Last Wednesday, the Capitol of Washington was a scene of political riots. Some of whom attended the pro-Trump rally decided to irrupt into political institutions where the legislative power is exercised.

Those who gathered in Washington think that there has been an “election fraud”. They expected the Congress and the Senate to invalidate the Electoral College certifications from States such as Georgia, Arizona and Michigan.

Even if none of that happened, the division between Americans became more evident. It is hard to deny that there is such a desperation fueled by the leftist agenda (we may refer to events like Black Lives Matter protests and mainstream harassment against Donald Trump).

It is true that Donald Trump called protesters to keep peaceful and respect “Law and Order”. Despite this, the political and media burden has increased up to the point of calling for an urgent impeachment. What’s more, some social media services began to intensify the leftist bias.

The companies under Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey—Facebook and Twitter—have suspended the accounts of Donald Trump. Some e-commerce services have withdrawn “trumpist” merchandising.

All this turmoil is inciting many conservative, traditionalist and right-wing libertarians to cancel their personal accounts. They were considering microblogging alternative options like Gab and Parler.

Obviously, the criticism towards Big Tech companies has increased. But there is a wide disparity of criteria at the time of addressing this problem. So the aim of this essay is to deal with that affair from a pro-market perspective.

Big Tech Owe Too Much To Big Government

Many people think that free enterprise may be ultimately poisoning for individual liberties. There is also a serious misconception about the causes of the “concentration of properties” and the concepts of monopoly and oligopoly.

However, the reality is very different. There are strong ties of many big corporations with the government, for what we talk about “Big Government + Big Tech”. Entities like Google, Facebook and Amazon benefit considerably from subsidies and tax breaks.

Apart from that, those corporations become government stakeholders. Through lobbyists, they try to benefit from political regulations. For some reason, it is expected Silicon Valley to be influential in the Biden Administration.

Rarely will you hear people like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos talking about the goodness of free competition, private property, natural law and market economy. They prefer to take part in political and financial elites that are connected to the so-called Deep State.

Only Free-Market Competition May Ensure Free Speech

Undoubtedly, as consumers, we shall evaluate publicly and sincerely the decisions of the many that engage in the market as service providers—social media in this case. The fact that something is not provided by the government does not mean “exemption of criticism”.

What it has been previously mentioned does relate to the concept of “economic democracy”. As the Austrian Economist Ludwig von Mises noted at Manipulation of Money and Credit,

The capitalistic market economy is a democracy in which every penny constitutes a vote. The wealth of the successful businessman is the result of a consumer plebiscite. Wealth, once acquired, can be preserved only by those who keep on earning it anew by satisfying the wishes of consumers. The capitalistic social order, therefore, is an economic democracy in the strictest sense of the word. In the last analysis, all decisions are dependent on the will of the people as consumers.

Thanks to our interactions in the market, we may opt for rewarding or punishing Big Tech for the quality of the service. In that case, consumers—Internet users—would decide not to favor entities who make a big effort in promoting a socialist and revolutionary agenda.

Monopolies and oligopolies are a result of government interventions against a possible offspring of options in the market. In other words, that is how political regulations may act as an armor against competition.

Furthermore, it is important to recall that Big Tech services are protected by statements as the US Section 230, which has been widely understood as a government exemption against free speech.

Political regulations do always favor those who try to impose their “official truth” by means of social engineering—regarded by Hans-Hermann Hoppe as a kind of social engineering. It would not matter if the consequences are intended or no. Theory and practice tend to be different.

Having said that, the spontaneous order may be the best tool against the leftist bias of social media. Additionally, it should be noted that the decentralized and distributed essence of the Internet and open source play in our favor.