Russia and China have figured out what Westerners should have known for decades:
Russia has fined Google about US$373 million for allowing users to access, “prohibited” material about the war in Ukraine and other restricted content. The material was said to include materials attempting to discredit Russia’s military, as well as exhortations to protest the Russian government, according to Roskomnadzor, the country’s communications regulator. It added that the company has proven a “systemic” violator of national laws regarding content.
Google has not commented on the fines.
The company’s local subsidiary had declared bankruptcy last month after Russian authorities had seized its bank account to recover 7.2 billion rubles, or US$130 million which the company had been fined for similar violations last year.
The moves are part of a broader regulatory push by the Russian government to place pressure on tech firms, which they accuse of not moderating their content in accordance with Russian laws, and of trying to meddle in the nation’s internal affairs.
The key phrase: “trying to meddle in the nation’s internal affairs”. AC spells out the obvious conclusion.
It is clear at this point all of these tech companies are just subsidiaries of our intelligence apparatus. And given it is no coincidence that every top tech company is just taking orders from intel, that means intel has been throughout our economic system deciding who wins and who loses, and making sure it is their operations who win every time. We were never in a capitalist system, any more than we elected our leaders. All along, the idea you could have a killer app, form a business, and be just like Bill Gates was just a myth. Intel was always deployed domestically, even throughout the world of American business, working against any American who was not on their payroll and under their control.
We’re going to need a new economic theory simply to explain the way in which the “capitalist” system has been functioning since the 1980s at the absolute latest. Everything that we’re taught in microeconomics is observably untrue; the winners in far too many industries are evidently not determined by efficiency or competition or even luck, but rather by the hidden, but heavy hand of secret government funding.
It’s very much like the oft-criticized industrial policy of Japan, only on steroids. Instead of MITI selecting key industries in which to invest for maximizing economic growth, Big Brother is selecting favored corporations in every industry in which to invest for a) gathering information for the Panopticon and b) establishing official narratives.
Among other things, this absconomic theory will explain why modern corporations, from technology to entertainment, are increasingly unable to address the basic needs and preferences of their nominal customers.
