On October 20, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced an antitrust lawsuit against Google (WSJ). This lawsuit represents a clash between four belief systems, being Data-Info, Money and Technology versus Politics. In my 2019 update of the 7 Belief systems, I chose for an exit of Politics. Hence, this lawsuit will determine how fast the West will (not) align with China.
Recently, I used Google for finding the Great Barrington Declaration. I was surprised how long it took for Google finding that website. You need to type almost all letters before Google “helps” you finding that declaration. My experience is also an example of this antitrust lawsuit. Several websites claim Google is politically biased; just Google: “is google blocking the great barrington declaration”.
Regardless of the outcome of the antitrust lawsuit, it’s probably too late for Politics to regulate its competing belief systems (ie, Data-Info, Money and Technology). In 2017, there was lots of speculation whether Facebook’s founder and CEO would take part in the 2020 US presidential election. He did not. This antitrust lawsuit is, however, changing the rules and ending a détente.
There’s an alleged quote by Jim Morrison (1943-1971): “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind”. It took the US government a very long while to fully appreciate that quote. Today, this quote would be like: “Whoever controls the data and information, controls the mind”.
The 2015 restructuring of Google, and the creation of parent company Alphabet, probably implies that Google was expecting this fight. Moreover, a court order may instruct Google to amend the bias in its search algorithms but it cannot break-up these algorithms. Hence, it cannot break-up the Google search engine. The same principle applied in the TikTok vs Trump fight.
The Google lawsuit may well result in a break-up between parent company Alphabet and its subsidiaries, including Google. I doubt that this would hurt the conglomerate. It might just end the various (and probably loss-making) pet projects of Google’s founders; see Structure for details.
Information retrieval is a Need, sometimes a Want, but not a Belief (my blogs). Politics is never a Need, sometimes a Want, and always a Belief. To many people, politics is redundant (my recent blog). The added value of Google far outweighs its (alleged) biases. Moreover, biases can be repaired. Politics is far beyond repair (eg, US partisanship).
A recent statement by Eric Schmidt, Google’s former CEO: “The context of social networks serving as amplifiers for idiots and crazy people is not what we intended. Unless the industry gets its act together in a really clever way, there will be regulation.”
Free Your Mind (1992) by En Vogue
artists, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2
Free your mind and the rest will follow
Note: all markings (bold, italic, underlining) by LO unless stated otherwise.
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