Regulating social media giants is a road to Big Tech tyranny

[kevindavis007]

Last week, President Trump tweeted about potentially exploring regulation for companies such as Google, citing a report that claimed searching for “ Trump News” pulls up disproportionately left-leaning results. Seemingly overnight, some conservatives like Laura Ingraham have made an about-face from their usual skepticism of government intervention in private business to floating full-throated support for government regulation of Google on national television.

Conservatives have every right to be suspicious when government seeks to regulate the marketplace. But where is this skepticism when it comes to social media? Only a few months ago, conservatives were mocking the Left for their inflammatory rhetoric on the repeal of Internet regulations like net neutrality.

The crux of the conservative argument in favor of net neutrality repeal was that the free market resolves many, if not all, industry woes. The Obama-era federal government, in the case of net neutrality, wanted to require Internet providers to grant equal access to all content online, regardless of source. This sounds great on its face, until one realizes that this requires Internet providers to offer equal downloading speeds to both a hospital’s emergency room and a guy watching Netflix in his basement. If conservatives agree that this type of government intervention doesn’t make sense for Internet providers, why wouldn’t it also be true for the social media sphere?

Read More: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/regulating-social-media-giants-is-a-road-to-big-tech-tyranny

[Frank Cannon]

Govt' regulates the shit out of everything.......EVERYTHING. Why do these social media outlets get a pass, especially now that the Russians are using them as a conduit to undermine the country, by the services own admissions.

Break these companies up. They are violating antitrust laws ten times more than Ma Bell ever dreamed of doing.

[INVAR]

I guess "Conservatives" have willfully forgotten the Midas-In-Reverse maxim concerning the State, wherein everything that government touches, turns to shit.

[jmyrlefuller]

I guess "Conservatives" have willfully forgotten the Midas-In-Reverse maxim concerning the State, wherein everything that government touches, turns to shit.

Then let's get rid of the government-created corporate veil and hold the shareholders accountable.

[jmyrlefuller]

The Obama-era federal government, in the case of net neutrality, wanted to require Internet providers to grant equal access to all content online, regardless of source. This sounds great on its face, until one realizes that this requires Internet providers to offer equal downloading speeds to both a hospital’s emergency room and a guy watching Netflix in his basement.

What right does the hospital have to that bandwidth more than the guy in the basement? To assume that the hospital is working in the greater good and thus "deserves" that bandwidth more than the guy watching Netflix is probably even more socialist of a notion than net neutrality itself.

More presciently, why do ISP's want the right to specifically target certain companies to throttle their bandwidth? So Netflix gets throttled, but not Hulu? A 1080p video gets throttled on Youtube, but not Vimeo? The same conservatives cry foul when government dares to target individual companies have no problem letting government-protected public corporations do the same.

[skeeter]

Government regulation is the last thing we should want.

Use existing anti trust laws to address the problem.