Tech hearing: Bezos, Zuckerberg, Cook and Pichai grilled by congress as Facebook CEO defends Twitter over Trump Jr ban

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Mark Zuckerberg defends Twitter's decision to suspend Donald Trump Jr account

The four biggest Silicon Valley tech CEOs were grilled by Congress for more than five hours as both Democrats and Republicans accused them of using their monopolies to crush market competitors and censor ideological opponents.

Google's Sundai Pichai, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Apple's Time Cook and Amazon's Jeff Bezos faced both pointed accusations and at times confused questioning from Representatives wading into thickets of privacy policies, advertising platforms and data algorithms.

Zuckerberg at one point found himself in the unlikely position of defending Twitter's decision to suspend Donald Trump's Jr's account after his company was confused for that of Jack Dorsey, who was not in attendance.

Bezos, meanwhile, was unable to deny an assertion that Amazon uses third-party seller data to advantage itself, a potential antitrust concern for the e-commerce company, but committed to sharing results of its internal investigation.

Cook defended Apple for removing competitors from the App Store even as customers were directed to Apple's own products as a replacement.

Pichai faced some of the toughest questions over Google's advertising practices, with the company accused of using "privacy" as a shield to withhold user data from competitors that it used itself to claim an advantage.

While Representatives across both political spectrums shared in their level of concerns at the size of the tech companies, Democrats tended to focus on anticompetitive conduct while Republicans leaned toward political censorship.

Zuckerberg was accused of lying to Congress after claiming he wasn't aware of anyone being fired for their political beliefs, while Pichai dodged questions about a 2016 video showing anti-Trump bias among senior leadership.

All of the CEO's, however, agreed that the emergence of cancel culture was a threat to democracy as the nuance destruction machine of social media empowered mobs in the "digital Thunderdome".

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[29 July 2020 16:24 · Andrew Buncombe]

A very bright and sunshine-filled good morning from Seattle, where I am picking up the coverage of today's hearing

[29 July 2020 16:55 · Andrew Buncombe]

One thing the committee is particularly likely to press Amazon boss Jeff Bezos about, according to CNBC, is a Wall Street Journal story that can be found here, about third party sellers that found Amazon used data from some of them to create its own products. It said some of Amazon’s past statements to the panel “appear to be misleading, and possibly criminally false or perjurious”.

[29 July 2020 17:15 · Andrew Buncombe]

Just getting word that testimony has been delayed until 1pmEST

[29 July 2020 17:26 · Andrew Buncombe]

And of course, Donald Trump has weighed in:

[29 July 2020 17:40 · Andrew Buncombe]

A little fact to ponder. In preparing for today's hearings, legislators collected hundreds of hours of interviews and more than 1.3m documents

[29 July 2020 17:46 · Andrew Buncombe]

Am looking to see how Bezos in particular handles questioning from congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, whose district in Seattle contains large swathes of Amazon's HQ and who has been a constant critic of the company over a number of issues. Yesterday, she gave quite a grilling to attorney general William Barr:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/william-barr-testimony-pramila-jayapal-black-lives-matter-protests-a9643036.html

[29 July 2020 17:55 · Andrew Buncombe]

Another fact nugget to ponder - because of Covid, the four CEOs, whose companies are worth a collated total of $4.85 trillion, will testify remotely via Cisco’s Webex video conferencing

[29 July 2020 18:08 · Andrew Buncombe]

And we're off, under the chairpersonship of congressman David Cicilline, a Democrat from Rhode Island

[29 July 2020 18:12 · Andrew Buncombe]

“Since last June, the Subcommittee has been investigating the dominance of a small number of digital platforms and the adequacy of existing antitrust laws and enforcement. Given the central role these corporations play in the lives of the American people, it is critical that their CEOs are forthcoming. As we have said from the start, their testimony is essential for us to complete this investigation.”

[29 July 2020 18:13 · Andrew Buncombe]

Quite simply put, adds Cicilline, these companies "have too much power"