Tracy Turner
In the 18th century, American patriots rose against the British Crown, decrying its tyranny, monopolies, and disregard for individual freedoms. Today, a new crown has emerged, not draped in royal velvet but cloaked in sleek logos and promises of convenience. The tech giants-Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, and the rest-constitute a new overclass, their command over our lives rivaling, and in some respects exceeding, that of governments. Their imperium is maintained not by redcoats but by algorithms, data, and the siren song of "smart" life. But beneath the gleaming surface lies a disturbing truth: these corporations are the instruments of a new empire, one based on illegality, monopoly, and the destruction of liberty.
USAID struggles to export 50 lb. bags of rice due to budget constraints, yet under Joe Biden's administration, the U.S. funded the shipment of thousands of 2,000 lb. JDAM bombs to Gaza, each costing approximately $40,000. This stark contrast highlights the disparity between humanitarian aid and military spending priorities.
The New Colonialism
The British Crown once extracted riches from its colonies, exploiting resources and labor to fuel its empire. Today's tech giants do much the same, but their colonies are digital. Apple does have this walled garden of apps and devices, collecting value at every tap, swipe, and download. Amazon crushes competitors and dominates markets, even as its warehouse workers toil in near-industrial serfdom.
Google and Meta harvest personal data unprecedentedly, turning users into products and monetizing their every move. These companies are not corporations but empires, functioning everywhere under the sun-ubiquitous in their presence. They direct us on how to feel, communicate, purchase, consume, and think, just like His Majesty's British Crown, cloaked in impunity against laws or regulations, defiant as if foretold or convinced it can never face collapse-or legal penalty.
Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, has been at the company's helm during its unparalleled ability to create an ecosystem that locks consumers into its walled garden. Cook has also presided over Apple's vast profits, including their penchant for exploiting offshore tax havens, hiding billions of dollars in untaxed profits.
Amazon's Jeff Bezos, founder and former CEO, turned an online bookstore into an empire controlling large chunks of global retail, shipping, and even cloud computing. Bezos built an empire that was repeatedly attacked for the treatment of warehouse workers, with widespread reports of grueling working conditions and demands for ever-higher productivity, often at the cost of dignity and rights.
Elon Musk, the maverick CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has also carved out a significant place in this new empire. While Musk is often celebrated as a visionary, his companies are not immune to criticism from other tech giants. Tesla, for instance, has faced scrutiny over its labor practices, including allegations of poor working conditions and anti-union tactics. Musk himself has been a polarizing figure, using his platform on Twitter (now X) to amplify controversial views and shape public discourse. His acquisition of Twitter in 2022 has further cemented his role as a key player in the tech oligarchy, with the power to influence free speech and digital communication on a global scale.
The Illusion of Convenience
Seeing two opposite sides, the tech giants' consumers sell convenience, speed, and smartness as the ultimate virtues. But they are not virtues; they are controls.
Amazon's one-click ordering is not a feature; it's a mechanism to keep you spending. Google's search engine is not a utility; it's a gatekeeper of information that shapes what you see and how you see things. Meta's social platforms are not places of connection, but echo chambers designed to keep you engaged-and enraged.
Convenience is the opiate of the modern masses. It puts us in a state of somnolence, making us voluntary accomplices in our subjugation. We trade our privacy for ease and our autonomy for efficiency. In so doing, we give up the freedoms the American patriots fought to secure. However, the newest tool of control is the algorithms themselves.
The Meta AI newsfeed isn't designed just for user engagement but a new kind of opium den: to keep users in an addictive, repetitive pattern of check-scroll-like. It manipulates not the basic instincts but by controlling the signs-emotional cues like outrage or sympathy.
Recent studies show that social media sites like Instagram have contributed to increasing rates of mental illness among teenagers-particularly those related to body image issues, further evidence of how convenience can deteriorate authentic well-being.
The Monopoly Menace
Monopoly was the hallmark of British colonial rule and is of the tech empire. Apple controls the hardware and software that comprise the ecosystem into which people are interlocked. Amazon is dominant in e-commerce and uses its market power to undercut its competition wholesale and impose its terms on suppliers.
