re: Is cancelling a YouTube channel a digital book burning?

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Again, having dominant market share and monopoly power is not illegal.

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Well, well. Look what JUST hit the wires :

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June 24, 2020 9:07 AM
DOJ May Partner with States on Google Antitrust Probe

The Justice Department and a group of state attorneys general will meet on Friday to discuss the scope of a possible antitrust suit against Alphabet Inc.’s Google, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

Federal and state officials will discuss how best to proceed with the suit, although it is not yet clear how many states will be joining the effort. At issue is whether states will join a federal suit or conduct independent cases against Google.

An antitrust suit will likely be brought against Google this summer, people familiar with the details told the Journal.

“We continue to engage with the ongoing investigations led by Attorney General Barr and Texas Attorney General Paxton,” said a Google spokeswoman. “Our focus is firmly on creating free products that help Americans every day and lower costs for small businesses.”

At issue in the prospective suit is Google’s dominance in several markets, including the online advertising business for which Google controls much of the links between advertisers and consumers. There are also suspicions that Google may use its dominance as a search engine to advance its own products.

“The evidence of anticompetitive conduct in search technology is striking, and deserves scrutiny,” Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) said on Tuesday. “I’m optimistic DOJ will do its due diligence and follow the facts.”

The prospective suit was reported taken over by Attorney General William Barr in March. Barr has in the past shown willingness to scrutinize big tech companies.

““The avenues for sharing information and engaging in discourse have concentrated in the hands of a few key players,” Barr said in February. “The early days of online public bulletin boards, like AOL, have been replaced by platforms with sophisticated content-moderation tools, algorithms, recommendation features, and targeting.

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Well, well. Look what JUST hit the wires :

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Did you not know this was already in the works?

You think this is the first time Google has been sued?

Let me know if and when this actually makes it to court.

Wait , what? You do realize the EU has ALREADY fined Google almost 10 BILLION dollars, right? And now The US is scrutinizing them. And you think this doesn't matter? Sure seems like AG Barr thinks it matters:

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Barr noted that when the companies first surfaced “they built up all their membership and their networks saying, ‘We have a wide variety of views. People can come in and post their views and their positions and their statements.’”


“Then they've switched,” Barr added. “Now they're being more selective and they're [b]starting to censor different viewpoints.”

He noted that there is a “concentration of these very large companies that have that kind of influence on the sharing of information and viewpoints on our society.”

Barr explained that that is a “fundamental problem” because “our republic was founded on the idea, and the whole rationale was that there'd be a lot of diversity of voices and it would be hard for someone to be able to galvanize, big faction in the United States that could dominate politically and oppress a minority, and yet now we have with the Internet and with these big concentrations of power, the ability to do just that, to quickly galvanize people's views because they're only presenting one viewpoint and they can push the public in a particular direction very quickly.”

Barr went on to explain that “our whole Constitution insists the system was based on not having that and having a wide diversity of voices.”

He then said that “one way this can be addressed is through the antitrust laws and challenging companies that engage in monopolistic practices.”

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A LOT has changed since 2012. Google is now AGGRESSIVELY overplaying it's hand and targeting content on the ideological level:

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The tide has been turning against Silicon Valley tech giants in Washington for quite some time from both sides of the aisle, but this week appears to have reached a tipping point when Google flexed its unchecked power in a move that could mean the end of the free exchange of ideas.

On Tuesday, NBC reported that Google banned The Federalist and website ZeroHedge from profiting off its search engine ads. Considering that Google is one of three companies to control 70 percent of all digital advertising, such a move could kill almost any news organization.

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Google is now powerful enough to CHOKE OUT political dissent on it's platform. While simultaneously declaring itself a platform and hiding behind the protections of Section 230 of the 1996 Decency Act. It can't have it both ways. Either be a platform or be a publisher. Their choice.

That’s an meaningless trope. I specifically gave you the legislation that confirms my argument. The DOJ apparently agrees. If you want to make unrelated weak sauce philosophical analogies that’s your prerogative, but it adds nothing of value to the conversation.

Think about this. If you took all the search and circulation revenue from every single publisher in America except Google, and QUADRUPLED IT, you would come close to matching Google's search and ad revenue. 98 billion dollars alone in 2019.

They CONTROL ad revenue in America. The Platform is theirs and theirs alone. And these short-sighted morons want to ALSO give them the power to control all Editorial content and full legal immunity for any breaches in the public trust. Who said Americans don't love Oligarchs. They are perfectly happy having ALL the power in the United States concentrated in a very small Ruling Class and frick everybody else. The tyranny of The Gatekeeper and all that...