The talk on Big Tech was meant to explore the forces that will shape the internet industry and its titans in the coming decade, with U.S. regulators and states looking at whether Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon wield too much power. The inquiries have looked into business practices at those companies, but lawmakers have also been concerned about their control on information, which became increasingly obvious within the past week.
Bovard touched on the subject of that power over online speech, but since it was not live, she could not possibly know what would transpire this week. “You have companies who control literally the flow of information in free societies,” Bovard says. “You know, Google, when it makes a content moderation decision, that decision ripples for 90% of the search marketplace. That is a very significant network effect.”