‘This should never have happened’: lawmakers condemn Facebook’s Instagram acquisition – as it happened

Antitrust Hearings, a summary

More than five hours after they commenced, the historic hearings of the biggest tech companies in the world over antitrust concerns have come to an end. Here are some highlights from the long day:

• Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon were represented by their CEOs at the hearing.
• Lawmakers cited “millions” of pages of evidence from years of antitrust investigations into these companies. Throughout the hearing, they brought up information gleaned from internal documents and conversations with anonymous sources in side the tech companies.
• Democratic lawmakers remained largely focused on antitrust issues, including market share and anti-competitive business practices while Republican lawmakers often zeroed in on perceived biases against conservatives on big tech platforms.
• Facebook faced most intensive criticism over its acquisition of Instagram.
• Apple faced most intensive criticism over its App store and whether it blocks competitors from using it.
• Google faced most intensive criticism over its advertising policies and its treatment of competitors.
• Amazon faced most intensive criticism over how it treats third-party brands on its site and whether it collects information from them and uses it to develop competing products (a practice that was reported on in April by the Wall Street Journal).
• Representative Cicilline closed the hearing with a dramatic statement that seemed to suggest legislative action would be coming for the companies who participated today. “These companies as they exist today have monopoly power,” he said. “Some need to be broken up, all need to be properly regulated and held accountable.”

Whew boy, we are done! The hearing closed with a powerful statement from Rep. Cicilline on his conclusions from the antitrust investigations.

“These companies, as they exist today, have monopoly power,” he said. “This must end.”

Here is a video of the emotional testimony played in today’s antitrust hearing, in which a book seller explains how her small business was throttled by Amazon.

4:43

Representative Jayapal has some pointed questions for Pichai about Google’s dominance in the advertising space. She laid out the data showing Google controls up to 90% of the market.

“The problem is that Google controls all of these entities, so it’s running the marketplace,” she said. “It’s acting on the buy side and the sell side at the same time, which is a major conflict of interest.”

In another bizarre diatribe suggesting anti-conservative bias, Rep. Jordan said many people are experiencing a “cancel culture” mob online in which they are “canceled” or intensely criticized for their beliefs.

He cited the resignation of writer Bari Weiss from the New York Times over her views on the topic.

So, here are the various executives’ views on “cancel culture” because these are the strange times we live in today.

Bezos: “It appears to me that social media is a nuance destruction machine and I don’t think that’s helpful for a democracy.”

Cook: “If you’re talking about where somebody with a different point of view talks about it and they’re canceled. I don’t think that’s good. I think it’s good for people to hear different points of view and decide for themselves.”

Zuckerberg: “I believe strongly suppression giving people a voice is an important part of what our services do and I am worried about some of the forces I see pushing against free expression. I think that this is one of the fundamental democratic traditions that we have in our country.”

Pichai: “We take pride in the fact that across all platforms including YouTube, there are more diverse voices than ever before. I’m concerned about not just conservatives getting attacked, I’m concerned when anyone gets attacked for expressing a viewpoint.”

Representative Gaetz keeps asking pointed questions about perceived anti-conservative bias among tech companies.

He claims the Southern Poverty Law Center, an anti-hate group, is a hate group and asks Bezos why Amazon is partnering with them.

After being repeatedly badgered over it, Bezos caves and says he would “like to partner with a better source if we could get it,” all but denouncing the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Representative Greg Steube asked each executive to answer whether they believe China steals technology from US firms. Answers varied.

Representative Cicilline goes head to head with Zuckerberg over Facebook’s handling of hate speech and misinformation.

He said Facebook’s dominance is “not just harmful to our economy and competition but it’s harmful to the founding principles of our democracy” because of these issues.

Cicilline cited specific examples, particularly that the top ten most shared articles on Facebook in 2020 were rife with misinformation and propaganda - particularly relating to coronavirus.

“Don’t you agree that these articles are viewed by millions on your platform cost lives?” Cicilline asks.

Representative Lucy McBath of Georgia asks Tim Cook whether Apple has the power to exclude apps from the App Store.

She shows the examples of Apple’s proprietary Screen Time apps overtaking parental control apps in the app store. When the app was introduced, Apple removed a number of competitors on the app store due to alleged privacy violations.

“The timing of the removal seems very coincidental if Apple wasn’t attempting to harm competitors in order to help its own product,” she said.

She also cited the example of Random House Books, which said it wanted to build its own book app but found Apple blocked it from being released in the store. Meanwhile it had tried to pressure the publisher to join Apple’s proprietary app iBook. McBath concludes:

Our evidence suggests that your company has used its power to harm your rivals and boost your own business. This is fundamentally unfair harms small businesses that rely on you to reach customers and stifles innovation. that is the lifeblood of our economy, ultimately, reduces the competition and choices that are made available to consumers.

Representative Gaetz is back with another line of questioning insinuating anti-conservative bias from Facebook.

That’s all I will say about that as the argument was fairly hard to follow.

Representative Val Denings of Florida asks Zuckerberg about other ways Facebook has gone after large competitors.

She cited Facebook blocking Pinterest from using its technology to share content. Zuckerberg essentially admits to it - a key distinction in the antitrust debate.

We are back after a brief recess.

Representative Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota asks Bezos about Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaints relating to music used on Twitch. It has been reported that Twitch users have been blindsided by requests to remove music from their videos.

Bezos acts as though he is completely unaware of the problem and, potentially, how Twitch even works.