3 Companies That Invested in Jio Are Being Questioned for Antitrust in The USA

Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple were asked to appear before The House Judiciary Committee for questioning. The committee has been investigating these companies for the last 13 months and found these companies abusing their power in their respective fields.

What is, however, scary is that three of these companies have recently invested in Reliance Jio, another company that holds absolute power in the Indian market.

Too big to ignore

Amazon pledged $1 billion to be invested in India, of which large amount will be invested in Jio. Facebook invested $5.7 billion and Google came up with its own $4.5 billion to the table. This huge amount of money being pumped into an already enormous company could be a disaster for the Indian market. Reliance’s market reach has already overshadowed the biggies of respective fields. It already holds absolute power in the Indian market, just look at what Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple are doing to their competitors.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely

Effects on democracy

Google and Facebook have paid huge fines to the government in the US for their involvement in swaying the election to one candidates’ favour. Facebook helped Donald Trump with the election by selling user data to Cambridge Analytica. Same way Google tried to block Kamla Harris campaign by halting their pages on Google

They were caught cheating and both these companies paid huge fines for it. However, since they control the internet, any news and links about their wrongdoing are blocked and restricted so users don’t see them and eventually forget. Reliance becoming the giant in India, not just in one sector but in every sector imaginable would mean absolute power. A monopoly that could sway the election with a single decision. With news channels choosing political parties, the fourth pillar of democracy is already showing cracks. It would be the death of democracy if a company like Reliance starts to influence elections by favouring on party over the other.

So far, the government has done a good job of not letting any company influence the elections through the internet. Parties run their own campaign where companies certainly help but not in a way that is close to what Facebook and Google have done in the USA. Let’s see how long it lasts.