Google's search engine commands nearly 90 percent of the world's market, giving it unparalleled control over the flow of information. These monopolies are not an accident; they are a strategy. Through the control of key markets, the tech giants suppress competition, innovation, and choice. They are the new East India Company, deploying economic power to bend governments and societies to their Banana-Republic-Will.
Amazon's dominance in online retail has brought It under the most intense scrutiny. Bezos's willingness to run ahead of competitors by leveraging its power in logistics, data analysis, and cloud services has come at the cost of many small businesses. It also allows Amazon to suppress wages and working conditions in its warehouses.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has presided over the company's dominance in digital advertising, which is directly tied to its dominance in search and user data. Pichai's leadership has turned Google into an essential infrastructure for the modern world, holding sway over the daily information and news people consume. Under his watch, Apple's strict control of the ecosystem via its App Store was challenged for the alleged monopolistic approach of keeping developers and customers locked into their proprietary systems. Apple's dominance over the mobile phone means it holds unparalleled negotiating power regarding software distribution and development. It often forces competing companies to work within its prescribed fees and standards or be kicked off the platform.
Elon Musk's Tesla has also been accused of monopolistic tendencies, particularly in the electric vehicle (EV) market. Tesla's early dominance in the EV space has given it a significant advantage, but critics argue that its control over charging infrastructure and proprietary technology could stifle competition. Musk's influence extends beyond Tesla, as his ventures in space exploration (SpaceX) and neural technology (Neuralink) further consolidate his power in cutting-edge industries.
The Erosion of Free Speech
Free speech was the clarion call of the American Revolution, the principle enshrined in the First Amendment. Today, tech giants ultimately determine speech, who decide what can and cannot be said and by whom. Meta and Twitter (now X) ban users and remove content with little transparency or accountability. Google's algorithms promote some voices and silence others, sculpting public discourse to serve its interests.
This is not free speech; it is curated speech. And curation is a form of control. Controlling the platforms where speech happens means that the tech giants control the speech. They are the new censors, with powers that would make King George III blush.
However, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO, has been at the forefront of debates around censorship and manipulating content on social media. While his company's algorithms enable personalized information filtering, it has also been accused of fostering polarization, misinformation, and division.
Twitter's Elon Musk, who took over in late 2022, has dramatically shifted how content is moderated and has been at the center of debates surrounding the future of digital free speech, often taking the side of a libertarian ideology of minimal censorship.
Google has come under tremendous pressure due to its dominance in online discourse through its search algorithms, which touch everything from news reporting to search results. Sundar Pichai is under pressure at Alphabet, Google's parent company, to ensure that content does not influence public opinion to be biased toward corporate interests.
The Lawlessness of the Overlords
The British Crown operated on the doctrine of "divine right," claiming authority above the law. The tech giants operate on a similar doctrine: one might call it "corporate right." They flout antitrust laws, evade taxes, and exploit loopholes with brazen disregard for legal and ethical norms.
Consider Apple's tax avoidance strategies, which let it park billions in offshore accounts, Amazon's harshest and most undignified labor practices, or Google's anticompetitive behavior, which has attracted the ire of regulators worldwide. These are not isolated incidents but systemic features of a corporate culture that view laws as obstacles to be circumvented, not rules to be followed.
Arguably, the most notorious case of all is that of Apple's tax schemes. The company faced several investigations of its offshore tax practices. Under Cook's leadership, Apple exploited the loopholes and avoided paying billions of dollars of U.S. taxes-a key factor in making it staggeringly wealthy.
Under Bezos, Amazon has been subjected to very sharp criticism regarding labor practices, including unsafe conditions and practices in fulfillment centers, and attempts to discourage unionization drives most aggressively. Its tax avoidance, especially in the United States, has also been criticized, where it pays very little tax on the billions it generates worldwide.
Elon Musk's Tesla has also faced legal challenges, including allegations of workplace discrimination and safety violations. Musk has been known to push the boundaries of regulatory compliance, often clashing with authorities over issues ranging from securities fraud to labor rights.
The Brainwashing Machine
These tech giants are not businesses; they are propaganda machines. Their algorithms are designed to keep you engaged, feeding you content that reinforces your beliefs and amplifies your biases. That is not education; that is indoctrination. It builds a world where facts are subjective, truth is malleable, and reality is whatever the algorithm says. Meta's Facebook has been implicated in spreading misinformation from vaccine conspiracies to election fraud claims.
