The Wall Street Journal Kisses Big Telecom's Ass In Whiny Screed About 'Big Tech'

from the bad-faith-bullshit dept

Apparently, when you write about major tech policy for the Wall Street Journal, you don't have to have the slightest idea what you're talking about. Take, for example, this bizarre piece by Allysia Finley dubbed "Net Neutrality and Big Tech’s Speech Hypocrisy." Finley and the WSJ editorial board were apparently excited to paint "big tech" companies as hypocrites for supporting net neutrality, while (gasp) opposing efforts to dismantle Section 230 by a bunch of folks who think they have a God-given right to be bigoted, trolling assholes on private platforms.

The Murdoch family screed steadily goes downhill as it tries to fuse net neutrality and recent Section 230 debates into an incoherent mush just to paint Silicon Valley as hypocritical:

"Facebook and Twitter turned out to be more threatening than under threat. Broadband providers haven’t attempted to block content or competitors since the FCC repealed net neutrality. But social media, app stores and cloud providers, which were never subject to the rules, all have engaged in censorship repeatedly in recent weeks."

First, Facebook never seriously supported net neutrality, and spent ample time in countries like India trying to dismantle it. Second, (once more with feeling!) it's not "censorship" if you get kicked off social media outlets for violating their terms of service. That's called consequences for being an asshole on privately owned platforms, not "censorship." Third, many tech giants like Netflix actually backed off from supporting net neutrality once they were powerful enough to be insulated from the impact of telecom monopolies behaving badly, which is hypocritical, but in an entirely different way the Journal doesn't understand.

Fourth, big ISPs certainly did try to violate net neutrality to harm competitors. The only reason they haven't behaved worse is because in the wake of federal apathy, numerous states passed their own net neutrality rules. It's also worth repeating that the FCC's net neutrality repeal didn't just kill net neutrality, it demolished the FCC's consumer protection authority in general, which the Journal, of course, thinks was wonderful. The argument that "well, the internet didn't immediately implode in a rainbow therefore the FCC gutting its consumer protection authority must not be a bad thing" is a telltale sign the person you're listening to has no idea what they're talking about.

From there, the Journal parades a bunch of outright lies, most notably the longstanding telecom industry fable that some modest net neutrality rules stifled network investment. This part, for example, is just complete bullshit:

"The Obama rules made it harder for telecom carriers that owned content providers to compete with tech giants and finance network expansions. This is one reason broadband investment declined in 2016."

Again, SEC filings, earnings reports, independent studies and even CEO statements made it clear that net neutrality never hindered network investment, nor made it difficult for telecom to compete with tech giants. The Journal's piece is basically just telecom monopolization fan fiction that nibbles the earlobes of Ajit Pai while falsely claiming that the telecom sector is ultra healthy and competitive (it takes about half an hour of dealing with Comcast customer support to easily determine that's not true), and that gutting the FCC's protection authority right before a massive health and economic crisis was a wonderful idea.

For years now I've noted how the telecom industry has covertly been playing a starring role in getting a huge chunk of DC policymakers to believe that "big tech" is the root of all evil, while "big telecom" is a healthy market filled with angels and puppies. It's because they want to elbow in on Silicon Valley ad revenues, and create a policy environment where tech companies get saddled with ample regulation, while the telecom sector is free to engage in all manner of dodgy, monopolistic behavior (I'd say that's going pretty well). That bullshit framing is clearly on display in the Journal's piece:

"Tech companies, on the other hand, boast far more market power because of so-called network effects. Customers of different phone and internet carriers can call, text and email one another, but social-media platforms aren’t interoperable. This makes it harder for startups to compete. Facebook and Twitter have to worry less about losing ground to competitors if they censor or unfairly treat users."

While Google and Facebook pose very real monopolistic problems (especially in advertising), users can still choose not to use many of these platforms. That's simply not true of US telecom, a sector dominated by natural monopolies resulting in 83 million Americans having the choice of just one provider, making it physically impossible to vote with your wallet. Companies like AT&T and Comcast are also massive media conglomerates that dictate news coverage, control access to content, and are effectively fused to our intelligence gathering apparatus.

All while having many of the very same advertising ambitions as Google and Facebook. So yes, tech giants create very real problems. But if you're serious about corporate power and monopolization, you advocate for antitrust and court reform, shore up and properly fund regulators, and enforce existing laws consistently across sectors. You don't single out one sector while ignoring all others, unless you're engaged in some bad faith patty cake.

The Journal and GOP's ceaseless attempts to downplay telecom monopolies perfectly mirrors (not at all coincidentally) the bullshit claims by telecom monopolies themselves:

"All of which is to say big tech companies today more closely resemble the old telephone monopolies that Congress sought to regulate as common carriers in 1930s than broadband providers do. They have used their market power to suppress speech and competitors, even while pretending to defend an "open and free Internet."

That's complete nonsense. So is the piece's final proclamation:

"Which leads to an idea: While Republicans now have little clout in Washington, those in Florida or Texas might consider imposing their own neutrality rules on Big Tech."

Again, telecom and media giants like AT&T (and the lawmakers paid to love them) desperately want you to believe that telecom monopolies are great, and tech giants are the only real problem in modern policy conversations. They're pulling many of the strings here. It's why you'll see guys like Josh Hawley performatively prattle on about the vile nature of "big tech," but you'll never see him criticize Comcast or AT&T. That's not some quirky coincidence. It's part of a longstanding coordination between telecom, companies like Oracle, and others using opportunistic DC nitwits to gain tactical advantage against competitors in fields like video advertising.

It's excruciatingly clear the GOP (and by proxy the Journal) couldn't give any less of a genuine shit about corporate power or censorship. The GOP's only real interest here is in bullying Silicon Valley giants into carrying bigoted hate speech and political disinformation, cornerstones of modern GOP power. The telecom industry's only real goal here is saddling competitors with regulatory headaches. And, as the Journal does a lovely job illustrating, this self-serving nonsense is routinely dressed up as some noble, intellectually consistent pursuit. In reality, it's bad faith, self-serving bullshit crafted by people with heads full of pudding.

Filed Under: allysia finley, big tech, content moderation, net neutrality, section 230