopoly – shared the same worldview, the same way of thinking, the same politics, the same cultural outlook.
But these two companies do.
They think alike.
No two companies in the world have more influence on shaping, molding, configuring, framing, constructing public values and opinions. In fact, together, they arguably have more power to do so than all the others combined.
Think about it. Remember when Microsoft was constrained by the U.S. government in a consent decree from monopolistic practices that restrained trade and innovation in 2001? It didn’t destroy Microsoft, did it? It didn’t kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Instead, it permitted other companies to innovate, grow and offer superior services. Keep in mind, Microsoft had not sought to control the way people think. It did not seek to know every detail of its customers lives. It did not hold itself up as the gatekeeper of the public’s right to know.
But, 17 years ago, Microsoft was constrained in its business practices.
Yet, the Google-Facebook cartel, like no other ideological-driven media conglomerate in the history of the world, is far wealthier, much more powerful and gathers more private information about people than any other forces on Earth, including governments. And they use that information to make money, sell advertising and control the flow of information to the world.
The U.S. government still restricts the influence media companies have in local markets through rules against cross-ownership of TV, radio and newspapers. But the power of the Google-Facebook cartel cuts across markets – not just nationally here in the U.S., but worldwide. And it poses a much graver threat than Microsoft ever did because it controls the flow of information virtually without any oversight as to how the public interest is being served.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t trust government any more than I trust Google-Facebook. But who is watching out for the people’s best interest and ideals like privacy and free speech with the explosively rapid growth of this cartel? Who else but government can challenge that kind of power?
Who is a bigger threat to collusion over the outcome of elections – the Google-Facebook cartel or a foreign government like Russia? It’s something to take very, very seriously because there might be no way home if this cartel continues to accumulate wealth and power with the intent to use it to accumulate more.
I wasn’t a fan of Attorney General Janet Reno back in 2001 when the Justice Department took on Microsoft. But, in retrospect, who could argue with the limited, anti-trust restraints government imposed on the company back then? But the stakes are much higher today. Is Attorney General Jeff Sessions even considering what’s happening with the systematic crushing of constitutionally protected debate and dissent in the U.S. today? Has he even considered it? Look at the systematic efforts by Google-Facebook to starve independent media, conservative thought and Christian content. It should be alarming to every American – and certainly to the Trump administration.
And the hour is late.
Unless action is taken to check the trend, to defuse the vicious, intolerant and insidious plot hatched in the immature minds of the Silicon Valley, America’s highest and most precious values of free expression, political thought, the First Amendment principles will be lost – possibly forever.
If this sounds crazy to you, it’s because you just don’t know what’s happening yet and when you figure it out, it may be too late. And that’s the scariest part of all, because only a handful of voices are sounding the urgent alarms.