Google's YouTube has been accused of radicalizing its users through its recommendation engine. These are not bugs; these are features. The tech giants profit from division, discord, and disinformation. They are the new propagandists who shape public opinion to serve their ends.
Meta's Zuckerberg has been heavily condemned due to his critical role in helping misinformation get around on Facebook, mainly related to the election and public health issues. Company algorithms have been accused of perpetuating harmful content to boost user engagement-a move whereby increasingly extreme content might get users and trigger an emotional response.
So have Google's Sundar Pichai and YouTube's Susan Wojcicki, former CEO who stepped down in 2023, of allowing misinformation to spread on the site. The recommendation algorithm has played the starring role on the platform, guiding viewers toward extremist content.
Elon Musk's Twitter (X) has also been criticized for its role in amplifying misinformation, particularly under Musk's leadership. His hands-off approach to content moderation has led to concerns about the platform becoming a haven for hate speech and disinformation.
In the Name of Freedom
The American patriots fought for freedom from tyranny; today, we must do the same. The tech giants are the new Crown, and their power must be checked. This is not a call for revolution but for reform. We need stronger antitrust laws, stricter regulations, and greater transparency. We must break up the monopolies, hold the overlords accountable, and reclaim our digital sovereignty. We could not afford to be blind to the highest stakes. If we fail to act, we will be subjects of a new empire ruled by kings and algorithms. We would be robbed of those freedoms that define us-the freedom that patriots fought and died for.
The tech giants are the new Crown, and their power must be challenged. We should not be enchanted by their version of convenience, speed, and smartness. We must see them for what they are: overlords profiting from our dependency, data, and division. The fight for freedom is never over; it has moved into a new phase. And just as it was with the old patriots, we must rise to the challenge, too.
5 Little-Known Revelations About Tesla and Elon Musk
1. Tesla's Solar City Bailout: In 2016, Tesla acquired SolarCity, a solar energy company founded by Musk's cousins. The deal was controversial, with critics arguing that it was a bailout for the financially struggling SolarCity, which was heavily indebted at the time. Shareholders later sued Musk, alleging that he used Tesla's resources to prop up SolarCity, but Musk was ultimately cleared of wrongdoing in a 2022 court case.
2. Musk's Unconventional Management Style: Musk is known for his hands-on approach to management, often involving himself in the minutiae of his companies. At Tesla, he has been known to sleep on the factory floor during production crises and has a reputation for setting aggressive deadlines that push employees to their limits.
3. Tesla's Open-Source Patents: In a surprising move, Musk announced in 2014 that Tesla would not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone using its technology "in good faith." This decision was aimed at encouraging the growth of the electric vehicle market. Still, critics argue that it was also a strategic move to position Tesla as a leader in the industry.
4. Musk's Neuralink Ambitions: Beyond Tesla and SpaceX, Musk has ventured into the realm of brain-computer interfaces with Neuralink. The company aims to develop technology that can merge human brains with artificial intelligence, potentially allowing humans to communicate directly with machines. While the technology is still in its early stages, it has raised ethical concerns about privacy and potential misuse.
5. Tesla's Autopilot Controversies: Tesla's Autopilot system has been both a selling point and a source of controversy. While the technology has been praised for its innovation, it has also been linked to several high-profile accidents. Critics argue that Tesla has overstated its capabilities, leading to dangerous overreliance by drivers.
These revelations underscore the complex and often controversial nature of Musk's ventures, further cementing his role as a key figure in the tech oligarchy.
In other words, these tech giants-Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, and others-have ushered in a new era, reminiscent of some of the worst aspects of a colonial empire. Through data, domination of business sectors, and demolition of personal freedoms behind the mask of convenience and progress, these corporations have immense power over our lives. Unchecked power, greased by foul play, offset pollution, tax evasion, and the manipulation of public discourse, is an imminent danger to individual rights and democratic principles. The pressing necessity for immediate action: strong regulation, antitrust, and transparency are required to break this modern empire's stranglehold and give us back our digital freedom. The struggle for freedom, hitherto directed at the colonial rulers, needs to be refocused on these tech titans if the liberties inalienable to our identity are to be preserved.
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