Tech, Media Bending The Knee To Trump, Cont.

 

As the Malignant Fascist races to consolidate power over a quivering corporate world, we need to remember those whose cowardice fed the fascist beast.  Some are already benefiting from their subservience to the MF.

From Karl Bode at Techdirt:

ABC and Disney’s attempt to please our dim idiot king by banning a critical comedian didn’t go all that well. The company managed to lose 1.7 million streaming subscribers as customers voted with their wallets to punish the company for taking a giant dump on the First Amendment. This latest effort, you’ll recall, came on the heels of ABC paying Trump a $15 million bribe to settle a lawsuit they easily would have won.

But as we’ve noted earlier, ABC and ABC affiliate executives are pleasuring our dim king for a very specific reason: they want Trump’s FCC to destroy what’s left of U.S. media consolidation limits, built over decades with bipartisan consensus. These rules tried to prevent rich oligarchs from turning U.S. media and journalism into an even bigger homogenized, feckless mess.

And right on cue, they’re getting their wish. Yesterday Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr began the process of eliminating some of our last remaining media consolidation limits preventing one company from dominating local broadcast radio and television. ABC has also been hoping for years to eliminate rules that prevents the big four major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox) from merging.

More specifically, Carr voted to seek public comment on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would eliminate a Local Radio Ownership Rule that “limits the total number of radio stations that may be commonly owned in a local market” and a Local Television Rule that “limits a single entity from owning more than two television stations in the same local market.”  [snip]

But there are fifty years of clear evidence that media consolidation of any kind, be it new or old media, is immeasurably harmful. You can see the impact of the elimination of oversight on this front everywhere you look across old and new media. Constant consolidation in media has resulted in a feckless, billionaire-owned press that demonstrates to you every day they can’t meet our current, authoritarian moment.

Local broadcast affiliates, most of which are run by right wingers (like Sinclair), want the FCC to let them all merge so they can dominate what’s left of local broadcasting. Sinclair has been the butt of jokes for years because of their right wing propaganda pretending to be local news. The company already owns 185 television stations in 85 markets and wants to merge with Nexstar and Tegna.

While it pales in comparison to online internet video consumption at places like YouTube, millions of people still watch local broadcast news. With the death of many local newspapers, it’s often the closest to “news” many Americans get. The result has been a large number of local news deserts where reliable, accurate local journalism is extremely difficult to come by.

But this Trump 2.0 push to consolidate isn’t just about local broadcasters. National companies like ABC and Disney are also pushing to not just merge with each other, but to merge with modern media giants like TikTok. Telecoms, tech companies, and media companies are all looking to consolidate. 

As you can see with what Larry Ellison’s been up to with CBS, Time Warner, and TikTok, the goal of these acquisitions clearly isn’t to serve the public interest, it’s to stifle diverse opinion, undermine real journalism, and create a media full of corporatist bullshit and right wing propaganda. Their efforts, including Musk’s purchase of Twitter, haven’t exactly been subtle.  (our emphasis)

We also have Tim "Tim Apple" Cook doing the thugs at ICE a solid:

Apple said Thursday it is removing an app that allows users to share information about sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, which the head of ICE had criticized.

ICEBlock was removed from Apple’s App Store along with other apps like it, Apple said.

“We created the App Store to be a safe and trusted place to discover apps,” Apple said. “Based on information we’ve received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock, we have removed it and similar apps from the App Store.”

Trump administration officials have complained about assaults and threats to ICE agents, among them that they face being “doxxed,” a term that means personal information is shared online.

ICEBlock does not involve the sharing of personal information about agents, but it notifies people within a 5-mile radius of sightings.

The app was launched in April, around three months after President Donald Trump was inaugurated following a campaign in which he vowed to crack down on people in the country without legal authorization. Downloads took off in June, the month immigration raids were launched in Los Angeles.

Fox Business, which first reported that the app had been pulled Thursday, reported that Justice Department officials asked Apple to remove ICEBlock at the direction of Attorney General Pam Bondi.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.

Bondi said in a statement to Fox Business, "We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so."

As it was once said, we don't want things to go back to normal if we ever get out of this fascist takeover; we want the entire right-wing media apparatus and the companies collaborating with the regime dismantled and their leadership held accountable for this un-American dystopia.  Putting profits over people and democracy may be par for the course for them, but it can't be how things work if we're to have a country that lives up to its ideals again.