Comment by lolinder | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lolinder | Hacker News Reader

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No. This case was launched by Trump's DOJ in 2020 [0], in conjunction with the Republican Attorneys General representing a bunch of states that Trump won handily this election. Trump's Attorney General Barr released a statement when they announced the lawsuit [1]:

> Today, millions of Americans rely on the Internet and online platforms for their daily lives. For years, there have been broad, bipartisan concerns about business practices leading to massive concentrations of economic power in our digital economy. Hearing those concerns, I have made it a primary commitment of my tenure as Attorney General for the Department of Justice to examine whether technology markets have been deprived of free, fair, and open competition.

This case has never has been a partisan issue. It was opened by a Republican DOJ and pushed through by a Democratic DOJ, and there's no reason to believe that the Republicans won't see through what they started.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2...

[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/statement-attorney-general-an...

There is no way that Google won’t be able to ummm “influence” Trump into not dropping this. 2016 was different, Trump was a neophyte and pulled in people who were actually competent and not necessarily sycophants, this time around he is -only- selecting sycophants. There won’t be delegations any longer other than small details, overriding detail will come only from Trump himself, he will not cede any major decisions this time. Those he doesn’t care about the details on you can refer to Project 2025 for likely policies. I consider busting up Google not being a “small item”. Trump has said that the justice department serves him and his needs/desires, and will not be an independent entity. This will go for all departments that he has the slightest bit of interest in.

Illiterate people on both sides want to see technology destroyed.

Thanks, I’ve sort of assumed that all these things they’ve been announcing during the lame duck period were things Biden wanted to rush through that Trump has a high probability of nixing as tends to happen during the lame duck period when party control switches. I appreciate your insight on this specific issue.

Yeah, in this case the lame duck timing is purely coincidental, the government is acting to provide their proposal before a December deadline set by the federal judge.

>and pushed through by a Democratic DOJ,

Suggesting that Merrick Garland is somehow a "Democratic DOJ" is kind of laughable at this point. He's a Republican. He's been dragging his feet going after the biggest Republican crook in history. Appointing Merrick Garland is one of the biggest mistakes Biden ever made.

Adorable how HN's in absolute denial over this comment and downvoting you.

Garland is a donator to the Federalist Society. Garland was a gift from Obama to the Republicans, trying to put someone who's right wing enough at the Supreme Court to appease the Rs. (And it didn't even work).

He Was Obamas nominee for SCOTUS, Bidens selection for AG, and has been held in contempt by the republican House.

It sounds like the main reason to call him effectively a Republican is that he hasn't chosen to prosecute Trump, which is a lousy argument. Plenty of rational Democrats have been saying all along that prosecuting him would be counterproductive, as it turned out it was in the event. "I'm voting for the felon" was a rallying cry in the Midwest.

At least the fact that he got a state-level conviction means the felony will stick. Had he been convicted of a felony at the federal level he'd have won anyway and just pardoned himself.

> At least the fact that he got a state-level conviction means the felony will stick.

That’s far from guaranteed. He has multiple grounds to appeal that conviction both through the New York state courts - and if they don’t overturn it, then the federal courts. If it makes it to SCOTUS, odds are high the conservative majority will be looking for some federal law grounds to overturn it. But it might not ever make it that far. Legal commentators all along have been saying the prosecution’s legal theory is rather novel, and maybe the state appellate courts decide it is a novelty they don’t like. Plus, the way it uses allegations of uncharged federal crimes to upgrade a state misdemeanour to a state felony gives the federal courts an easy way to overturn it, by deciding the state courts have misconstrued the scope of those uncharged federal crimes.

He was Obama's nominee because Obama knew the Senate would only approve a conservative nominee.

Strange that the Republican house didn't nominate him given that he's such a fervent Republican.

Senate, and he isn't fervent and maybe that was the issue. Or perhaps it was just about the principal of the matter.

He was also previously recommended by Mitch McConnell.

oh wow, TIL. I assumed Trump would be against any government control of Big Tech

That's a weird thing to say. Trump has always been critical of big tech and favours breaking them up.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-tech-factbox/fa...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/10/18659748/t...

Trump is critical of big tech that doesn't help him - I'm happy to bet he will oppose breaking up X as long as Musk is in his cabinet.

Trying to describe Trump on a coherent ideological level is a fool's errand, like most strongmen he's just an opportunist.

Why would you break up X?

To get two fabulous new companies, > and <. Or maybe ^ and v ? Or / and \ ?

I'm much more on board with this plan now. I want to see how many stock exchanges crash when I buy shares in <

Why would X be broken up? When I think of Big Tech I certainly don’t think of companies like Twitter or Snapchat.

The point is that even if X was a dominating monopoly, it would be fine because Elon is on Trumps nice list.

Trump is a typical power whore who praises and protects those that kiss his feet, and admonishes and punishes those who don't.

This is the same game that all these self-interested power hungry people play.

The defining feature of the privilege is that it's arbitrary. If it was governed by a set of consistent rules, then it would be less effective at making him feel like he had power - the system, rather, would have power instead.

Twitter is very small compared to the likes of Google though, so not very big. It doesn't make sense to break up such a small company that basically just does one thing.

More informatively: Trump was in favor of eliminating Section 230 protections for Twitter after they fact-checked one of his lies about election security.

Presumably he will now want to revoke Section 230 for non-Twitter companies.

Trump supports people who make him feel good and hates people who make him feel bad. He isn't pointing the DoJ at big tech. He is pointing the DoJ at people who make him feel bad. Trump thinks that YouTube (and Google more broadly) is unfair to conservatives and is full of whiney liberals.

You won't see consistent application of Trump's DoJ. It'll just be a hammer that he can swing at things he doesn't like.

It could even be the case that many of the things that he swings the hammer at will deserve it. But there will be similarly deserving people, groups, and organizations who get off scot free because Trump isn't personally angry at them.

Trump is not particularly in favor of anti-trust policy in general, but he (and the GOP more generally, though Trump’s personal angle that of the GOP more broadly are slightly different though in general alignment) are very much for punishment of anyone in the information space that isn’t actively tilting in the direction he prefers, and is absolutely in favor of using antitrust law as a lever for that.

Trump is against things that oppose him, and for things that favor him.

He perceives Big Tech as being an enemy, so he will use whatever tools available to punish.

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