Briefly Noted: When Corporations Are Big Brother

Michael Snyder has a nice piece that's been republished at Zerohedge:  When Corporations Become More Powerful Than The Government, Our Definition Of "Big Brother" Needs To Change. He's working off a op-ed at Newsweek by Orin Hatch, Reining in the Techno-Oligarchy. Both are worth looking at, if only to solidify your perspective on the state of the public square. While neither Snyder nor Hatch quite explicitly state that Big Business is pushing a specific ideology, it's implicit in the singling out of conservative voices for canceling. Thus, when Big Business becomes Big Brother what happens is that they acquire the power to advance a well defined ideological agenda, but without the nuisance of having to be elected.

The problem is that most politicians see no incentive to rein in our corporate overlords. On the Left, politicians and big business are ideological allies. On the right, in order to get elected it's easier to scramble for crumbs under the corporate table than to spend most waking hours grubbing for small donor contributions. The politicians are owned by big business and, for most, it's a relationship that works. For them--not for America, and not for We The People with opinions, in particular.

Here's a brief excerpt from Snyder, which includes a quote from Hatch as well:

Here in the United States, the federal government still has a monopoly on power in areas such as border security, national defense and foreign policy.

But when it comes to the things that matter the most in the day to day lives of most Americans, it could be argued that the giant corporations have now become more powerful than the federal government.

...

Over time, it has become increasingly difficult for any American to become truly independent of the corporate system.  Even if you own a small business or you work for yourself, there is a good chance that you depend on the big corporations in many ways.

If you doubt this, just try to “go it on your own” without ever using any corporate products, without ever dealing with a big tech company, and without ever bringing in any income from any corporate source whatsoever.

...

Beyond that, now many large corporations have decided that there are certain beliefs, opinions and values that their employees are not permitted to have.

By now, you have probably heard that a certain actress was fired by Disney for having opinions that were not acceptable.  That was a very high profile case, but the truth is that this sort of thing is constantly happening all over the country at this point.

As we move into the future, being guilty of “thought crime” is going to eliminate large blocks of people from ever having certain types of jobs.  If you do not pledge fealty to the current version of political correctness, you simply will not be permitted to hold a prominent position in society.

If your beliefs are considered to be “offensive”, you may get to mop the floors for the elite if you are lucky.

Anecdotally, from acquaintances who are familiar with the corporate world, this is very much the case. And, as commenter aNanyMouse has been pointing out today, there's no need to go looking for trouble on the job--the human resources people will come looking for you, to make sure you're not guilty of WrongThink.  And, of course, under the guise of diversity training, this is also very much true in all government employment. Snyder is not exaggerating when he says the conservatives will be lucky to obtain simply menial employment.

 

Even when you are at home, the elite want to endlessly monitor and control what you do, say and think.  The primary way that they do this is through the Internet, and in recent months they have tightened their control considerably.  The following comes from an opinion piece that was just authored by former U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch…

Consider the events of the last month. Social media sites banned the sitting president of the United States from their platforms. A purge of conservative voices on Twitter ensued. Amazon Web Services expunged Parler, a conservative social media site, from the internet. Just days later, YouTube blocked public access to a Senate hearing on COVID-19.

These events confirmed what many of us have long known: true political power no longer resides in Washington, but in Silicon Valley. Big Tech now effectively decides who has the right to speak, who has the right to assemble online and who has the ability to build a business in the digital age. For many Americans, Twitter’s terms of service agreement now has more power over what they can and cannot say in the public square than the First Amendment does.

In the old days, Americans could go to the public square and say anything that they want.

But now the big tech companies are the public square.

Freedom of speech is a thing of the past on the Internet, and more voices are being “deplatformed” with each passing day.

Orin Hatch's solution is, from a legal and constitutional perspective, rather vague. His idea is to require private companies to conform to the First Amendment, but the whole point of the First Amendment is that it only applies to government:

If these companies want to base their business models on providing digital access to the public square, then they should have to abide by the well-established standards regulating free speech in the public square. Insofar as they conform to First Amendment standards in their terms of service, these companies should continue to enjoy immunity from civil liability under a revised section 230. But if they want to go beyond the First Amendment and prohibit forms of speech protected by the First Amendment, they should be liable just like any publisher who engages in content moderation (which is really content discrimination).

I'm sure there are ways to accomplish this. The big problem is getting the politicians to actually act and, as was already stated, it will be a tough job to get a sufficient number interested in reform. This is, perhaps, an area that could call for a constitutional amendment.