Steve Bannon wants Facebook, Google 'regulated like utilities' Steve Bannon, President Trump's chief policy strategist who has been dubbed "the Second Most Powerful Man in the World", wants a clampdown on Silicon Valley. Bannon reportedly wants "utility-style" regulation for the giant internet platforms, according to The Intercept. Facebook, Google and Amazon are named in the report. …
>> Fun fact: regulation of interstate commerce is handled by the federal government.
> No, it's actually Congress that has the power to regulate interstate commerce. Not the executive branch. Congress has delegated some interstate regulatory powers to the FTC. And neither Congress, nor the FTC regulate utilities.
The last time I checked the Congress is one branch of the Federal Government. So there’s that. The Congress has the power to pass laws defining a regulatory authority that lies within the limited powers of the federal government that are defined in the Constitution. The executive branch can approve or veto that law. The judiciary can interpret or overturn the law baesd on the Constitution. Once passed, a regulatory authority is established, and as the Constituion tells us, executive authority rests with the executive branch, the executive branch writes and enforces the regulations.
But you probably knew all of that. Right? No??
The OP was right, the Federal Government has the power to regulate interstate commerce.
For Google's and Facebook's fundraising and revolving door with the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton's campaign. I guess turnabout is fair play, considering that the oil and other industries get hammered by the Democrats.
If you are a big company, you have to be smart enough to triangulate somewhat, so you don't end up getting skewered if the opposition party gets into power.
"He'll be out of that circus we call the White House pretty soon."
I think I've cottoned on to Trump's plan. He's implementing Andy Warhol's everybody will be famous for 15 minutes idea. He's gradually revving up the revolving door so that the entire US population will have held a USG post for 15 minutes by the end of his term of office.
The justification for Common Carrier regulations is that it would never make sense to build two or more parallel replicas of physical structures. The "Free Market" is not dynamic enough to build a second railroad into a town when the first railroad owner could just end their overpricing as soon as the second railroad was in place. Rather than letting these common carriers have a natural monopoly we regulate them.
The left has been contending that ISPs have a natural monopoly on providing broadband service, which therefore should be regulated as a common carrier. Perhaps Mr. Bannon has forgotten that the Republican party is against this classification. I think it makes sense, but I can see this as an area of legitimate debate.
I can even construct an argument that the Internet has created a new type of natural monopoly, where the advantages of having over 50% of the market make it impossible for anyone to compete with you to ever get a larger share. The argument is that the value of the data that Amazon/Google/Facebook can gather cannot be replicated.
But whether this creates a monopoly, as opposed to an oligopoly, is still open to debate. In any case there is absolutely no rationale for protecting the ISPs from being regulated as common carriers and then regulating the Google/Facebooks as being common carriers - other tha the political parties they choose to donate to.
Mr Bannon probably doesn't give a shit about the corrupt Old-Right "Republican" swamp party and Trump probably only cares about getting their votes to pass repair legislation, like getting rid of Obama (rip-off) care.
He's probably quite fed up with the very blatant SJW bias and censorship at search and social media providers, including blocking/banning fake fake-news people and sites from accounts/results, and filtering out valid comments which disagree with their BS SJW "narrative" e.g. on the Twitter feed for Trump.
Here's a better idea...
Since Facebook, Google, Amazon, and a number of other virtual internet monopolies are behaving in a manner similar to that which led to Standard Oil Company being broken up into a number of separate and distinct corporate entities, why not do that instead of building ~yet another~ government bureaucracy that will quickly fall behind in its ability to react and respond and then be co-opted by the very entities it is tasked to regulate?
That's a very flattering picture of Bannon. He normally looks like a walking disease.
Which suggests there is some truth to the old saying that character informs features.
Possibly this also explains Trump's trademarked "sphincter" look when he is lying?*
*i.e. Whenever speaking
So absurd
Google was claimed to have a monopoly on internet ads... until Facebook came along and rapidly expanded their ads business. Now it is a duopoly... unless a third site comes on to the scene which attracts a lot of eyeballs and, therefore, advertising. Microsoft has just awful internet services and they still attract a few billion a year in revenue. How in the world can you have a monopoly or duopoly on advertising? You would need to have control over what people are able to look at.
Long ago,When consumers purchased old style,hardwired landline phones for their houses,the Bell company of which they were under within their regions,didnt mandate who you could correspond with,and whom you couldnt speak to,or tell you that because you bought a phone in one region,it couldnt be used in your region.No charges for incoming calls,or charges for people of which had called your # by mistake.Then the aura of convenience overtook common sense.Suddenly,the "norm"shifted,and now people were being forced to go with an carrier with best signsls,and on an device of which also pretty much mandates what operating system one uses,coupled with what internet browser ,and email services u utilize thats better performing to the phones OS in general..but couldnt get latest updates,nor even latest Os',even if the phone just hit the market.Suddenly,just like everything else surrounding us..consumers rights,were now privliges,and FCC was schmoozed with political lobbyist framing out the if,ands,and buts of how it should be.When we purchase a tv,we expect it to work,no matter if its going to be used for normal,over the air channels,or through a cable//satellite carrier.Apple,Google/Android,Win are not paying our pathetically high cell bills with even more insulting plans,yet have successfully manipulated services around phones being marketed like designer blingbling,with very little choices for the user in the end.Until they can provide a device of which allows users to choose any carrier,any operating system that updates on any phone,on any device,of which can be used anywhere,in any region,or any country right from the palm of our hands...then theres no theory as to having so much control,so little accountability,while giving users less rights and choices of devices of which are defined as legally obtainable&searchable by courts of law.Im not agreeing with The avenues of which Bannon is suggesting,but when u think about how long this market/field has been shoved down our throats,and to this day,the little choice we have as an consumer/user,whether its via mobile,or home neywork,and the gadzillions profitted...we javent come thst far at all.
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