Tomorrow it could be your point of view that is silenced. –

Google and YouTube dominate internet search with over 75% of the market. If you disappear on Google, your ability to voice your opinion disappears too.

PragerU is an educational non-profit that has had over 40 of their videos restricted by YouTube. That is why they have recently filed a lawsuit against the tech giant.

This is not just about PragerU being silenced – it is about the targeting of dissenting opinions.

The rise and monopolistic behaviour of the giant American internet platform companies is contributing mightily to the US government’s impotence.

These companies have often played an innovative and liberating role.

But as Facebook and Google have grown ever more powerful, they have become obstacles to innovation, and have caused a variety of problems of which we are only now beginning to become aware.

Facebook and Google effectively control over half of all digital advertising revenue. To maintain their dominance, they need to expand their networks and increase their share of users’ attention.

Currently they do this by providing users with a convenient platform. The more time users spend on the platform, the more valuable they become to the companies.

Social media companies deceive their users by manipulating their attention, directing it towards their own commercial purposes, and deliberately engineering addiction to the services they provide.

This can be very harmful, particularly for adolescents. This is not a matter of mere distraction or addiction; Social media companies are actually inducing people to surrender their autonomy.

There is a similarity between internet platforms and gambling companies.

Casinos have developed techniques to hook customers to the point that they gamble away all of their money, even money they do not have.

There is an even more alarming prospect on the horizon: an alliance between authoritarian states and large, data-rich IT monopolies.

Bringing together nascent systems of corporate surveillance with already-developed systems of state-sponsored surveillance.

This may well result in a web of totalitarian control the likes of which not even George Orwell could have imagined.