Google CEO testimony to Congress - LIVE: Sundar Pichai asked why Trump appears when you search 'idiot' amid grilling about data collection

Sundar Pichai says Google has 'no plans' to launch censored search engine in China

Google CEO Sundar Pichai testifies to Congress over privacy and data collection

Weeks before Democrats take over control of the House of Representatives, Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are questioning Google CEO Sundar Pichai on issues including transparency, data collection, and filtering.

This is the latest of several hearings Republicans have set up with tech company executives, which they claim have shown liberal bias in their dealings.

Google refused to send a representative the last time the Judiciary interviewed the top brass of social media companies, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. But, since then, the Mr Pichai has held closed door meetings with members of Congress to discuss what Republicans have branded as liberal bias at Google.

Follow updates from the hearing below and watch a live stream of the testimony here.

Please allow a moment for the live blog to update

[11 December 2018 16:51 · Clark Mindock]

The testimony of Mr Pichai has not been as odd as we saw when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified to Congress earlier this year, but members of Congress are similarly refusing to believe basic statements from Mr Pichai.

During Mr Zuckerberg's testimony, members of Congress asked how Facebook makes money, to which the Facebook founder smirked and said they run adverts.

[11 December 2018 17:03 · Clark Mindock]

Folks are noting on Twitter that there are a lot of self owns that have taken place during this hearing.

When referencing Google search results, at least one Republican noted that he had to go through dozens of search results in order to find good news articles regarding efforts by Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act and massive tax cuts for the wealthy.

The self owns, per commentators online, comes from the fact that Google prioritizes new posts and posts that are popular.

[11 December 2018 17:13 · Clark Mindock]

Representative David Cicilline is now up. Mr Cicilline is the head of the antitrust subcommittee and asked Mr Pichai if he would commit Google to working with Congress on legislation that would ensure that companies with major market share — like Google — do not take advantage of that to promote their products over those of others.

[11 December 2018 17:16 · Clark Mindock]

Mr Pichai said that there have been internal dialogues about launching a version of Google in China, but has repeatedly said that the company does not have a plan to launch.

He called the effort "limited" and internal. Mr Pichai has also indicated that Google is not actively discussing a launch in China with Chinese officials.

[11 December 2018 17:27 · Clark Mindock]

Mr Pichai has said that he thinks Europe's recently passed General Data Protection Regulation is "well thought-out" and that he thinks there is good reason for the US to consider something similar.

[11 December 2018 17:33 · Clark Mindock]

We have an update on Monopoly man we mentioned earlier in the blog.

At one point, he had pinned several moustaches onto his hat, in addition to the one on his face.

He has now gone back to having just one moustache. It is on his face.

[11 December 2018 17:38 · Clark Mindock]

Representative Ted Lieu, a Democrat, is Googling Republicans and reading search results now during the hearing.

Mr Pichai has confirmed that nobody at Google sits around and manipulates search results.

Mr Lieu summed up his point, after pulling up search results that included a story calling a Republican "racist".

"If you want obvious search results. Do positive things. If you don't want negative search results, don't do negative things. To some of my colleagues across the aisle, if you're getting negative search results, don't blame Google or Facebook ... consider blaming yourselves," Mr Lieu said.

[11 December 2018 17:48 · Clark Mindock]

We are nearly three hours into this hearing, and it looks like we are running out of members to question Mr Pichai.

One Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin is asking about conspiracy material found on YouTube, including conspiracy videos that claim to show Hillary Clinton abusing children.

Mr Raskin noted that conspiracy theorists sometimes turn violent, as happened before when an individual brought a loaded weapon into a pizza shop that had been theorized as a child trafficking location run by Ms Clinton. The pizza shop was not actually a child trafficking outpost.

Mr Raskin's point was that Google has a responsibility to ensure that hate speech that could lead to violence is not available on its platform.

[11 December 2018 17:59 · Clark Mindock]

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has reportedly been threatened with arrest by police after attending the Google hearing.

Jones appears to have left the actual hearing where he began ranting about the immense power that tech companies have in the US.

[11 December 2018 18:04 · Clark Mindock]

Mr Pichai has dodged a question about a reported prototype for launching a search engine in China, saying once again that they "explored" what search could look like in the country.

He said that, at one point in time, there were over 100 people working on a potential prototype for launching in China. But, Mr Pichai said, Google did not proceed very far it its exploration.