It's not that complex!

Corporate law is extremely complex.

That's a glib answer. Google is free to continue doing business in the EU and is does not 'have no choice but to pay up'. That's simple.

I think the more "complex" the EU tries to make it in order to extract money from big corps the harder it can also be for smaller firms if those rules apply to those also.

I see no evidence that the EU is legislating in order to extract money from corporations, so the very basis of your idea is flawed.

But this ruling is specifically about companies with market dominance, so it does very much not apply to smaller firms.

It seemed pretty clear-cut to me, from the well-written article :)

>the Bush/early Obama years

That was 4chan's "Ron Paul for President" and "Jews did 9/11" phase.

4chan was never liberal.

The GamerGate drama turned many subreddits and the non-/pol/ parts of 4chan into right-wing echo chambers.

I agree with your assumption that most US leakers being treated like heroes/celebs will put the US in a disadvantage against geopolitically rival countries, where leakers are considered to be traitors.

But I'm not American and neither are you. Why do we care?