What’s becoming crystal clear to our citizens and representatives alike is that these conglomerates are primarily growing thanks to unfair, predatory behavior—and not superior execution.
Because they determine how information is disseminated, companies like Google and Facebook now have almost limitless control over the population. Google alone controls over 85 percent of the digital advertising market, while Facebook has a similar stranglehold over social media. This ability to regulate the spread of information and messaging is unlike any in history, yet these companies continue to amass even more power.
Consider their recent actions with respect to censoring free speech. Google and Facebook are repeatedly removing information that counters World Health Organization (WHO) releases related to COVID-19. Now that the WHO has been outed as spreading dubious information and having an uncomfortable relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, this has proven especially concerning.
But the absurdity of this policy hasn’t hurt these companies’ market shares. As unchecked monopolies, they can act with impunity—and smaller firms that work with them are forced to accept abuses.
Google, for example, recently announced it will ban third-party cookies from its Google Chrome browser. Cookies allow advertisers to utilize users’ web traffic to more accurately target those users’ interests and preferences. With its upcoming change, however, Google will cut out all competition and become the sole gatekeeper of this coveted data.
The tech behemoths claim that this is just a case of free market capitalism prevailing, but that simply isn’t true. Take the Google-Apple partnership: When they teamed up to announce COVID-19 tracking software, the public responded with overwhelming displeasure. People don’t trust these companies to protect their data, yet their business models are based on collecting it. How could they continue to grow in the face of such opposition?
Because they’re not operating in a fair market.
The actions of Big Tech have been so egregious that there is increasingly a bipartisan desire to investigate and prosecute them. Senators ranging from progressive Democrat Elizabeth Warren to conservative Republican Josh Hawley have been calling for investigations and hearings. As the states and federal government begin to team up to file antitrust lawsuits, President Trump tweeted his own disdain for the increasing censorship: “The [a]dministration is working to remedy this illegal situation. Stay tuned, and send names [and] events.”
There is a fear that cracking down on Silicon Valley could take a backseat, as it has in the past. We can’t let this happen. For the sake of American small businesses and citizens that rely on competition and the free flow of information, Congress must make ending unfair practices by Big Tech a top priority.
Brian Maloney is the co-founder of the Media Equality Project, a conservative watchdog group. Follow him on Twitter at @SScalpings.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
