Google hit with two antitrust lawsuits in less than 24 hours

Cal Jeffrey

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Staff member
What just happened? Google is the focus of two antitrust lawsuits filed in the last 24 hours and the third in three months. Both Colorado and Texas are leading multistate coalitions against the tech giant in separate but similar filings.

On Thursday, Colorado's Attorney General Phil Weiser announced he is leading a multistate effort to "end Google's monopoly" in the internet search sector. Weiser and 38 other state attorneys general claim that Google has illegally maintained a monopolistic hold and has erected "insurmountable barriers" to keep competitors out of the market. According to the court filing, the search giant's actions have violated section 2 of the Sherman Act.

"Our economy is more concentrated than ever, and consumers are squeezed when they are deprived of choices in valued products and services. Google's anticompetitive actions have protected its general search monopolies and excluded rivals, depriving consumers of the benefits of competitive choices, forestalling innovation, and undermining new entry or expansion," said Weiser in a statement. "This lawsuit seeks to restore competition."

Colorado's antitrust lawsuit is the third filed this year and the second in less than 24 hours. On Wednesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a video tweet announcing his office is leading a multistate coalition against the "Internet Goliath" for similar reasons. Paxton alleges that the company has practiced "anticompetitive conduct, exclusionary practices, and deceptive misrepresentations."

Additionally, in October, the Department of Justice leveled its sights on the tech titan in a lawsuit alleging it has engaged in anticompetitive practices to protect monopolies in the general search and search advertising industries. The DoJ claims that Google has maintained a stranglehold on the search industry over the last ten years, owning a solid 80 percent of the market across all platforms since at least January 2010.

Google has not yet commented on any of the allegations.

Image credit: Ascannio

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The governments of the world may take turns poking at the Social Medias, but ultimately they have already lost and will continue to lose.

The people themselves have made the social medias what they are and as long as WE patronize them, the lackluster representatives are ill-equipped to fight them.
 
Texas is one of the last states I'd expect this to come out of
Why? Can't tell if this is sarcasm or not but Texas is the first state I'd expect this to come from. Politically, it's a conservative majority state and Social Media and big Tech in general have been censoring conservative speech and anything that would benefit conservatives these last couple of years.
 
Why? Can't tell if this is sarcasm or not but Texas is the first state I'd expect this to come from. Politically, it's a conservative majority state and Social Media and big Tech in general have been censoring conservative speech and anything that would benefit conservatives these last couple of years.

That's incorrect. Studies have routinely shown that social media brands do not censor conservatives: https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/10/t...in-that-facebook-doesnt-censor-conservatives/
 
That's incorrect. Studies have routinely shown that social media brands do not censor conservatives: https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/10/t...in-that-facebook-doesnt-censor-conservatives/
No study shows any such thing, which you would know if you read more of a story than the headline. The "proof" cited in your link claims that, because a conservative commentator named Dan Bongino received more than 30,000 shares on a post about BLM, while the "leading liberal post" on the same subject was shared only a quarter as many times, that this proves conservatives aren't being censored. This is so absurd that I hesitate to even call it a chain of reasoning: it embodies at least two of the classic logical fallacies in reaching its conclusion.

Hard factual cases of conservative viewpoints being censored would overflow the posting buffer for this site. I'll give just one: the NY Post series of stories on Hunter Biden emails, which were banned from Twitter and Facebook alike, first for being "sourced by hacking" (they weren't), then because they "contained personal information", and then finally, because they were "factually inaccurate" (they weren't).
 
No study shows any such thing, which you would know if you read more of a story than the headline. The "proof" cited in your link claims that, because a conservative commentator named Dan Bongino received more than 30,000 shares on a post about BLM, while the "leading liberal post" on the same subject was shared only a quarter as many times, that this proves conservatives aren't being censored. This is so absurd that I hesitate to even call it a chain of reasoning: it embodies at least two of the classic logical fallacies in reaching its conclusion.

Hard factual cases of conservative viewpoints being censored would overflow the posting buffer for this site. I'll give just one: the NY Post series of stories on Hunter Biden emails, which were banned from Twitter and Facebook alike, first for being "sourced by hacking" (they weren't), then because they "contained personal information", and then finally, because they were "factually inaccurate" (they weren't).
They DID contain personal information that wasn't curated (including personal photos) so that's why some Twitter and Facebook posts were not allowed. As for the media not covering it as much, it was just fluff that nobody wanted to get behind because it was sketchy as hell. (and it turned out to be nothing illegal)

I personally think that it's fine to remove posts that are intentionally misleading from people in power like Trump as it can lead to some very dangerous situations. He's spread more lies and misinformation than anything any dictator has ever done so far. I don't get why he and his followers think Twitter should stay silent on such things.
 
They DID contain personal information that wasn't curated (including personal photos)
Yes, personal photos of Hunter Biden passed out on a couch, crack-pipe in hand. But even tweets that contained no such information were still censored, and furthermore, there are literally millions of cases of Twitter not enforcing this "rule" when conservatives are the target.

You're also ignoring Twitter's original excuse for the censorship, that the material was "obtained through hacking". Not only was this false, but again countless examples abound of stories sourced from hacked or illegally obtained material freely allowed to circulate on Twitter, as long as it's derogatory towards conservatives.

As for your ludicrous statement that it was "dodgy as hell", the NY Post's information had been confirmed by the FBI, documentary evidence, as well as multiple sources under oath, including one of Biden's own business partners. And now-- with the election safely over-- the entire media is now reporting what Twitter censored as "untrue".
 
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