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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-16/google-sued-by-texas-over-abuse-of-dominance-in-antitrust-case https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-1

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-16/google-sued-by-texas-over-abuse-of-dominance-in-antitrust-case https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-16/google-su... > Texas leads 10 Republican states in Google antitrust suit I am not an expert in US politics, does the political alignment of the states that are pushing this case have any kind of wider political significance? Is there a political interpretation of this case?

crdrost 6y ago
It might be more damning if the states were from both parties; there is a political interpretation in that Google employee spending is known and of the US$ 6.2M that is being spent 88% of it is on Democrats and only 12% on Republicans, so there is both serious money and serious skew there. But that's not terribly decisive, it'd just be nice to see a bipartisan lawsuit for completeness reasons. There are also some aligned reasons; like things like net neutrality are considered Democratic issues. More broadly, the problem is essentially that there is this sort of civil-war-producing toxic polarization at play (and it will be at play until we change the laws to have a party-proportional House; it is caused by an abstract mathematical theorem). That the toxic polarization even exists at the state-executive branch of attorneys general is somewhat remarkable and an indication of how close the US is to something disastrous in the next 50 years or so.
- bigyikes 6y ago
  >and it will be at play until we change the laws to have a party-proportional House; it is caused by an abstract mathematical theorem For the uninitiated, read about Duverger's law[1]. Not sure if this is the "theorem" you're referring to, but this happens to be one of the few things that stuck with me from my mandatory political science courses. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
tootie 6y ago
Probably. Paxton just led the charge by 17 republican states to overturn the election in the supreme court. And Google has been in the president's cross hairs for a while. Especially since youtube banned election conspiracy videos.
_cs2017_ 6y ago
There's no doubt that this is a politically motivated case. As many people pointed out, these are the same states that tried to overturn election results. There's no way this is a coincidence. After all, Google is a powerful anti-conservative force. That said, a large (if not the majority) fraction of liberal folk also strongly dislike Google. So there's a good chance for a bi-partisan effort to dislodge Google from its place of power. The real question is how did a heavily liberal institution get so much hatred from the liberal side of the political divide. This especially stands out during these times of extreme polarization, when the principle "an enemy's enemy is one's friend" is very popular. I suspect the root cause is that Google is torn apart between its liberal beliefs due to its connections to the Silicon Valley, and its conservative tendencies as a for-profit corporation. This conflict causes an enormous amount of internal and external damage. On top of that, Google (and other big tech) became so powerful that it's in the cross-hairs of many politicians and activists. This makes it much more difficult to maneuver in the political world. It would be interesting to see whether and how Google executives will attempt to solve these problems.

crdrost 6y ago

It might be more damning if the states were from both parties; there is a political interpretation in that Google employee spending is known and of the US$ 6.2M that is being spent 88% of it is on Democrats and only 12% on Republicans, so there is both serious money and serious skew there. But that's not terribly decisive, it'd just be nice to see a bipartisan lawsuit for completeness reasons. There are also some aligned reasons; like things like net neutrality are considered Democratic issues. More broadly, the problem is essentially that there is this sort of civil-war-producing toxic polarization at play (and it will be at play until we change the laws to have a party-proportional House; it is caused by an abstract mathematical theorem). That the toxic polarization even exists at the state-executive branch of attorneys general is somewhat remarkable and an indication of how close the US is to something disastrous in the next 50 years or so.

bigyikes 6y ago
>and it will be at play until we change the laws to have a party-proportional House; it is caused by an abstract mathematical theorem For the uninitiated, read about Duverger's law[1]. Not sure if this is the "theorem" you're referring to, but this happens to be one of the few things that stuck with me from my mandatory political science courses. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

tootie 6y ago

Probably. Paxton just led the charge by 17 republican states to overturn the election in the supreme court. And Google has been in the president's cross hairs for a while. Especially since youtube banned election conspiracy videos.

_cs2017_ 6y ago

There's no doubt that this is a politically motivated case. As many people pointed out, these are the same states that tried to overturn election results. There's no way this is a coincidence. After all, Google is a powerful anti-conservative force. That said, a large (if not the majority) fraction of liberal folk also strongly dislike Google. So there's a good chance for a bi-partisan effort to dislodge Google from its place of power. The real question is how did a heavily liberal institution get so much hatred from the liberal side of the political divide. This especially stands out during these times of extreme polarization, when the principle "an enemy's enemy is one's friend" is very popular. I suspect the root cause is that Google is torn apart between its liberal beliefs due to its connections to the Silicon Valley, and its conservative tendencies as a for-profit corporation. This conflict causes an enormous amount of internal and external damage. On top of that, Google (and other big tech) became so powerful that it's in the cross-hairs of many politicians and activists. This makes it much more difficult to maneuver in the political world. It would be interesting to see whether and how Google executives will attempt to solve these problems.