Republicans in the House of Representatives brought tech CEOs to task on charges that their companies intentionally blocked or censored conservative ideas.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wasted no time reciting a list of unfair treatment cases during a hearing with testimony from Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, and Sundar Pichai of Google.
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“Great technology is looking for conservatives,” Jordan said at the beginning of the hearing. “That is not a suspicion, it is not a hunch. That is a fact.”
Jordan then gave examples of suspicious behavior, including that Google removed Breitbart articles from search results, Amazon’s Twitch streaming site suspended President Trump’s account, former Facebook employees admitted to censoring conservative views, himself Facebook acknowledged that they banned pro-life ads in 2018, Amazon Smile does not allow charitable donations to a pro-life group, but allows contributions to Planned Parenthood, and Facebook removes posts from the Trump campaign, among others noted by Miranda Devine from the New York Post.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, also criticized tech giants and asked Zuckerberg why he fired Facebook executive Palmer Luckey after Luckey gave $ 10,000 to an organization that opposes Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“When you fire people as a result of their policy, do you think that impacts culture and perhaps empowers some of the content moderators to treat people worse as a result of their policy as well?” Gaetz asked. Zuckerberg denied having done this.
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Later in the day, Jordan told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson what could happen to tech companies if they engage in censorship.
“You must work in Section 230, we are seeing that,” Jordan said, referring to the law that platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are not publishers and therefore cannot be sued for the statements that other people make in their sites.
Jordan cited potential antitrust issues if the Justice Department believes they are illegal monopolies, something Democrats such as committee chairman Rep. David Ciciline, DR.I., discussed during the hearing.
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Meanwhile, Jordan said he will continue to call tech companies “whenever we see them become the mob’s facilitators to cancel people out.”
