With constant encroachments on our liberty and privacy for security and persistent prosecutorial misconduct, concerns about a coming police state are quite valid. However, the greater growing threat is the tech state because it’s incremental, stealthy, and it’s already here! High tech has produced many wonderful conveniences and innovations, but totally dominated by a few monopolies high tech has garnered almost unlimited power to place whatever limits it likes on its customers.
Amazon, Google, and Facebook have become so dominant in their spheres they are virtually insusceptible to any competition; or more plainly they have crushed their competitors and almost eliminated competition in the market place. These high tech leviathans already pretty much control what the vast majority of Americans buy, hear, and see, but the real danger is they also want to control what we think.
It sounds ominous and it is, but it all starts quite innocently. Amazon just wants to sell stuff, Google just wants to provide information, and Facebook just wants to facilitate social interactions. Those aren’t bad things until they become the sole providers. They don’t seek a majority market share; they want absolute market domination. With such gargantuan monopolies, the people eventually have no choices and no escape.
There is an old tale on how to trap wild hogs. Dump some feed in the forest and at first the pigs won’t come near, but leave it there for the taking and eventually the pigs will eat it. Put a fence around the feed and the pigs will again avoid the feed until they sense no danger. Once they start feeding again, install a gate and again the pigs will stay away for a time, but the lure of the feed will eventually bring them back. Then close the gate and the pigs are trapped.
We are being trapped. Amazon’s gate is still open. Google’s gate is closing. And Facebook’s gate may already be shut. Amazon sells anything, but not everything yet. Trying to avoid Google email and search engines is almost impossible. And Facebook is almost the only choice for social media (sorry, Twitter is for sharing information, not social interaction). For now, you can leave, but you have nowhere to go.
Admittedly, the products and services are basically good, but the pernicious problem is we do not realize how much we are being manipulated. Amazon is gathering your data by even placing a spy called in Alexa in your house to listen and record you. They will use your data to entice you into purchasing your every whim. Google controls what information you can find; conservative sources are extremely difficult to find. Facebook stipulates what you can say and share deciding what is fake or offensive; your opinions have no weight.
The co-founder of Facebook, Chris Hughes, recently penned an impassioned plea for the government to break up Facebook like other monopolies before it. Having become entirely too massive, Hughes rightfully recognized such unrestrained concentration of power is very dangerous to free speech and our liberties in general. Facebook is unregulated and Mark Zuckerberg answers to no one but himself. Some 2.7 BILLION people use Facebook to communicate and one man is sole arbiter of what they are allowed to say to each other!
This is highly problematic for several reasons. Such an awesome concentration of power should never reside in one company or individual; even governments should not have such authority – hence the vital importance of the First Amendment. That’s a real dilemma because Facebook is a private company and should have the right to moderate its content, but the customers are there voluntarily, for now.
This is where Hughes’ call to reign in Facebook may fall on deaf government ears. Our increasingly progressive government particularly the bureaucracy envies Facebook and Google. We the people love freedom of speech, but our government does not. Leftists saturating our governments are quite content to let high tech companies censor Americans and mold their thoughts if they cannot. As long as high tech exercises their tyranny to benefit leftist causes, governments have little incentive to intervene.
Perhaps this tyranny still seems remote, but we are closer than you think. Google overwhelming favors leftist opinions pointing your searches to almost all liberal sources; soon conservative opinions will be virtually unseen by average Americans. Facebook suppresses or hides conservative opinions and aggressively promotes liberal opinions. Already on Facebook and Google, it appears conservatives are a minuscule remote minority when in fact more Americans still identify as “conservative” than “liberal.”
Hughes is right. All these high tech monster monopolies must be shattered to preserve our liberty, so the people must start clamoring for action. But governments move slowly if at all. We the people must start walking away where we can. In the world of high tech it is nearly imperceptible, but we are already paying with our personal information, privacy, and time. And soon the price will be our liberty.
“Then a herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up.” Daniel 3:4-5
