Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

US Tech Moguls Virtually Grilled in Congress


Wed 29 Jul 2020 | 11:32 PM
Yassmine Elsayed

Hours ago, top executives for tech giants showed up, virtually, at the US congress in a hearing session dedicated to discuss their size, power and approach to a wide array of issues, including the content they allow online.

Washington Post reported that Democrats and Republicans in Congress came out swinging against Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, following a year-long investigation, which Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), the chairman of the House’s top antitrust subcommittee, said to have revealed that the top tech giants “wielded their power in disruptive, harmful ways,” risking not only competition but the future of democracy itself.

Republicans in Congress then shifted the focus of the hearing to allegations that major Silicon Valley companies censor conservatives online, levying charges of political bias that many experts have said are unsubstantiated — and social-media companies denied.

On their part, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai each began the hearing by standing, raising their right hand and swearing an oath to tell the truth, all over video-conferencing software due to the coronavirus.

Each of the tech moguls has underscored their business importance to US consumers and the American economy as a whole. And all four tech companies emphasized they face healthy competition in advertising, search, shopping and social networking, according to Washington Post report.

During their testifies, they had to defend their companies against accusations of monopolistic behavior.

“We compete hard, we compete fairly, we compete to be the best,” Zuckerberg said.

The hearing was scheduled to inform lawmakers’ efforts to rethink federal antitrust laws, perhaps making it easier for the federal government to probe and penalize tech giants and other large businesses. The inquiry coincides with a federal and state law-enforcement probes targeting Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. A lawsuit against Google, in particular, could come as soon as this summer.

Worth noting that Bezos, the Amazon chief, hasn’t testified before Congress before. His company has drawn criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike over a variety of issues, from its competitive practices to its treatment of warehouse workers.

Nevertheless, New York Times quoted observers that the tech moguls already have the upper hand. Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at N.Y.U. who often criticizes Silicon Valley, writes that letting all four C.E.O.s testify at the same time prevents deep scrutiny of any one of them. “Big tech has won before the hearing starts,” Professor Galloway writes.