The newspaper, USA Today is urging the president to break up the big tech monopolies. Besides it’s the right thing to do, it could be his Teddy Roosevelt moment and besides that will increase his chances for reelection by not allowing them to shut conservatives out like they did this year.
It’s a proverbial win/win/win situation. Combined, the biggest five tech companies could move mountains and we don’t want our mountains moved. Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter and Netflix, cannot be trusted with such power and without competition, which none of them really have right now, they will never deliver the value we want as consumers.
Big monopolies aren’t just an economic threat: They’re a political threat. Because they’re largely free of market constraints, they don’t have to put all their energy into making a better product for less money. Instead, they put a lot of their energy into political manipulation to protect their monopoly.
Monopolies of the 21st century are even more powerful than those in previous generations. Why? Because modern monopolies, especially those in the social media space, wield tremendous political power as a result of their ability to control mass communications.
And these new tech monsters have a one-two punch that Standard Oil lacked: Not only do they control immense wealth and important industries, but their fields of operation — which give them enormous control over communications, including communications about politics — also give them direct political power that in many ways exceeds that of previous monopolies.
There is no doubt that big Tech had a huge impact on the elections by censoring conservative news and views. We cannot afford to have that happen in 2020 or we will be looking at possibly President Hillary, President Booker or president Bloomberg.
I may not be able to sleep with the lights off ever again just thinking about it.