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Comment by lordofgibbons | Hacker News Reader

I hope we can keep politics out of this thread, but I couldn't help but notice all of the plaintiff states are dominantly Republican states. Any ideas why that would be and why the "blue" states aren't present?

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> Any ideas why that would be and why the "blue" states aren't present?

Most of Google's political donations go to democrats.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/technology/90-perc...

For anyone else wondering, the article seems to suggest that it's not Google donating, but the employees:

> From 2004 to 2017, $15 million donated by employees of Google and its related companies went to Democrats, and just $1.6 million went to Republicans. Alphabet was created in 2015 as an umbrella company for these companies.

The article's source [1] verifies that the data is about the companies' employees, not the companies themselves.

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20191212055101/https://www.govpr...

There is a bias against technology in the red tribe, as they generally lean left (or are perceived to do so).

Not that it matters, we need a new generation of anti-trust over this. Google must be prohibited from engaging in selling or buying ads.

You "hope we can keep politics out of the thread", and then, shockingly enough, are the only person to bring politics into an antitrust thread about gross systemic abuse of Google's size and power to drive standards and privacy.

Not sure about this particular case but I think there's multiple different ones going on so just looking at this might be a bit misleading of whose taking an interest. Eg. there's an NY case mentioned here: https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-... The Biden DoJ is also digging: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/technology/google-antitru...

I assume it's because Republicans are, on average, more butthurt about technology companies of late because of the bare minimum level of fact checking some of the social platforms have engaged in during the most recent election cycle. Regardless, Google should be nailed against the wall, and though there is little doubt in my mind they will in absolutely no way be appropriately punished for their poor behaviour, it's difficult to complain about people taking shots at them.

Could you expound on "bare minimum level of fact checking "? It seems to me that one tribe was proportionately de-platformed for their violations of ToS and is unhappy with not having the power to do something about it.

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions then maybe the road to heaven is paved with bad intentions?

Don't be taken in by the idea that balance for the sake of balance is some kind of absolute good. If I say that the earth is flat, and you say that the earth is round, the newspaper headline probably shouldn't be that nobody can agree on what shape the earth is.

One tribe, as it happens, says rather a lot more daft and dangerous things than the other. It's not possible to _hope and good cheer_ someone into doing something, but it is possible to _terrify_ them with angry rhetoric and falsehoods. I think people who are making a bunch of shit up should probably not be given a megaphone, whether they're speaking for my tribe or yours.

Except both tribes put out slightly difference flavors of the one major falsehood: that US foreign policy helps anyone, anywhere, for any reason, ever.

I assumed it was because of the major tech industry presence in the states that are conspicuously absent. Offices and datacenters, and thus lobbyists on retainer.

I admit I'm not very current on this stuff, but isn't Texas one of the few states in that list that has a sizeable number of datacenters?

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