The Heartland Institute

BIG-TECH DEFENDERS VASTLY UNDERESTIMATE ITS POWER RELATIVE TO GOVERNMENT’S

JUNE 22, 2021

By Scott Cleland

Big-Tech is much more powerful than its defenders assume.

THE HEARTLAND INSTITUTE https://www.heartland.org/news-opinion/news/why-the-internet-is-industrial-policy-not-free-market

WHY THE INTERNET IS INDUSTRIAL POLICY NOT FREE MARKET

MAY 25, 2021

By Scott Cleland

CLELAND: The Achilles Heel Of Big Tech’s Cancel Power | The Daily Caller

DAILY CALLER  OPINION SCOTT CLELAND |CONTRIBUTOR|May 17, 20211:04 PM ET

CLELAND: The Achilles Heel of Big Tech’s Cancel Power

Big Tech’s unchecked.

If the four CEOs of Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon collectively could cancel online a sitting Republican U.S. president and his political allies with impunity in January, what checks them from collectively cancelling tens of millions of Republicans again?

What checks Big Tech from using their Section 230 impunity in the 2022 midterm elections and collectively canceling many Republican Senate and House candidates, their political allies and online followers that express broadly held Republican views that Big Tech deems objectionable?

It is in the raw political interests of the government’s incumbent party and unchecked Big Tech to collectively cancel the opposition party online to retain control of their levers of power long term.

Do any checks stand in the way of “The Collective Cancel” political precedent becoming practice?

^{https://dailycaller.com/2021/04/23/cleland-why-repeal-not-reform-section-230/}

^{DAILY CALLER}

CLELAND: Why Repeal Not Reform Section 230?

SCOTT CLELAND -- CONTRIBUTOR -- April 23, 2021 10:20 AM ET

Repeal of Section 230’s 1996 lawless Wild West Internet policy is inevitable because it is based on an immoral premise and has inflicted severe damage to America’s constitutional liberties, national security and economic prosperity.

Repeal vs. Reform

Repeal of Section 230 would serve America and Americans much better than reforms that perpetuate lawless U.S. Internet policy and guarantee Big Tech remains unaccountable and Americans remain unprotected online.

Repeal would affect a major national policy change, while reform incrementalism would preserve the online status quo.

Repeal would be a comprehensive and constitutional solution, while content moderation reforms are piecemeal solutions that carry constitutional risks.

Repeal would empower 2022 and 2024 voters with a national policy conversation that asks candidates if and how they are going to ensure Big Tech is accountable and Americans are protected online?

DAILY CALLER  OPINION  CLELAND: Cancel Section 230’s Cancel Powers | The Daily Caller

CLELAND: Cancel Section 230’s Cancel Powers

SCOTT CLELAND CONTRIBUTOR    April 17, 20214:07 PM ET

Section 230 warrants repeal because it created, and empowers, two different types of problematic power-without-accountability to customers, competition, government or the courts.

“The court of public opinion” is not a court of law.

“The truth” is not sufficient in a court of law like it is in the court of public opinion. In a court of law, the well-known legal “truth” standard and oath is telling “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”   

https://dailycaller.com/2020/10/19/cleland-the-internet-imperative-is-protect-people-by-restoring-a-duty-of-care/

DAILY CALLER

The Internet Imperative Is Protect People by Restoring A Duty-of-Care

SCOTT CLELAND CONTRIBUTOR                                                                      October 19, 2020 11:39 AM ET

How can American Internet law protect platforms from people but not protect people from platforms?

https://dailycaller.com/2020/10/08/cleland-discovering-googles-rule-of-scofflaw/

DAILY CALLER OPINION

Discovering Google’s Rule of Scofflaw

SCOTT CLELAND CONTRIBUTOR -- October 08, 20203:04 PM ET

Google has a discovery double standard.

Google treats the discovery of others’ information the way they don’t want discovery of their information treated, the opposite of the Golden Rule.

The evidence shows Google expects everyone else’s private or proprietary information to be publicly accessible and useful, except Google’s.

Google knows information is power.

Google and antitrust authorities also know asymmetric information advantages can create, maintain and extend market power.

This is a timely and relevant concern as the two biggest legal cases that Google has ever faced are coming to a head in public, at nearly the same time.

On October 7, the Supreme Court heard the final Oracle v. Google arguments.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/09/29/cleland-rebalancing-the-internet-imbalance-of-a-25-year-utopian-policy-experiment/

DAILY CALLER

Rebalancing the Internet Imbalance of a 25-Year Utopian Policy Experiment

SCOTT CLELAND CONTRIBUTOR                                                        September 29, 2020 11:38 AM ET

The Internet is now less a technological revolution and more of an unravelling, 25-year-old utopian policy experiment of freedom-without-responsibility.

There is no question that the Internet’s many technological innovations have been a phenomenal success given that everyone everywhere conducts everything over the Internet.

However, the Internet has also been a 25-year utopian policy experiment, and many of the Internet’s foundational utopian premises – i.e., a borderless, permissionless commons, open to everything and everyone, with no central or sovereign authority — have been unravelling or have largely collapsed.

In the 1990’s, the nascent Internet was viewed as a separate, virtual global dimension, ripe for utopian exceptions and experimentation.