Attorney General Jeff Sessions is open to investigating Facebook and Google

U.S.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

• Attorney General Jeff Sessions is exploring the possibility
  of an investigation into US tech giants, Bloomberg reported.
• Sessions will be briefed on September 25 by Republican state
  attorneys general.
• Bloomberg reports that Sessions has not yet made his mind up
  about how to proceed, but that one of the attending attorneys
  general wants to break up the big tech companies.

There’s a little more insight into US Attorney General Jeff
Sessions’
cryptic announcement that he planned to discuss whether
Silicon Valley firms were stifling free speech and competition.

According to Bloomberg, Sessions is, as widely speculated,
open to the possibility of an investigation into companies such
as Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

Citing two people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported
that Sessions will be briefed on September 25 by Republican state
attorneys general who have already been scrutinizing social media
firms.

Sessions has reportedly not made up his mind yet on an
investigation, but at least one attorney general is agitating to
break up big tech firms.

Sessions announced he was summoning state attorneys general last
week over concerns that tech giants may be infringing antitrust
and free speech laws.

This came after
President Trump accused Google of instilling left-wing bias
into its search results, and subsequently suggested that giant
tech companies could
represent a “very antitrust situation.”

Google dismantled Trump’s claims, but a chorus of voices on
America’s right has grown louder in claiming anti-conservative
bias in tech. That chorus appears to be echoing all the way to
Washington.

Neither Trump nor Sessions gave any details of monopolistic
practices, but
Google was recently fined in Europe thanks to its dominance
in mobile and online advertising. Facebook has similarly been
criticised for monopolising social media by acquiring Instagram
and WhatsApp.

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