As It Happens. . .

(As It Happens. . .)

September 17th, 1787, the U.S. Constitution was approved. That day in Philadelphia produced a Document that, as Bemjamin Franklin would put it, produced a "Republic," if it could be kept. What followed were the first Ten Amendments that became known as the Bill Rights, The First Amendment basically allowed for the almost un-fettered freedom of expression. The purist form of such expression would be the national media, where it had been newspapers and other periodicals, exploded in recent years with television and social media. Especially in the latter case, there has been increase in the number of platforms that invariably, politics gets involved.

There are liberal sites and conservative sites. Each promotes an ideological narrative. And, there are very large sites, Amazon, Bing, Google, and "X" to name a few. All have main uses, Bing, Google, Meta (Facebook), and X are the main "search" engines. Previously, if one wanted to know something, he or she could look in an encyclopedia or so on. Online resources would be much more efficient.

That being said, Google, for its part, is seen by some in government as being too large. That it has all but a monopoly for search results. Never mind that other platforms are also being utilized, Google is being is being singled out, here and in Europe. The company is being fined and, like Standard Oil or Ma Bell, or Microsoft in the 1990's and the dominant Windows operating system, the dismembering of Google is being considered.

What of freedom of expression as guaranteed by the First Amendment ? If Google, or Microsoft or Ma Bell or even Standard Oil got so big, would not market forces keep prices in check ? Government action is derived from what is called the Sherman Anti-Trust Act from all the way back to 1890. That dates the law and Sherman should have little contemporary application. That has never been an objection for bureaucrats at the Federal Trade Commission. This agency is one that has reserved authority to act against what they consider as worthy of a lawsuit. Microsoft had to spend so much in legal fees that it was not able to innovate.

The bottom line is the availability of speech. The dissemination of information. The answer has always been more information, not less. Google and all the other platforms should be able to operate without the concern that some Sherman anti-Trust weenie will place them in crosshairs. A counter is the prevention of so-called misinformation. That is still information.