Are the tech monopolies a threat to our freedom?

Ned Ryun writes in American Greatness,

...what has been called “advertising” through the tech companies is really just highly targeted customer acquisition. That isn’t advertising at all. It’s building long-term assets for a company.

...what has been called “advertising” through the tech companies is really just highly targeted customer acquisition. That isn’t advertising at all. It’s building long-term assets for a company.

The tech monopolies are a very real and present threat to our freedom. It cannot be stated strongly enough: if the tech monopolies are left in their current form, our republic and our freedoms are over. Anything and everything that will break their power, including antitrust suits, should be pursued.

But remember, it wasn’t something sexy that brought down Al Capone, one of the most notorious gangsters in our history. It was tax violations. The same approach could be used with the tech companies: all Steve Mnuchin must do is issue a Treasury edict that makes this issue of building intangible assets a Tier 1 audit issue, which means every auditor must look at advertising expenses not as deductions, but as long term capital assets.

These tech monopolies were allowed to come into existence because of gray areas and advantages created in law and tax regulations. Only law and regulation can bring them to heel.

Read more here.

Break up the monopolies!

Peter Hasson has a huge exclusive today at The Daily Caller.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is assisting YouTube in policing content on their platform, The Daily Caller has learned.

The left-wing nonprofit — which has more recently come under fire for labeling legitimate conservative organizations as “hate groups” — is one of the more than 100 nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and government agencies in YouTube’s “Trusted Flaggers” program, a source with knowledge of the arrangement told TheDC.

...The SPLC’s close involvement in policing content on YouTube is likely to cause consternation among conservatives who worry that they may not be treated fairly. The left-wing group has consistently labeled pedestrian conservative organizations as “hate groups” and has been directly tied to violence against conservatives in the past. Floyd Lee Corkins, who opened fire at the Family Research Center in 2012, said he chose the FRC for his act of violence because the SPLC listed them as a “hate group.”

...The overwhelming majority of the content policing on Google and YouTube is carried out by algorithms. The algorithms make for an easy rebuttal against charges of political bias: it’s not us, it’s the algorithm. But actual people with actual biases write, test and monitor the algorithms.

As noted above, Google’s anonymous outside partners (such as the SPLC) work closely with the internal experts designing the algorithms. This close collaboration has upsides, Google’s representatives have said, such as in combatting terrorist propaganda on the platform.

But it also provides little transparency, forcing users to take Google’s word that they’re being treated fairly.

The SPLC has faced criticism for its cavalier definitions of “hate group” and “extremist.” The organization stoked controversy in 2015 by labeling Dr. Ben Carson, now the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), an anti-gay “extremist.” After a backlash, the SPLC reversed its ruling and apologized to Carson.

...The organization faced a similarly intense backlash in 2016 for labeling Maajid Nawaz, a respected counter-extremism activist, an “anti-Muslim extremist.” (RELATED: SPLC Says Army Bases Are Confederate Monuments That Need To Come Down)

The Washington Examiner’s Emily Jashinsky noted last year that “the SPLC’s claim to objectivity is nothing less than fraudulent, a reality that informed observers of its practices from both the Left and Right accept.”

Read more here.