No wonder the recent wave of deplatformings has suddenly come to an abrupt halt:
The U.S. Department of Justice opened a sweeping antitrust investigation of major technology companies and whether their online platforms have hurt competition, suppressed innovation or otherwise harmed consumers.
It said the probe will take into account “widespread concerns” about social media, search engines and online retail services. Its antitrust division is seeking information from the public, including those in the tech industry.
“Without the discipline of meaningful market-based competition, digital platforms may act in ways that are not responsive to consumer demands,” Makan Delrahim, the department’s chief antitrust officer, said in a statement. “The Department’s antitrust review will explore these important issues.”
The terse but momentous announcement follows months of concern in Congress and elsewhere over the sway of firms like Google, Facebook and Amazon. Lawmakers and Democratic presidential candidates have called for stricter regulation or even breakups of the big tech companies , which have drawn intense scrutiny following a series of scandals that compromised users’ privacy.
But if they’re left alone, or merely let off with a strict finger-wagging warning, they’ll double down on the deplatformings. Because that’s what converged organizations do.
The key thing is not letting them play it both ways on the publisher/not-publisher front. If they control content, then they must be liable for it. Only if they are completely content-neutral should they escape being held liable for it.