The point is that these companies have immense control over the economy and speech. They should be as neutral as possible, otherwise it will be a tug of war to control them just like everything else in society is becoming.
Also you realize that there's an entire "bring these giants to task over fake news" thing happening right now whereupon we will demand the likes of Google and Facebook take editorial control over content, when the majority of people will only get what comes out of those filters. This is inherently wildly dangerous and absolutely censorship.
Delisted by Google = a company effectively does not exist, the same goes for most things online, and that is the natural next step once some of the giants start to take stricter control. People will only demand more and more things they don't like be removed.
If you don’t turn up on the first page on Google you might as well be delisted anyway. Not every site in the world that wants to become popular is going to appear in the first 20 search results.
For instance in the Apple ecosystem, there are plenty of pundits like Gruber, the guy who runs stratechery, etc who don’t depend on SEO and never have.
If your whole business model is dependent on Google SEO, you’re just one algorithm change away from going out of business - even if you’re not specifically being targeted.
There is a whole conservative ecosystem that most people who care about people like Alex Jones can discover him from.
Like I said, people can’t both argue that Apple should allow side loaded apps and not be a wall garden as a way to foster free speech and at the same time argue that podcasts - one of the few areas where you can get content outside of the walled garden isn’t good enough. If that’s the case, Google allowing side loading of apps is a meaningless talking point.
Again, you are missing the point that there's a huge problem with our regulators trying to control the content on Google as well as when the likes of Apple flexes their muscle and every other company falls in line. That is a speech crippling power that companies should not have, and it is an avenue for politicians to weaken the first amendment in an awful way.
Also you realize that there's an entire "bring these giants to task over fake news" thing happening right now whereupon we will demand the likes of Google and Facebook take editorial control over content, when the majority of people will only get what comes out of those filters. This is inherently wildly dangerous and absolutely censorship.
Delisted by Google = a company effectively does not exist, the same goes for most things online, and that is the natural next step once some of the giants start to take stricter control. People will only demand more and more things they don't like be removed.