Between soaring stock prices and a relatively new presidential administration stretched thin while putting out global fires, you might think Big Tech tyrants are enjoying a free pass. Has their censorship and collusion been quietly forgotten?
Perhaps not.
While consumers have clearly benefited from many Big Tech companies’ baseline goods and services, it’s evident that the companies have resorted to extralegal and unsavory measures to maintain and grow their market share.
Without the slightest fear of consequences, Silicon Valley monopolists spent years targeting dissenting voices — not just conservatives, but nearly anyone slightly out of tune with the far left. Those who refused to play along found social media accounts restricted — or even banned outright — while search engine algorithms buried websites so far down the results list that few would ever find them. This sinister practice became known as “shadow-banning.”
Ultimately, their plan to manipulate voting outcomes backfired. Despite their best efforts, Republicans swept 2024’s elections, and tech executives have conveniently made a late shift toward the GOP. Though their smiles flashed during President Trump’s inauguration were spun as a mark of a genuine change of sentiment, their real intentions were obvious: to cozy up to the new guys in power.
Luckily, despite seemingly chummy behavior, the Trump White House is going after Silicon Valley.
The Trump administration fights back
In late July, the Justice Department filed a landmark statement of interest in a case accusing mainstream media outlets of illegally colluding with social media giants to deplatform conservatives. Just two weeks before, a federal judge rejected Apple’s attempt to dismiss the Justice Department’s lawsuit against the company.
These are the latest examples of the tide turning against Big Tech. While the leaders have tried to cozy up to the Trump administration, their pleas have already fallen on deaf ears and will continue to do so.
While some are surprised by Trump’s efforts to rein in Big Tech, these moves are consistent with his philosophy.
In his first term, his Justice Department joined with 15 mostly Republican-leaning states to file an antitrust suit against Google.
Moreover, Vice President JD Vance historically has been a critic of Big Tech, even expressing support for the work of Lina Khan, President Biden’s Federal Trade Commission chair, who aggressively went after the largest offenders. Last year, Vance described Khan as “one of the few people in the Biden administration that I think is doing a pretty good job.”
Personnel is policy, and thus it’s telling that one of Vance’s former staffers, Gail Slater, now heads the Justice Department’s antitrust division.
Slater, speaking about the suit against Google earlier this year, said, “In a time of political division in our nation, the case against Google brings everyone together.
“Nothing less than the future of the internet is at stake.”
No Big Tech sympathy there.
Biden’s anti-capitalist approach
However, Biden’s and Trump’s approaches to antitrust issues have notable differences. Biden’s brigades wanted to either punish or scapegoat companies for reasons rooted in far-left economics.
In announcing the suit filed against Apple in March 2024, the Justice Department said the company’s net income “exceeds any other company in the Fortune 500 and the gross domestic products of more than 100 countries.”
Similarly, in announcing a case against Visa last year, the department cited the company’s operating income, operating margins, and network fees.
The implication is that the companies’ outsized earnings were evidence of their guilt.
The suit filed against Visa was particularly egregious. The company’s market share is only 60%, with no evidence of anti-competitive activity, and a raft of upstart competitors could lead that market share to decline.
Breitbart News reported that the suit was politically motivated (to scapegoat for Bidenflation). Biden administration officials hoped that the Southern District of New York would overlook the weak claims within the suit and proceed.
Trump’s pro-capitalist accountability
By contrast, Trump administration officials are looking to strengthen capitalism, not tear it down. “Big” should always merit skepticism, but Trump’s antitrust team knows it doesn’t always have to be bad. In the absence of unfair company practices, administration officials don’t want to interfere. They believe upholding law and order is the basis of antitrust law.
The tide is turning against Big Tech.
Thus, when a federal judge ruled in April that Google had violated antitrust law, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the Justice Department would focus on “encroachments on free speech and free markets by tech companies.”
Apple and others certainly have plenty of evidence of that!
Honesty and transparency are fundamental to free markets. But both Google and Meta have admitted to failing on both counts. In May, Google agreed to pay a fine of $1.4 billion to Texas in response to two lawsuits that accused the company of privacy violations related to tracking users’ locations and searches.
Last year, Meta also paid $1.4 billion to Texas, following allegations that it had used facial recognition software without getting users’ permission to do so.
Honesty also means not rigging the rules in your favor. But that’s exactly what Google has been charged with in several antitrust cases. The company has lost three of these cases involving its app store, search engine, and advertising technology.
In some jurisdictions, it’s three strikes before you’re out. No wonder the Trump administration didn’t amend the Biden Justice Department’s call for Google to be broken up. Given how the tech giant now operates units ranging from YouTube to a self-driving taxi company, some say the company should break itself up.
RELATED: Congress has the power to crush Big Tech’s app monopoly
Photo by Bloomberg/Getty Images
Moreover, Apple’s brazen tactics have stood out among its Big Tech brethren. Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that the company had “willfully” failed to comply with an earlier court order related to its app store. In trying to cover its tracks, the judge said Apple engaged in a “cover-up,” which included one employee lying under oath.
Justice for Americans
While consumers have clearly benefited from many Big Tech companies’ baseline goods and services, it’s evident the companies have resorted to extralegal and unsavory measures to try to maintain and grow their market share.
Their losses in the courts and their lack of support in the Trump administration are bad news for them, but great news for the American people.
Opinion & analysis, Opinion, Big tech, Big tech censorship, Apple, Meta, Google
