Big Tech Has Some Invoices for Joe Biden
The presidential election of 2020 may have had more moving parts than any other in the history of the United States. There was the baggage from 2016. There was the ever-present potential for fraud with mail-in ballots. There was the Chinese Bat Flu. There was the complete abdication of journalistic responsibility by the mainstream media. One factor that is becoming more and more apparent is the role Big Tech played in placing a heavy thumb on the scale to help Joe Biden.
My colleague Victoria Taft wrote last week that Google’s machinations alone may have been worth 6 million votes for The Masked Groper. Add to that the full-scale suppression by social media giants Twitter and Facebook of the damaging news about Hunter Biden in October and Big Tech may have influenced this election as much, if not more, than the stupid pandemic.
That kind of help isn’t given to politicians by corporations and industries with out asking for something in return. Usually a lot of something. Get ready for the multi-headed Big Tech monster to show up in Washington with a heavy list of demands for Biden’s puppeteers if he makes it to Inauguration Day.
Google is crafting plans to convince the incoming Biden administration to allow it to continue its growing monopoly over the internet.
The company, facing an antitrust suit from the Department of Justice and heightened public opposition to its power, will conduct an aggressive campaign on the Biden administration, including deploying an army of lobbyists paid millions of dollars and mobilizing tech insiders within the administration.
Google will find it far easier to influence the Biden administration than the Trump administration. While the Trump administration pursued a policy of toughness against Google, including filing the antitrust suit accusing the company of unlawfully maintaining monopolies in search and search advertising, Biden will surely be friendlier to the company’s monolithic power, as he spent his eight years in an administration entirely deferential to Big Tech.
Leaving Twitter and Facebook out of the conversation for the moment, just ponder the idea of Google becoming even more powerful. The Democrats spent the last four years caterwauling about Russian influence on our elections. It never happened, but we were all supposed to be oh-so-concerned.
The Google influence most definitely did happen. While Google may not be a foreign agent, undue influence on American elections from any source is something to be feared. The American electorate is only truly empowered when it is adequately informed of the stakes. Big Tech has enormous control over what the public does and does not see when it comes to information. Google is far and away the most powerful company in the mix.
Google won’t be showing up unprepared. The company has already been practicing overseas:
Last month, we saw a hint of how Google will attempt to influence the Biden administration through a leaked internal company document. The embarrassing memo, first reported by French magazine Le Point, reveals a company that systematically and methodically uses its enormous power to convince governments to carry out its orders.
Titled “DSA 60-Day Plan Update,” the document lays out a detailed plan to combat the Digital Services Act, proposed European Union legislation designed to give competitors a fair chance against companies like Google and Facebook and overhaul content moderation. This could include prohibiting Google from featuring its own travel services first and supervising the pre-installation of smartphone apps.
The leaked document includes plans to flip key lawmakers to the company’s side, “mobilize” agreeable lawmakers, and conduct a massive public relations campaign. And in a move outside the bounds of traditional lobbying and big-business pressure, the document also reveals plans to utilize embassies and agencies of the U.S. government to pressure the Europeans.
The document goes so far as to strategize utilizing individual lawmakers. For example, Google planned in its document to meet with Luxembourg Minister of the Economy Franz Fayot the week of October 5. On October 19, Fayot gave an interview to the magazine Paperjam in which he said the “entire government” of Luxembourg supported a proposed Google data center in the country.
Not creepy at all!
The Democrats — some, anyway — are finally beginning to admit to themselves that they are now a coastal bubble party that has little, if anything, to do with flyover country anymore. They will no doubt be more than willing to bundle up in bed and get even cozier with big intra-bubble supporters.
The power that Google wields with its ability to control information in a thoroughly biased way is worth far more than any money the company could offer to politicians. It has plenty of that too though, which makes this potential scenario all the more frightening.
We will no doubt soon be longing for the relatively halcyon days of undue political influence when Big Labor was our main worry when it came to the Dems. That lobby hasn’t gone anywhere (see: California) but it is rapidly being replaced by players with power we couldn’t have imagined even a decade ago.
Off to figure out my future with my Android phone.
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PJ Media Senior Columnist and Associate Editor Stephen Kruiser is the author of “Don’t Let the Hippies Shower” and “Straight Outta Feelings: Political Zen in the Age of Outrage,” both of which address serious subjects in a humorous way. Monday through Friday he edits PJ Media’s “Morning Briefing.” His columns appear twice a week.
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