WASHINGTON, DC – It seemed like everyone in Congress was having trouble with CEOs of Amazon, Google and Facebook at Wednesday’s House subcommittee hearing on their market power.
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee accused the companies of stealing intellectual property from smaller online companies and driving them out of business, buying competitors for a monopoly, and criticized their handling of disinformation aimed at influencing the election.
Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio, accused the companies of carrying out anti-conservative revenge, reciting a long list of charges.
“I’m going to get down to business: Great technology is looking for conservatives,” said Champaign County Jordan, who is the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. “That is not a suspicion. That is not a hunch. It is a fact.”
Jordan criticized Google for removing the Breitbart and Daily Caller home pages, saying the company “has censored Breitbart so much” that traffic to the conservative website has decreased by 99 percent. He criticized Google and YouTube for an April policy to censor content that conflicts with the recommendations of the World Health Organization, “the organization that lied to us, the organization that mocks China.
“They can say whatever they want,” Jordan said. “You say something against them, they censor you.”
Amazon banned the book by a conservative commentator critical of the coronavirus blockade, and allows contributions to Planned Parenthood but not the Family Research Council, Jordan said, while Facebook withdrew a post from President Trump’s re-election campaign, silenced the announcement by an anti-abortion organization, and “routinely suppresses conservative views.”
“We all think the free market is great, we think the competition is great,” said Jordan. “What is not good is censuring people, censuring conservatives and trying to impact the elections, and if it doesn’t end, there have to be consequences.”
Tech CEOs denied a partisan bias, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company’s goal is “to offer a platform for all ideas.” He said the company has community standards that aim to ban “categories of harm,” such as “terrorist propaganda, child exploitation, incitement to violence, some more legalistic things like intellectual property violations.”
“I think we have distinguished ourselves as one of the companies that most defends freedom of expression,” said Zuckerberg.
Jordan called on CEOs to speak out against an online “cancellation culture mob” that intimidates people they disagree with.
Jordan asked Google CEO Sundar Pichai if he could assure Americans that his company would not “customize” its features to help Democratic Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy over that of Republican incumbent Donald Trump. Pichai said tilting things in any direction was “against our core values.” He denied Jordan’s claims that his company conspired to favor Hillary Clinton during 2016, and said the company’s search engines give conservatives “more access to information than ever.”
“We have clearly communicated to our employees, any personal political activity, although it is your right, must happen on your own time and resources,” Pichai said. “Any work we do around the elections is non-partisan.”
After Jordan’s round of questions, Pennsylvania Democrat Mary Gay Scanlon said she intended to redirect the subcommittee’s attention “to antitrust law rather than marginal conspiracy theories.” Jordan tried to yell at her.
“We have the email,” he said. “There are no fringes …”
“You don’t have time,” shouted the chair of the subcommittee, Rhode Island Democrat David Cicilline, while Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin yelled at Jordan: “Put on the mask!”
“If someone comes after my reasons for asking questions, I have an opportunity to respond,” Jordan continued.
“The lady is recognized,” Cicilline pronounced, cutting the exchange.
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