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Watch Now: Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook Top Execs Testify Before Congress in Historic Antitrust Hearing 92

The top executives at four of the world's largest and most powerful technology companies are testifying now before Congress in the culmination of a year-long antitrust inquiry. You can watch the livestream below (link).

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Watch Now: Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook Top Execs Testify Before Congress in Historic Antitrust Hearing

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  • by UnresolvedExternal ( 665288 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @12:21PM (#60344125) Journal
    Embedded videos look really strange on the front page - a link would have been fine....
  • Nice tech companies you guys have there. Uncle Sam's pockets have been feeling a little light lately with all the bailout money. It would be a shame if your business become more difficult.

    • Instead of just giving them money why doesn't the government just buy $X in stocks and shares? That way if the company still fucks up the government can literally sue them for underperforming and perhaps even perform a hostile takeover.

  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @12:22PM (#60344133)
    it's a bit of grandstanding and an attempt to take back control of open discourse on the Internet.

    While they're going after these tech companies they've done fuck all about the massive telecom mergers, the fact that 90% of local TV stations were bought up by Sinclair Media, the massive consolidation in the grocery store business or that fact that every single apartment complex in 50 miles of where I live is owned by one company.

    This is a smoke screen at best and an attack on the Free Speech protections of Section 230 of the CDA at worst. Don't be fooled. If things go as planned you won't be able to read posts like this much longer, and while that sounds like a good thing to many, having all the corruption I listed above pointed out to you in detail is valuable, and you already know Fox News, CNN & MSBNC aren't going to do it because they've been silent on anti-trust for over 40 years.
    • I wish I could find a way to disagree.

    • Yep, pretty much. Somebody mod this guy up!

      I've noticed over the last 40 years how corruption is very bipartisan, and the partisans are only making things worse.... its all about POWER. Not about actual leadership, or doing what's right for the country. Just raw POWER.

      And that is why we need to start over. I've noticed every time there is talk about leveling the playing field, people start screaming about equal opportunities and not equal outcomes. As if they haven't been doing everything they possible can

      • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @01:19PM (#60344371)
        that started with Reagan. Around that time they figured out how to use wedge issues to their fullest (guns, abortion, statues, etc) to make people ignore economic issues. They've also spent a ton of time and money getting folks "punching down" at the class below them (Go read up on the history of the phrase "Welfare Queen").

        There's work being done to shift the Overton Window back, but it's slow going. If you neglect maintenance on your car for 40 years expect to have to spend a lot of time and money fixing it up.
        • Yes, I know -- I voted for that fucker (fool me once...)

          and yes, I know about the Overton window, etc.
          and the real welfare queens....
          Its funny how they scream about the Chinese gov't backing Chinese businesses, but its completely OK for US companies to have tax abatements.

          Hypocrisy writ large is the tell of a big lie.

        • The Overton Window has been blown up. Major candidates are talking about basic income, and even the Libertarian idea of getting rid of the police is catching currency.

          It turns out the "Overton window" was really the result of the press controlling the conversation. Now that they've been weakened, we can talk about anything.
    • by DogDude ( 805747 )
      It's funny, I'm concerned about all of the other things you mention in your post (telecom real estate, and grocery consolidations), but I think that if the government would make "social media" companies liable for the garbage on their servers would be a good thing. I can and will happily continue to post whatever I'd like on my own web sites.
      • that's the goal. Rich people and corporations will find a way to weasel out of liability but regular folk won't be able to do that. It'll be the death of free speech on the Internet. And all perfectly Constitutional since it won't be government doing the censorship, it'll be private corporations & lawyers.

        As for your own websites, nobody will notice it or care. You might as well get a sandwich board and go down to your local University's lawn and shout crap. If enough of you guys show up to get atte
        • by DogDude ( 805747 )
          It's not the death of free speech if I can post what I want on my own servers. I can speak all I want, as can anybody else.

