Although it's worth pointing out that Google should care very much about the "influence" of the parts of society it openly favors or [ insert antonym here, it's too early in the morning ].
Google has gained a lot of enemies for a variety of reasons, size and success in particular. It's going to need the favor and good will of as much of the nation as possible to survive the increasingly vicious attacks on it from competitors or those who simply like to attack the big (envy, or just big pockets).
There's long been a correct (I believe) perception that Google leans strongly to the Left, and in a country where "the Left" is outnumbered 2-1 by "the Right" I can't see that being wise. This action of theirs as of yesterday was gaining a lot of attention on the Right, and even agnostics like myself are not pleased (because I know churches do a lot of good, something very strongly reinforced this summer after a tornado ripped through the middle of my city, Joplin, Missouri).
I'm not saying Google should favor the Right, but at least it should not go out of its way to piss it off. It simply can't afford that sort of thing given its status today.
I'm generally pretty right wing and I generally think that the tech companies have a heavy left-wing bias. That said, Google already has a massive influence on journalism. From where we are, today, in the real world, this feels like a good change.
I think the politicians here are just trolling for campaign cash and other favors in kind. When Google greases the right palms the spotlight will shift elsewhere.
As I understand it, this is the result of Google itself having quite a strong political opinions, at least recently. They profiled themselves as being leftist/progressive... their software just enforces this.
I do believe this will strengthen propaganda to be honest. I don't think I ever noticed a political ad from Google (not US based), but I am pretty certain that Google will ban those advertisements that are not in their interest. Google has close contaxts to many political circles.
That's a coverage artifact - if Google is manipulating politics in favor of democrats, then the only coverage you'll find is going to be on the center to the right wing platforms. American media in all its glory.
I think it’s interesting that you think antitrust Google benefits right wing groups over left wing groups.
I think this thought is mainly due to the dichotomy of “google = good” and “republican = bad” having some transitive logic making “stuff against google = republican.”
Capitalism and activism are a bad fit. The SJWs who shape Google's policies towards the so called alt-right/far-right will eventually turn against the company.
The likes of Tommy Robinson and Alex Jones will eventually have the last laugh.
A mere dictatorially run company can tell an entire democracy what to do?
To be fair, Big Media have been doing something not unlike that for generations, as have big businesses in numerous other industries through various forms of lobbying, regulatory capture and revolving door politics. It's not as if Big Tech getting in on the act is a unique or original move. Not that this necessarily makes it any better, of course.
One interesting potential difference this time is that in a very direct way, Google are only strong enough to make this strategy work if they have a lot of popular support for their services continuing to operate, which is another way of saying that their services are providing a significant public benefit and possibly they have a point. If their services aren't all that and competitors can readily step in to provide a similar value to society, as various comments here have already suggested, then this strategy by Google is doomed to fail and will also leave them in a considerably weaker position when it comes to playing poker over other regulation in the future.
So google is trying to save every country in the world from fascism... by forcing them into a technological matrix they exert total authoritarian control over. Lol. FAANG employees and their shills truly believe they are gods guiding humanity into the future.
If Google is indeed making an active effort to use its influence to stall our societal descent into Weimar Republic politics, it should be applauded.
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