Mark Patterson was quoted in an Ars Technica article about a recent lawsuit against Google by Twitter rival Gab.
But Mark Patterson, an antitrust law expert at Fordham University, is skeptical that Gab’s lawsuit will prevail. However, he says the basic legal theory behind the lawsuit is sound: Google really could get in trouble if it blocked Gab to help its business partner, Twitter. But Gab would have to prove that this was Google’s motivation.
As Patterson told Ars, “that’s probably not what was going on.”
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Patterson finds it perfectly plausible that Google could have believed that being associated with Gab—and, therefore, with Gab’s controversial users—would be bad for Google’s brand. And if that was Google’s motivation, then Google would be on safe legal ground even if Google hasn’t been entirely consistent in enforcing its content rules against other social media apps.
“A claim that is based on a view that Google should be even-handed really only works in antitrust if it makes a claim based on some kind of competitive advantage” to Google, Patterson says.