{"id":25034,"date":"2018-09-18T16:32:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-18T20:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=25034"},"modified":"2018-09-19T22:27:54","modified_gmt":"2018-09-20T02:27:54","slug":"google-and-other-politicized-organizations-target-2nd-amendment-and-consumer-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/25034\/google-and-other-politicized-organizations-target-2nd-amendment-and-consumer-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Google and Other Politicized Organizations Target 2nd Amendment and Consumer Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

In recent months, Google has justifiably suffered heavy criticism for selectively acting as internet gatekeeper, deciding what Americans can and cannot view online.\u00a0 Countless examples exist when the liberal Silicon Valley giant leveraged its \u00a0market power to censor along ideological lines, including:\u00a0\u00a0banning the conservative blog<\/a> The New York Conservative<\/em>, hosted on Google Blogger, for opining on the trial of terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed;\u00a0\u00a0demoting pro-Brexit\/Euroskeptic<\/a> websites by pushing them down in search results;\u00a0\u00a0excluding Donald Trump<\/a> from \u201cpresidential candidates\u201d search;\u00a0 and blocking<\/a> free speech social network Gab from the Google Play Store, alleging violations of the company\u2019s hate speech policy.<\/p>\n

The latest revelation of Google\u2019s partisan bias arrived in late July, when the company quietly shifted its Google Play policy<\/a> to ban apps selling firearms and accessories.\u00a0 That change went largely unreported, although TechCrunch stated, \u201cGoogle takes an almost moral position with the addition of a ban of apps that \u2018facilitate the sale of explosives, firearms, ammunition, or certain firearms accessories.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0That maneuver follows an instance in which Apple did something similar last December<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Given the sheer market power of Apple and Google, their ideologically driven policy poses an incredibly damaging peril not only to consumers who utilize firearm-related apps, but also an entire industry – a completely legal one – \u00a0selling firearms or firearms accessories.<\/p>\n

The inescapable conclusion is that Google seeks to censor viewpoints and entirely legal behavior that it disfavors out of existence.\u00a0 A full month after Google’s policy was quietly implemented, Steve Urvan, CEO and CTO of GunBroker.com, received an email notification stating that the GunBroker.com app had been suspended and removed from Google Pay due to a \u201cViolation of Dangerous Products policy.\u201d\u00a0 Google\u2019s questionable decision to ban Gunbroker.com\u2019s app raises an ominous specter about politicized and powerful corporations \u00a0attempting to socially engineer from the boardroom.<\/p>\n

Google\u2019s behavior joins a wave of social activism that increasingly pervades American companies and weakens Americans’ ability to purchase perfectly legal goods.\u00a0 In April, Bank of America announced that it would abruptly discontinue banking services to firearms manufacturers that produce legal and popular AR-15-style rifles. \u00a0Mere months earlier, Citigroup announced a new U.S. commercial firearms policy precluding the company\u2019s commercial and institutional clients, small business clients and credit card partners from selling any firearm to individuals under the age of 21, (even though the legal age remains 18).\u00a0 It also refused to serve any business client manufacturing magazines exceeding ten rounds. Citigroup has also held preliminary discussions about potentially monitoring consumers\u2019 gun purchases within their internal payment systems.<\/p>\n

These alarming steps highlight an emerging trend of politicized and politically powerful activist businesses targeting perfectly legal behaviors of everyday Americans.\u00a0 If the leadership of Bank of America, Citigroup and Google want to dictate consumer choices, that’s\u00a0 certainly within their rights, although perhaps they’d be better off running for official office.\u00a0 At the very least, they could be more honest with consumers about their shenanigans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recent months, Google has justifiably suffered heavy criticism for selectively acting as internet gatekeeper, deciding what Americans can and cannot view online.\u00a0 Countless examples exist when the liberal Silicon Valley giant leveraged its \u00a0market power to censor along ideological lines, including:\u00a0\u00a0banning the conservative blog The New York Conservative, hosted on Google Blogger, for opining […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[362,220],"class_list":["post-25034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-google","tag-second-amendment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25034"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25036,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25034\/revisions\/25036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}