Supporting material for #Obamanet and Obama’s Selection of Big Tech Winners on Substack.
A retail ISP subscriber pays the ISP monthly fees, the ISP pays its costs and the cost of bandwidth to the upstream network owner. The largest networks peer with each other free of charge, making up the Internet backbone. Total ISP fees, including fixed and mobile, were about $140B annually in 2014, and have been growing since Continue reading Supporting Materials 2023
Section 230 does not protect Big Tech from their customers
The Communications Decency Act (CDA) Section 230 was enacted in 1996[1] with the main purpose to protect interactive computer service providers that offer a family-friendly internet experience from certain claims of third parties.
Big Tech Platforms that harm their customers by removing or misdirecting content that the customer wanted to receive, or not attempting to deliver the content that the customer have sent, are not protected by the Section 230. Continue reading Section 230 does not protect Big Tech from their customers
Pandemic $Trillions
Big Tech has been the biggest financial beneficiary of the pandemic, in the absolute and relative terms. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and Apple have collusively monopolized communication of information about COVID-19, and nearly doubled their market capitalization from $4T to nearly $8T.
Table 1. Changes in GFTMA stocks prices and capitalization from January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2022.
| Corporation | Ticker | 1/1/2020 | Cap, $T | 1/1/2022 | Cap, $T | Growth |
| Google (Alphabet) | GOOG | $1,434 | 0.95 | $2,726 | 1.81 | 1.90 |
| Facebook (Meta) | FB | $202 | 0.56 | $318 | 0.88 | 1.57 |
| TWTR | $33 | 0.03 | $37 | 0.03 | 1.12 | |
| Microsoft | MSFT | $167 | 1.26 | $303 | 2.28 | 1.81 |
| Apple | AAPL | $76 | 1.25 | $170 | 2.79 | 2.24 |
| TOTAL | $4.04T | $7.79T | 1.93 | |||
| Prices are adjusted for splits and dividend and/or capital gain distributions | ||||||
Figure 1. The market price increase of GOOG, FB, MSFT, and AAPL during the same time
Continue reading Pandemic $Trillions
Section 230 does not apply abroad
It is well known that US laws have no extraterritorial application unless stated explicitly or in rare cases when “the contrary affirmative intention of Congress is clearly expressed.” Neither applies to Sec. 230. Continue reading Section 230 does not apply abroad
Google Removed Key Papers and Videos on HCQ
Google blocked access to An Effective Treatment for Coronavirus (COVID-19) by James M. Todaro, MD, and Gregory J. Rigano, dated by March 13, 2020. This paper was widely credited (blamed by the Fake News Media) for proposing chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as an effective treatment against COVID-19. (This was reported by ReclaimTheNet on March 25, 2020). How can someone rationalize removing information about a possible cure, amid a global pandemic? Are there still humans in charge at Google?
Google’s YouTube also removed the Didier Raoult’s presentation of his HCQ+AZM treatment, published on YouTube on March 16, and embedded in the website of the medical institute which he heads! The video was removed by March 29 with the message “Video unavailable. This video contains content from Canal Plus, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.” It had accumulated more than 1.4 million views before that. The video is restored now. It contains no Canal Plus (a French TV company owned by Vivendi), copyright, logo, name, or anything that can be mistaken for its content. Canal Plus is a French TV company owned by Vivendi. Even if it had any rights in it and submitted a take down notice (neither is likely), displaying it was fair use. Continue reading Google Removed Key Papers and Videos on HCQ
How Obamanet Created “Masters of the Universe”
2022-12-01: Obamanet is likely the worst First Amendment violation of the last 150 years. From Obamanet-2010 : “Purchasing a higher quality of termination service for one’s own Internet traffic, though, is not speech…” (p. 59221). This is a Marxist gobbledygook. Purchasing Internet bandwidth (“termination service” in the FCC words) is like purchasing paper and printing press services at the time of the Bill of Rights. The freedom of the press is in the First Amendment. (A longer quote: “AT&T and NCTA argue that open Internet rules interfere with the speech rights of content and application providers to the extent they are prevented from paying broadband providers for higher quality service. Purchasing a higher quality of termination service for one’s own Internet traffic, though, is not speech …” – added on 2024-01-14)
2022-11-04: Added sources: Reuters and Statista, 2014. Minor corrections.
2020-03-01: wireless data costs ($90B) are added to fixed broadband costs ($50B), yielding $140B, redistributed by Obamanet in favor of Big Tech annually, starting in 2015 and likely growing. Continue reading How Obamanet Created “Masters of the Universe”
Google 2022 Elections Interference
November 8, 2022, update:
For voting related searches (such as ‘poll place‘) Google places at the top of the search results links the same Democrats-supporting group – Democracy Works. VIP is its project. The result is NOT marked as an ad.
As a state actor, Google is not allowed to do that.
Big Tech censorship under color of DMCA 512(g) is illegal
On March 16, 2020, Didier Raoult, one of the world’s leading experts on infectious diseases and the director of the medical institute Méditerranée Infection (Marseille, France), reported at a scientific conference that a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin rapidly cleans viral loads in patients with COVID-19. On the same day, the Institute published the presentation on its YouTube channel and embedded the video in its website. Over the night of March 28–29, Google’s YouTube removed this presentation! YouTube showed the message, “Video unavailable. This video contains content from Canal Plus, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.”
Continue reading Big Tech censorship under color of DMCA 512(g) is illegal