President Trump’s VP pick J.D. Vance supports Big Tech crackdown
Former President Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate, Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio)
Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick J.D. Vance supports using antitrust laws to challenge Big Tech, especially in regard to curbing online censorship of conservatives (i.e. Twitter prior to Elon Musk’s purchase of the social network now called X).
Vance, a Republican U.S. senator from Ohio, joined the presidential ticket on Monday at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where Trump officially became the party’s nominee.
Scrutiny of Big Tech would not be a departure for Trump. The FTC and Department of Justice under Trump initiated investigations into Meta, Amazon, Apple, and Google [Alphabet] over alleged antitrust violations. All four companies were eventually sued, and have denied wrongdoing.
Vance is a Yale-educated lawyer and venture capitalist who worked at corporate law firm Sidley Austin and has helped Trump fundraise in Silicon Valley. He has also called for the breakup of one of its biggest companies.
“Long overdue, but it’s time to break Google up,” Vance tweeted in February, lamenting that “monopolistic control of information in our society resides with an explicitly progressive technology company.”
Vance said at the February event… “I want people to live good lives in our country… I don’t really care if the entity that is most threatening to that vision is a private entity or a public entity.”
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MacDailyNews Take: As we write back in February 2021:
Google/Facebook is a duopoly. A breakup of Google’s and Facebook’s ad businesses would be welcome. In fact, even as we attempt to move away from the ad-supported model, we back whatever remedy or remedies will introduce competition back into the online advertising business, which is broken, in part, because far too much power is concentrated with Google/Facebook. This situation is exactly why antitrust laws exist.
Imagine if your livelihood depended on one company that had not only monopolized web search (and, thereby, basically controlled how new customers find you), but also controlled the bulk of online advertising dollars which funded your business and which they could pull, simply threaten to pull, or reduce rates at any time? Now also imagine if you believe this monopolist basically stole the product of another company that is the very subject of your business? How much would you criticize the monopolist thief’s business practices?
You might guess that it would be a tough road to walk. (We’re only imagining, of course!)
That would be a good example of why monopolies are bad for everyone…
In the meantime, stop using Google search and Google products wherever possible. Monopolies are bad for everyone. — MacDailyNews, July 14, 2016
If you haven’t already, give DuckDuckGo a try! https://duckduckgo.com
With this unprecedented power, platforms have the ability to redirect into their pockets the advertising dollars that once went to newspapers and magazines. No one company should have the power to pick and choose which content reaches consumers and which doesn’t. — MacDailyNews, November 9, 2017
We’d like to see real competition in the online search and advertising markets restored someday. — MacDailyNews, March 20, 2019
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