          It's not the death of free speech at all. It might be the death of being-able-to-post-stuff-on-the-servers-of-advertising-companies-and-having-them-promote-it-for-free, but that's got nothing to do with free speech.
          • because your post goes nowhere, and if you try to make that post go somewhere jackbooted thugs will quite literally come arrest you and haul you off into an unmarked van. This isn't even hypothetical anymore.

            Platforms are more than just a place to post stuff, they're platforms. A place for people to find information they otherwise couldn't.

            I could, of course, post a link to your website... which under the new rules and laws means I've just published your website, and I'll be sued into pulp.

            The p
            • by DogDude ( 805747 )
              I do understand the difference. Just because people have become accustomed to having an advertising company promote their speech, doesn't mean they're entitled to it. No matter how much you wish it to be, you have no right, whatsoever, to be able to post anything on servers owned by a private company, no matter who they are. Whether or not you consider this private company's servers to be your own way to have public discourse also isn't relevant. I don't think that any of those platforms have anything t
              • by dryeo ( 100693 )

                No matter how much you wish it to be, you have no right, whatsoever, to be able to post anything on servers owned by a private company, no matter who they are.

                Bullshit, you have whatever right the private company wants to give you. For example, Slashdotmedia has given me the right to post here, so I'm posting. All I don't have is the right to force someone to post my stuff.

            • Sorry, you've got that mixed up. It's Biden and company who want these tech companies to control and censor more of what their users say. Trump & Co. are the ones who are trying to get them to stop doing it as much, forcing them to be more transparent about their moderation policies and stop speaking over their users.

              Now I don't agree with either approach, I think the Feds can just stay out of it all, but at least get the scorecard right.

          • Of course you and your servers will be shit down because of extremist views. Basically, you are wasting your time.

            • by DogDude ( 805747 )
              Who's going to shut down my servers, exactly?
              • Who's going to shut down my servers, exactly?

                Your ISP, DNS registrar, CA and any search index (e.g. Google) anyone would find you on.

                • by DogDude ( 805747 )
                  Search indexes are private companies. What they do is none of my business.

                  I do think that ISPs should be regulated, though. They need to be just like the (land line) phone companies: heavily regulated common carriers. Anything other than the ISP, though, isn't necessary for free speech.
                  • Anything other than the ISP, though, isn't necessary for free speech.

                    Not if you expect to reach anyone other than yourself.

                    • by DogDude ( 805747 )
                      Believe it or not, people do make "web pages" that "link" to each other. No search engine necessary!
      • That's just it. You would be liable for stuff on your website. So the stuff you want to say that facebook won't let you apparently has legal ramifications and you would face the same if you posted whatever that is on your own site.

        At least, that's how I'm picturing this lameness. They want to stifle speech and if the government threatens to fine the platform over certain kinds of speech, then any platform will have to deal with this.

        I'm thinking it mostly has to do with libel but speech will be stifled all

    • by Jarwulf ( 530523 )
      Section 230 isn't all good. If you read it theres a portion protecting free speech and a portion that encourages censorship. The second part should be removed. Also both telecoms and upstream tech platforms are oligopolies. The former could theoretically limit the expression while the latter actually has been limiting expression of certain political groups to a vast extent. We should keep an eye on both.
      • by dryeo ( 100693 )

        What's wrong with a private entity wanting to censor stuff? Freedom of association is arguably more important then free speech.

    • While you're mostly right, this will play out like countless other bullshit committee hearings.

      Congress: "You guys 'r' bad and you should feel bad."

      Guys: "K'."

      Congress: "Rabble rabble. Rouse rouse!"

      Guys: "K'."

      Then everything goes back to normal as the "guys" in question back-door promise millions in campaign donations.

    • the fact that 90% of local TV stations were bought up by Sinclair Media

      This again? You're still repeating this same lie? How many times is it now? I guess no one should be surprised.

      SInclair Media [wikipedia.org] isn't even the largest TV station owner in the US. It is literally impossible for them to own 90% of local stations:

      the company is the second-largest television station operator in the United States by number of stations (after Nexstar Media Group), owning or operating a total of 193 stations across the country

      According to the FCC, [fcc.gov] those 193 stations represent less than 15% of local TV stations in the US.

