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Big Tech CEOs grilled by Congress: Key moments from the historic antitrust meeting:
For five hours on Wednesday, the four Big Tech CEOs of the world's most powerful companies faced a grilling from US lawmakers in Washington, in an unprecedented hearing over alleged anti-competitive practices at their companies.
The hearing was the first time that Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google's parent Alphabet appeared together before Congress.
The Big Tech CEOs, appearing via video link, all faced moments in the spotlight from the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, with Pichai and Zuckerberg receiving the most attention. It was sixth and final hearing into competition in the digital market by the committee, and a culmination of more than 1.3 million documents and hundreds of hours of interviews and testimonies.
There are long-standing concerns that the four companies, worth a combined $4.85tn, have become too dominant for rivals to compete on the same level.
Antitrust regulators fear that a lack of competition will lead to higher prices for consumers. However, when digital platforms offer services for free – as Facebook and Google do – it is difficult for lawmakers to prove that consumers are worse off.
Another charge is that a lack of competition stifles innovation, which in theory could lead to subpar products and services for consumers. But given the four tech giants are known for being at the cutting edge of innovation, this is again difficult to prove.
As such, Congress is considering new antitrust laws that are appropriate for the digital age, which could prevent so much power being concentrated in so few companies.
Here are some of the key topics the Big Tech CEOs were grilled on.
Here's a couple YouTube streams of the hearing from Reuters (6½h) & C-SPAN3 (5½hr).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 31 2020, @01:55PM (3 children)
They already know, they're already doing it. In a decade or six they'll be good enough at it to get what they want without stirring uprisings in the population against their moves. It's somewhat a game of give and take, but make no mistake, it's still a pyramid with decisions made at the top.
As long as the top continues to realize that what's good for the bottom is good for the top, and stays in touch with what's really going on at the bottom- it may be unfair, but it's the best status quo humanity has ever achieved.
When the top starts pissing down the walls calling it "trickle down economics" and/or suggesting that the bottom "eat cake" because they are so out of touch with what holds them up, that's when things need to be shaken up.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Friday July 31 2020, @02:39PM (2 children)
This is the largest problem with classist narratives. Dividing the world into imaginary groups, and then not only expecting those divisions to represent some sort of common interests or differences, but expecting those groupings to be of ultimate importance to the functioning of society. The status quo is not the best we've achieved because the top deigns to cooperate with the bottom. But because we've created a society where people can support and better themselves - no bottom or top required.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 31 2020, @04:02PM (1 child)
"Can" - meaning: possible some of the time.
Whether top or bottom are required in your imaginary definition of society, they clearly exist and your place in that structure strongly influences your opportunities to support and better yourself.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 31 2020, @05:45PM