In a disturbing segment last night by correspondent Jillian Turner on Special Report with Bret Baier, Fox News openly lobbied to prevent Facebook from being broken up with anti-trust action by the Trump administration. The spectacle was shocking to say the least as big-tech censorship against conservative thought and speech has been front and center in the national political debate. The fact that the formerly 'fair and balanced' news channel could swing so in favor of the Marxist establishment in the United States is further proof of how far Left the network has moved under new leadership.
The reason given for the pro-Facebook position was that larger Chinese social media companies could become dominant and hurt national security. This is nonsensical and any intelligent student of economics would realize that breaking up monopolistic companies unleashes a barrage of competitive innovation, something China cannot do. In addition, Facebook is censored in China, and Chinese social media is in Chinese, again, not applicable in the West.
Even more disturbing is that the segment on the world's must successful cable network came right after calls by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes to do exactly that -- break up Facebook, saying Mark Zuckerberg has too much power.
"If regulators make these companies smaller, they could lose their competitive edge," declared Turner. She then highlighted Leftist Congressman Ro Khanna, a Democrat representing Silicon Valley, to support her contention.
Turner quoted 'sources who spoke to Fox News' who declared national security would be harmed by initiating anti-trust action against the social media network that enjoys 2.5 billion people on its system. The question is, did Facebook pay for the segment somehow as the timing is certainly suspect?
It is well known that since founder Rupert Murdoch has relinquished control of Fox News to his sons, the once stalwart conservative go-to network has shifted Left. The globalist former Speaker of the House has been added to their board.
One meme trending on social media over the weekend has been, "Fox is the Paul Ryan network now".
It should be noted that the call to break up Facebook comes from a radical leftist who is mostly upset that the newsfeed allows "nationalist" ideas to flourish. He is for MORE control not LESS. Any talk of a break up should come from those agencies that investigate monopolies and not from disgruntled ex-partners or News Media outlets.
The government picking and choosing which business to close next, is not a pretty picture, no matter how you paint it.
If you want the FCC to regulate the 'public square,' the extent I will support is transparency of bias. In other words, you can't be drawing in ballet dancers to a tap dance, and the audience should know what they are paying to see.
Therefore, any 'public square' has to be marked with it's boundaries. If you're going to exclude anyone, you just need to be clear about the reasons why. Facebook should have a link on its front page to its policies, exclusions, and case history of anyone or group that is not allowed in. And that front page should also be titled "Democrat/liberal Stronghold, conservatives and Republican comments will be removed. Or vice versa.
no editing. I meant "... marked with its boundaries." Auto incorrect strikes again.
Soon Sean and Tucker will need to make a choice. Leave Leftist FNC or be viewed as hypocrites. Especially since FNC isn't JUST leaning Left...they've overtly adopted fake news tactics such as allowing their hard-news anchors to absolutely editorialize their "reports."
I fast forward thru Tucker and listen to Levin closely; the rest of FOX went off the cliff years ago.
Bret Baier & Gillian Turner... As bad as Shep and are nothing more than hacks.
I watched this story and felt ill soon afterwards.
Paul Ryan is on the board of directors. You know the secret swamp lizard that spent his last term blocking everything that President Trump tried to accomplish. Talk about corrupt, he is the perfect example of why there should be a law enacted that prohibits politicians from cashing in on their contacts as lobbyists for a period of ten years. This guy didn't toss granny off the cliff, it was the american taxpayer that he tossed. You don't have to break facebook up just remove the 230 protections and the market will bring the end of censorship. The social networks are nothing more than propaganda machines.