During the past century or so many countries have passed and enforced so-called anti-trust laws, anti-monopoly laws, anti-cartel laws, and all kinds of similar preventive measures against companies becoming too big and gaining a market monopoly (or for a small group of companies colluding and effectively becoming a joint monopoly). There have actually been cases where the government has forcefully split a giant corporation into several smaller independent ones.
Someone who believes in private rights and freedoms above everything else, and who does not hate capitalism, might think that this kind of governmental meddling is completely antithetical to the rights of people to own private property (which is what these corporations are) and to manage them however they wish. A government forcefully dissolving a company, essentially destroying it, and splitting it into smaller independent companies, may feel like the actions of a tyrannical oppressive government set on keeping citizens under its heel and not letting them become too rich and powerful.
While there's some merit to that thought, there is, however, a much better reason why such laws and such radical actions are actually needed to ensure a free constitutional society. If a company, or a small group of colluding companies, become too big and too powerful, so big that they control pretty much everything, that company will start sooner or later to abuse its power, to kill the competition, and to exploit the citizens.
There's no better example of this than the recent action that Amazon Web Services took with regards to Parler, an online service which was growing really fast and competing with Twitter, while being a lot more free and open than the latter: With little to no warning, Amazon just removed Parler from the internet.
That's it. Effectively the press of a button, and an online service actively used by millions of people completely disappeared from the internet. *Poof.* Gone. Just like that. It simply ceased to exist.
One company decided to remove a competitor from the internet, and in one fell swoop... bang! It's gone. Absolutely nothing left of it. Millions of users worldwide were suddenly unable to use this service anymore, and all of their content was gone, overnight, just like that.
One company should not have this kind of power. One company should not have the power to remove another company from the internet and effectively destroy it, at the click of a button.
This is a scary amount of power. No singular company should hold this much power over other companies and over millions of people. No singular company should have the power to just one day decide to remove a company alongside the content of millions of people off the face of the Earth just like that.
Even governments cannot do that. A government in a free democratic constitutional society cannot just press a button and have a company disappear from the internet just like that. A government is bound by laws and needs a court order, which usually takes time, and even then there are limits. The affected company should have the right to defend itself.
But the fact is: Current giant tech megacorporations do have this much power, they are not bound by any laws or limitations, and even governments cannot do anything to them. Ironically, the government cannot censor the megacorporations, but the megacorporations can censor the government. And other companies, and millions and millions of people.
And do you know what the scariest thing about this is? The fact that the vast majority of the mainstream media is on the side of Amazon. They are cheering this act of oppression, censorship and corporate tyranny. They are cheering the erosion of the freedom of speech of millions of people. The mainstream media, rather than heavily criticize this kind of tyranny, are celebrating it, and wanting more of it.
Sadly, they don't understand that when they give too much power to a singular entity like this, there's no guarantee that they will be safe from it. There's no telling when the small oligarchy of giant tech megacorporations decide that it's them who have to disappear from the internet and thus effectively from existence. There's no guarantee that these megacorporations won't start abusing their power to exploit people and other companies, very much including these news organizations.
If this goes for long enough, what stops a giant megacorporation from extorting these exact same news organizations? "Bury this story about our CEO, or you'll disappear from the internet." "Write this hit piece that we prepared about this competitor company of ours, or you'll disappear from the internet." "Pay us this and this amount of money for the right to remain online. If not, you have one week to pack your things because you are going to disappear."
Welcome to the future. Enjoy your freedom of speech, what's left of it, as long as it lasts. It's not going to last long.
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