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Comment by jdavis703 | Hacker News Reader

Trump tends to frequently call the Washington Post "the Amazon Washington Post." I wonder if this anti-trust scrutiny could be a way to leverage Bezos into toning down WaPo.

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If you read the article, you'd see that Democrats are the ones pushing for more scrutiny.

Marcia Fudge, quoted in the article, is also anti-net-neutrality. Minority leaders are often the targets of strategic influence campaigns on issues like net neutrality. It's possible this is a similar situation.

link?

"In April of 2011, the House voted on a measure to prevent recent FCC rules regarding net neutrality from taking effect. The measure passed 236-174. Marcia Fudge voted against the resolution and therefore approved of the FCC rules regarding net neutrality."

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/newsfromunderground/dv...

It's possible she was successfully pressured to change her position. My point was more about corporate efforts to drive wedges between Democrats.

Possibly -- but AFAIK liberals are generally the ones who favour busting up large corporations.

If it did, that would be bezo's plan in buying the paper backfiring spectacularly.

Bezos never intended to leave the paper alone. The fact that Wapo abandoned Snowden is evidence of that. Bezos is the biggest liar. Just read any of his company wide emails and you'll see how bad of a liar he is.

Bezos' plan was always to have a mouthpiece to spout propaganda. Why else invest in a dying medium?

Same with Carlos Slim and the NYT. This isn't rocket surgery.

Would the same argument apply to Rupert Murdoch and Fox News?

I ain't even mad. Life is about finding out exactly how much you can get away with.

You don't have to destroy everyone around you to have a good time ;)

Might makes right!

Can you link to some specific examples that to you demonstrate that Bezos is a liar?

For example, when he pretended that he didn't know about the working conditions of the warehouses. He knows exactly what's going on with every detail of the company. He personally oversaw the design of the entire Amazon system, including the warehouse. His letter is absurd on its face.

http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-responds-nyt-repor...

The crazy thing is, the deal should be getting scrutiny anyway. This would be Trump doing his job.

The thing that should worry us more is the concentration of power of a single individual owning Amazon and the Washington Post represents. Why should a corporate deal affect a newspaper watching out for the interests of the public? It seems insane. That's because it is.

Well the President is also flat out wrong when he calls it the "Amazon Washington Post" because Amazon doesn't own the Washington Post. Perhaps we should fix the President's blatant misinformation ability before we go preventing someone from founding/buying/inheriting particular businesses.

Jeff is CEO of Amazon and owns the Post. While the President is technically inaccurate, I'm not sure he is de facto inaccurate.

Remember Trump also accused Amazon of "not paying internet taxes," so facts are not his strong suit. (Although he is correct only in that there is no such thing as internet taxes)

well basically wasn't that one of his better political sentences? Saying something like "x does not paying internet taxes", could've come from every political person, since this sentence is extremly clever and not incorrect at all. amazon did in fact not pay internet taxes. (because they don't exists) Isn't that speech which every politican uses?

I think the President is committing fraud by implying as President to the American public that AMZN holds an asset that it does not. How’s that for technical accuracy?

Have you always been this literal minded? It's simplistic to think that AMZN is hermetically sealed off from the WaPo because legally the two entities have nothing to do with each other. Trump's insinuation isn't as strong as what you claim it is. He is at most suggesting that WaPo may be serving AMZN interests in a de facto, not de jure, capacity. Frankly, I think that he's just using Amazon as a symbol for Bezos because people know what Amazon is and what it means for businesses. They don't necessarily know who Bezos is. It allows him to associate whatever negative associations Amazon may have in his electorate with the WaPo. On the other hand, it may have been as simple as a humorous quip. In any case, you should relax.

Let’s see... the President tweeted several times last night about Amazon and WaPo. No, it doesn’t look like a humorous quip to me. It looks like he knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s inventing a narrative and using that nonsense to interfere with an acquisition.

Trump doesn't get the benefit of the doubt, here. He's long, long, long since lost that.

Facts or accuracy are not a strong suit of the current guy in office. /s

Also, he doesn't seam to care much for independent journalism... which WaPo is. Anytime Amazon is discussed in the WaPo, they do mention in interest of disclosure that Jeff Bezos is the owner of WaPo and Amazon.

Got karma to burn so why not.

> Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downvote you or proclaim that you expect to get downvoted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Are you sure you aren't the one spewing blatant misinformation? The CEO (and founder) of Amazon owns the WaPo. Although, WaPo isn't owned by Amazon it doesn't take someone of extraordinary intelligence to come to the conclusion that the WaPo and Amazon have a special relationship, considering how they are both managed by the same person.

I’m 100% sure I’m not spewing misinformation, thank you. Amazon is a publicly traded company and WaPo is owned by Jeff Bezos, most literally NOT Amazon.

Yes, technically true, but it probably was intentional. Think of the alternatives. The Bezos Post? The Bezos Washington Post? Think of his audience. Most people know what Amazon is, not who Jeff Bezos is. Spelling bee winners like you are not Trump's target audience. Instead of nitpicking, try asking why Trump may have said what he said. It's this refusal or inability to see things from other perspectives that was a major reason for the shock Democrats experienced when Trump won.

It might as well be owned by Amazon

I'm pretty amused that you guys think I'm advancing a pro-Trump position here. The reason he's doing this is clearly because he's a vindictive authoritarian that wants to suppress the free press. There's no way he cares at all about anti-trust law.

The point I'm trying to get across is that the independence of the free press is threatened by concentration of power. Trump should not even be able to attack the Washington Post in this indirect fashion. In this case, he's probably doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Let The Post be independent of enormous corporate interests and reduce its attack surface.

Also, I might have to watch A Few Good Men tonight. Thanks for the reminder.

"DON'T YOU KNOW THE PRESIDENT LIES?!" "SON. YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH."

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