Dr. Robert Epstein told Breitbart News Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) tries to “look aggressive” towards Silicon Valley’s increasing consolidation of power while receiving donations from the most highly-valued technology companies, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter.
Epstein joined last Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight to discuss his research of political and partisan biases within search engines with host Rebecca Mansour and special guest host Rick Manning.
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Epstein described Warren’s proposals to “break up big tech” as “toothless.”
“Elizabeth Warren … has now published a proposal for quote-unquote breaking up big tech, which sounds kind of great in a way, because you have to do something about these companies,” said Epstein. “But if you look at her proposal, it is absolutely toothless. All she’s suggesting is that these companies — Google and Facebook — divest themselves of some of the companies that they’ve bought.”
Epstein explained, “[Elizabeth Warren] doesn’t understand that that’s not where their power comes from. Their power comes from their main platforms, from Google search engine, which you can’t break up, and Facebook has its social media platform. You can’t break that up, either. That would be like splitting millions of families.”
Epstein continued, “So that’s where their surveillance — most of their surveillance — occurs, and that’s where most of their manipulation occurs, and you can’t break up of those parts of the company. So here’s her proposal that makes it look like she’s being aggressive on this issue, and in fact, I wonder, because she actually has received substantial donations from all three of the companies that she mentions in her proposal.”
Politicians claiming to be concerned about increasing centralization of power within Silicon Valley are often beneficiaries of donations from the same technology companies and related lobbies.
“I don’t think anything’s going to happen, to be honest with you,” predicted Epstein. “I think it’s just going to be talk, talk, talk. I think our politicians are in Google’s pocket. Google is the largest lobbyist in Washington. They spend more money on lobbying than any other company in America, and they have this amazing mind-control machine that they use 24/7.”
Epstein asked, “How do you get people to think bad things about a mind-control machine if the mind-control machine doesn’t want you to?”
“The bottom line for me is that tech changes so fast that I don’t think any regulation or laws will provide adequate protection, because regulation and law changes very slowly,” assessed Epstein. “Look back at AT&T. Look back at Standard Oil. Look back at any case you want to look at. I believe more and more in the need for setting up large-scale worldwide monitoring systems, because they can move fast. They can move lightning-fast.”
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Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.