One of Silicon Valley’s titans of industry faces mounting legal woes as attorneys general in eight states and the District of Columbia open antitrust inquiries to investigate whether it is engaged in unfair trade practices.
“A group of states is investigating Facebook for potential violations of antitrust law, the office of the New York attorney general said in a statement today,” according to Verge.
Attorneys general in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and the District of Columbia are also joining the investigation.
Facebook, known for its bias against conservatives (it banned our own Laura Loomer, along with Paul Joseph Watson, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Alex Jones, within minutes of each other in May, labeling them “dangerous individuals”) continues to face legal troubles.
As we reported in August, the head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is looking into whether Facebook, along with other Big Tech companies, are engaged in monopolistic behavior. FTC Chairman Joe Simons even confirmed that he is prepared to break up the Silicon Valley giants if necessary.
“If you have to, you do it,” Simons reportedly said. “It’s not ideal because it’s very messy. But if you have to you have to.”
Simons is specifically investigating whether Facebook has been buying startups in order to avoid competition. Such anti-competitive behavior can be a violation of the law. His office also hit Facebook with a record-setting $5 billion fine for “privacy violations” this week, and is still looking into whether Facebook broke any laws in that case.
Now, Facebook isn’t just facing antitrust scrutiny at the federal level, but also on the state level.
On the state level, “the investigation will focus on whether Facebook ‘endangered consumer data, reduced the quality of consumers’ choices, or increased the price of advertising,'” Verge said.
“Even the largest social media platform in the world must follow the law and respect consumers,” New York attorney general Leticia James said in a statement. “I am proud to be leading a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general in investigating whether Facebook has stifled competition and put users at risk.”
What’s bad news for Facebook is good news for conservatives. The company has been meeting in secret with U.S. government intelligence agencies, scheming to combat disinformation in the 2020 election cycle.
That might sound like a noble goal, but such power could be used to censor conservative media outlets and tip the scales in favor of whichever lunatic the Democrats choose to run against Trump. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has already confirmed that he is hiring a team of “seasoned” journalists (code for mainstream news propagandists) to create a news feature for users during the 2020 election cycle.
At this point, trust-busting may be the only hope for conservative users who wish to use social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Google-owned YouTube, which have become the modern-day public square. Conservative activists and reporters have consistently been kicked off, demonetized, and had their traffic throttled down by the far-leftists who dominate those companies.
Unfortunately, it’s up to the federal government to act, and as we’ve seen countless times, the powerful are often unaccountable.
Peter D'Abrosca is a freelance investigative reporter, author, and conservative political commentator.
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