TAKALA: Think Google Controls The News? It’s Worse Than You Think, Experts Say
“Despite some instances of publications refusing to target ‘Big Tech,’ many more benefit significantly from attacking these platforms because of the popular anxiety about them,” said Jeff Westling, a technology fellow at the nonprofit R Street Institute in Washington, D.C.
“We have seen numerous stories critical of big tech for their content moderation decisions and potential conservative bias,” Westling said, pointing to instances where the New York Times and Washington Post published stories that argued Facebook, Twitter and Google’s subsidiary YouTube didn’t do enough to control online speech, and that Facebook treated its employees poorly.
Westling suggested the companies have latitude to set their own policies under antitrust law, but that they have an incentive to behave even without a mandate. “Even if existing law doesn’t prohibit such a practice, verifiable retaliatory action would likely spur congressional action on the subject, which the platforms are desperately trying to avoid.”
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