CEOs of Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon face questions on matters including antitrust and political bias.
The CEOs of Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon, four of the world’s largest tech companies, faced a volley of questions on Wednesday from US lawmakers that covered everything from antitrust to conservative bias. The historic testimony in front of Congress was part of a long-running antitrust investigation that mustered hundreds of hours of interviews and more than a million documents from the four tech giants.
The grueling five-hour-long session involved aggressive hearing that was held in a bid to ascertain if these companies misuse their size and power and if their influence is bad for competition and customers. Needless to say, the lawmakers came up all prepared and with enough evidence to hold the CEOs responsible.
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Alphabet-owned Google’s Sundar Pichai, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Apple’s Tim Cook all came up with their defenses in the testimony that they attended via video conferencing. All the four CEOs delivered five-minute opening comments that were published the night before, offering defenses of their platforms. They said they were providing beneficial products and services in a competitive market and their massive size simply makes their services better.
However, the panel of lawmakers comprising representatives from both Republican and Democrat parties showed up with evidence, both in the form of documents and people, wherein they said that the Big Four wielded their power that is harmful for competition. The lawmakers also threw a barrage of questions ranging from privacy concerns, obstructing startups from flourishing by either stealing their technologies or acquiring them and at times misusing their power as gatekeepers in some cases to wield control over the market.
The panel grilled each of the CEOs separately despite their defenses. So much so, that at one point, if not completely, all four indirectly accepted some of the accusations against their respective companies.
