Tech hearing: Bezos, Zuckerberg, Cook and Pichai grilled by congress as Facebook CEO defends Twitter over Trump Jr ban
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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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Zuckerberg dodges questions from Matt Gaetz on Project Veritas expose showing Facebook content moderators that spoke about the culture in Facebook that disadvantages conservatives and leads to content manipulation.
"I'm somewhat familiar with the concerns they've raised," Zuckerberg said about comments from ex-moderators Ryan Hartwig and Zach McElroy.
"Of course when you have tens of thousands of employees people make mistakes, people have some of their own goals some of the time, and it's our job running the company to make sure that we minimize errors and that we make sure that the company's operations reflect the principles that we intend to run it on."
Matt Gaetz just suggested Zuckerberg may be lying before congress after the Facebook CEO said he wasn't aware of any instance in which someone was fired for their political beliefs.
When asked why Oculus Rift founder Palmer Luckey was fired, Zuckerberg wouldn't comment on specific personnel.
"I've seen the messages where you have specifically directed Mr Luckey to make statements regarding his politics for the benefit of your company so I think both in the case of these content moderators and in the case of the testimony you just gave regarding Mr Luckey, and firing people over their politics, there is serious question as to whether or not you're giving truthful testimony here or whether it's lying before congress," Mr Gaetz said.
Amazon's "aggregate data" could include as few as two sellers.
While Bezos has said it's against their rules for them to gain an advantage from "individual" user data, in response to questions from Kelly Armstrong he confirmed "aggregate" data could be an aggregate of just two sellers.
Lucy McBath is grilling Cook about Apple's Screentime app. She says the timing of Apple's removal of competitors was "very coincidental".
Cook says they were concerned about child safety.
When asked why the App Store promote the Screentime app to customers who complained about the removal of rival apps, Cook said he didn't... see a problem.
"I can't see this email I'm sorry my eyes are not good enough to read it but I see Screentime as just an alternative but there are over 30 parental contral apps that are in the App Store today so there's vibrant competition for parental controls out there," he said.
Gatez grilled Pichai about 2016 video showing Google's senior leadership saying Trump's election victory would be a "blip".
"It was in the context of through the election across both sides there was a lot of opinions, and as you know elections are kind of a polarizing moment generally in the country and there was a rhetoric about certain issue," Pinchai said.
He continued: "If we found any evidence that people are using political agenda to manipulate any of our content platforms we would take strong enforcement action," Pinchai said.
Gaetz said it "doesn't take Sherlock Holmes here to connect the dots and see what Google is doing".
Does the Chinese government steal technology from US companies?
Cook: "I don't know of specific cases where we have been stolen from by the government."
Pichai: "I have no first hand knowledge of any information stolen from Google in this regard."
Zuckerberg: "I think it's well documented that the Chinese government steals technology from American companies."
Bezos: "I have heard many reports of that, and I haven't seen it personally, but I've seen many reports of it." He continued: "Certainly there are knock off products if that's what you mean, and there are counterfeit products and all of that, but if the answer is the Chinese government stealing technology, that's the thing I've read reports of but don't have personal experience with."
Kelly Armstrong goes after Google's dominant position to push third parties out of YouTube in 2015.
"The excuse is privacy but the data doesn't disappear you just have greater control over it right?" Armstrong said.
"When we're using privacy we're using privacy as a shield but we're really doing, and what your company's really doing, is using it as a cudgel to beat down the competition."
Pinchai didn't have a direct response, and rather deflected that all the big tech companies like Facebook, SnapChat, and Pinterest had similar advertising offerings.
Bezos says social media is a nuance destruction machine.
Here is each CEO responding to Jim Jordan's question about whether the cancel culture mob is dangerous and if they were concerned about the "digital Thunderdome" of mob think, cancel culture and group think.
Cook: "Where somebody with a different point of view talks and they're cancelled, I don't think that's good. I think it's good for people to hear different points of view and decide for themselves."
Pichai: "We build platforms that allow for freedom of expression and we take pride in the fact across our platforms, including YouTube, there are more diverse voices than ever before.
Zuckerberg: "I believe strongly in free expression, giving people a voice is an important part of what our services do. I'm very worried about the forces of illiberalism that I see in this country that are pushing against free expression. I think that this is one of the fundamental democratic traditions that we have in our country and it's how we make progress over the long term over a number of issues."
Bezos: "I am concerned in general about that and what I find a little discouraging is that it appears to me that social media is a nuance destruction machine and I don' think that's helpful for a democracy."
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