Ownership

After Silicon Valley internet giants mostly barred Alex Jones from their services in Aug, traffic to his Infowars website and app soared on the blaze of publicity — and the notorious conspiracy theorist declared victory. “The more I’m persecuted, the stronger I get,” Jones said on his live internet broadcast three days later. “It backfired.” Yet a review of Infowars’s traffic several weeks after the bans shows that the tech companies drastically reduced Jones’s reach by cutting off his primary distribution channels: YouTube and Facebook.

The conspiracy theory about Google’s search algorithms falls in line with others propagated by President Donald Trump (Obama’s birth certificate, the deep state, etc.) in that they are paranoid and largely fact-free, yet very hard to completely refute. Even when they are squarely refuted–as when Obama produced his birth certificate–they often live on. But since Google will never, ever, make public its search algorithm–nothing is more proprietary than that–speculation that it’s biased against conservatives will live on and on.

T-Mobile's proposed acquisition of Sprint would harm competitors and consumers, particularly in rural America, lobby groups for small carriers say. The Rural Wireless Association (RWA), NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association, and other groups filed petitions urging the Federal Communications Commission to block the T-Mobile/Sprint merger this week. "Removing Sprint from the equation through further industry consolidation will result in less competition which will drive prices higher for consumers, and would be decidedly contrary to the public interest," the RWA said.

Sen Orrin Hatch (R-UT) sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joseph Simons, expressing concerns about the competitive effects of Google’s conduct in search and digital advertising. This letter cites a number of antitrust complaints and reports, and urges the Chairman to consider potential anti-competitive developments since the last investigation in 2013. “I write to urge the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to reconsider the competitive effects of Google’s conduct in search and digital advertising.

One of the key ingredients in Ron DeSantis’ victory in the Florida GOP governor’s race turned out to be makeup. The once little-known congressman spent so much time broadcasting Fox News TV hits from Washington in 2018 that he learned to apply his own powder so he could look as polished as he sounded. In his primary election campaign against Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, DeSantis’ cultivation of his Fox relationship made all the difference.

Google does feature work by traditional media organizations more than insurgent conservative outlets. Of course, Google’s ability to divine “quality” as distinct from “popularity” is limited. Search-ranking technology relies on the implicit votes of readers, with all the human biases that come bundled with them. Google, for its part, categorically rejected the claim that it tinkered with search results for political reasons. “When users type queries into the Google Search bar, our goal is to make sure they receive the most relevant answers in a matter of seconds.

Former White House Chief Strategist Steven Bannon recently discussed President Donald Trump's rhetoric toward Big Tech. 

Antitrust restrictions placed on Comcast after its takeover of NBCUniversal are due to expire in a few days. But that doesn’t mean the Justice Department is done scrutinizing the company. The department’s antitrust division wrote a letter Aug 14 to Comcast warning that it would continue to monitor developments in how the company handles TV programming and distribution. It also asked for notice by Aug 29 of any changes that the cable giant plans to make when the decree runs out on Sept 1. Comcast’s acquisition of NBC won the approval of regulators more than seven years ago.