In the last month of the U.S. 2020 election, an election-related event that did not directly affect the vote shocked people around the world: several of the largest social media sites in the U.S. directly blocked President Trump‘s social media site accounts or restricted their use. Those social media users who supported Trump also found their accounts restricted, suspended, or completely deleted. These Silicon Valley tech giants have used their unauthorized power to directly infringe on people’s free speech. These companies have taken advantage of the trust of tens and hundreds of millions of global social media users, relying on people’s clicks and visits to make money for them while restricting and misleading people’s right to free access to information.
When President Trump’s accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and the Oil Tube were blocked at will, and Apple and Google took down the social media alternatives that people needed, people around the world, from governments to private citizens, were aghast. Little did people know that these “pioneers” of freedom of information on the Internet would overnight become the fellow travelers of a dictatorship! When people felt the cold air running down their spines, they suddenly discovered the evil and dark forces that had been hiding behind computer technology for years, and saw their true colors and minions. Not only that, but the arrogance, prejudice and hubris displayed by these Silicon Valley business and high-tech giants awakened the people of the world to their deeper motives.
After President Trump’s personal account was permanently cancelled by Twitter, a number of world leaders have denounced Silicon Valley’s immense power in controlling political discourse and are particularly outraged that the U.S. president has been banned. From the Chancellor of Germany, several French ministers, the President of Poland, and the President of Mexico, all condemned the tech monopoly’s self-appointed “world media power” to gag and censor conservatives.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican member of the U.S. Congress, announced that her own personal account had been suspended by Twitter. The San Francisco-based Twitter company said her posts could lead to a “risk of violence. Greene argued that the Silicon Valley Cartel has become the Internet police, purging the accounts of Trump and countless conservatives in a multi-front assault to curb free speech in the U.S. “The monopolistic clamping down on American political speech by large high-tech companies has become unstoppable “.
Mr. Yi-Jin Du, founder of Taiwan AI Labs, keenly pointed out that the global social media giants have used their hegemony to censor speech in the U.S. election, and their exclusive monopoly has become a “social beast”, which actually constitutes “digital totalitarianism” (digital totalitarianism). “(digital totalitarianism). This is true. In addition to political totalitarianism, media totalitarianism and abuse of power, the “digital totalitarianism” of technology giants poses a serious threat to human society.
Before the emergence of digital totalitarianism, the U.S. government’s antitrust agencies had already investigated the monopolistic position of many software companies such as Microsoft, but failed to completely break the monopoly of Microsoft and others in computing systems for personal computers, and only stripped away its move to use Windows to carry a web browser, limiting the scale of the monopoly. After all, contemporary Internet technology, software technology, social media, etc., due to their single functional qualities, interactive information transmission with users, and globalized service targets, cannot achieve antitrust objectives by simply splitting up monopolistic oligopolies such as Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, as the U.S. antitrust agencies did back then.
The massive Standard Oil could be spun off into a dozen smaller companies, allowing them to compete with each other and eliminate monopolies in favor of consumers. Microsoft’s Windows system, Google’s search engine, and Twitter and Facebook’s social networking sites could hardly be spun off to achieve the goal of eliminating their monopolistic positions. And these companies are reckless when it comes to blocking free speech precisely because they have near-monopolies, high market shares, and are difficult to easily replace. And, when they block accounts, cancel accounts, and censor content, they do so with “justification” because they have the protection of Section 230, the shield of user agreements, and the “legitimate authority” of private enterprise to do so!
So what can be done to break this digital totalitarian operation that threatens and harms the free speech of the American people? In my opinion, one way to break digital totalitarianism may be to transform them into “public utilities”. Public utilities can be privately owned, publicly owned, or “cooperatively” owned.
In the U.S., the so-called “public utility” or “utility” refers to those companies, institutions and public services that maintain and operate the infrastructure of American society, such as coal, electricity, gas, water, sewer, and telephone. These companies, institutions, and public service organizations may be These companies, agencies, and organizations may be privately owned and operated, but are controlled by the public as well as by government and regulatory agencies, such as county, city, or state governments through the Public Utilities Commission. While the price of electricity and water provided by these facilities can fluctuate with the market and there is competition, the rate of price increase must be approved by the public system. In this way, it is ensured that people throughout the United States can enjoy cheap electricity, domestic water, gas, coal, etc., as a guarantee of the infrastructure of an advanced society to ensure the standard of living of the people. Broadband Internet access, too, is now gradually being incorporated as an integral part of American social utilities.
Obviously, this is a practice of transferring private property to the government or semi-government, and even a bit of “nationalization” is suspected. But like many electric and water utilities in many countries around the world, it is a last resort that does more good than harm.
If the U.S. society to broadband Internet access, the future of the 5G / 6G network, and even 6G star chain satellite network, etc., are included in the scope of public utilities, as part of the overall infrastructure of the United States, this will be the application of Internet technology and popularization, laying a good foundation. At that Time, people’s Internet search, shopping, social networking, communication, can be as convenient as the current people plugged into the power supply, access to the grid. And the basic services on the Internet, such as Cloud Computing, search engines, social media, shopping platforms, communications and conferencing and other services, if also because broadband is included in the public utilities, but also at the same time into the category of public utilities, the current Internet giants, oligarchs monopolistic abuse, infringement, can be greatly restrained and eliminated.
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