      Perhaps your absurd statement is one of the reasons you're modded "Funny"?

      But keep repeating the same lie over and over and over. I'm sure a few weak-minded people a

  • Embedded video? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by capebretonsux ( 758684 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @12:28PM (#60344159)
    Well shit, there goes the neighbourhood.

    Embedded video on the front page - slashdot has finally died for me.
  • Just more bullshit in the censorship crusade.

    These people are hardly worth listening to.

    And please, no videos in the front page like that.

    • Too many of them benefit from social media for it to be about censorship. Not that an antitrust case would censor anything anyway. You are right to declare it bullshit though, nothing will come of it. It's about appearances. We've all realized social media is a cesspool, but as for fixing it, these guys are way out of their league. The fact they're having to frame a social problem in economic terms shows they really don't have the tools or the vision to deal with it.

      • We've all realized social media is a cesspool

        Well, the owners don't make it that way, the users do. They find it appealing, and broadcasting on the internet makes them feel important.

        What the propaganda ministers don't like is the loss of control of information. They would try to outlaw the "Letters to the Editor" section in the papers.

  • by onyxruby ( 118189 ) <onyxrubyNO@SPAMcomcast.net> on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @12:33PM (#60344199)

    We have effectively handed over control of the world's democracies to these companies. Through censorship the people in charge of picking the winners and losers of their algorithms now effectively control the winners and losers of elections worldwide.

    They already effectively control the news, social dialogue and what people discuss and how the communicate. They are well on their way to controlling our very language itself.

    They are blatantly abusing their power and censoring in favor of their chosen political agenda. Only the most biased of partisans will refuse to see what is plainly obvious to the rest of the country.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
    https://www.foxbusiness.com/te... [foxbusiness.com]
    https://www.judiciary.senate.g... [senate.gov]

    Don't worry, I'm sure they will always pick the politicians and policies that you want. Who knew that the public selected a handful of corporations to be in charge of the worlds countries and democracies? I missed that memo. Turning over our political power to an oligarchy of companies, I'm sure that's been turned into a book or movie before...

    • Nobody learned from Microsoft vs. Netscape. You almost sound like this was a surprising outcome.

      • I canâ(TM)t think of anyone who is sincerely surprised by this. Plenty of hard line partisans will deny this for political reasons.

    • Through censorship the people in charge of picking the winners and losers...

      Any important censorship is relatively recent. Few used to pay attention. I believe most citizens will agree with some censorship. Should Facebook, a private company, be forced to carry KKK propaganda?

      The solution options appear to be:

      1. Split up the big social media companies. I'm not sure this will solve all the problems, as deep-pocket influencers can still buy mass eyeballs.

      2. Form some clear guidelines about what they should an

      • Re:Choices (Score:4, Interesting)

        by onyxruby ( 118189 ) <onyxrubyNO@SPAMcomcast.net> on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @01:49PM (#60344505)

        Once upon a time the ACLU went to the Supreme Court on exactly that premise. They won.

        Social media has become thee modern town square. They are monopolies, and the time honored method of dealing with monopolies is to RAND. Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory means you allow equal access to all parties on identical terms. It also happens to quite possibly be the most precedent backed anything in the US Supreme Court. There have been dozens of cases going over a century in all manner of industry. RAND has won in every single instance regardless of judges, administration or industry.

        You canâ(TM)t reasonably break them up. The only thing to do is regulate them as public utilities. This means enforcing RAND and removing their ability to utilize bias. The only other option is to shut them down.

        • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          This means enforcing RAND and removing their ability to utilize bias

          Each side defines "bias" differently.

        • by DogDude ( 805747 )
          Once upon a time the ACLU went to the Supreme Court on exactly that premise. They won.

          Which case?
          • Re:Choices (Score:4, Informative)

            by onyxruby ( 118189 ) <onyxrubyNO@SPAMcomcast.net> on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @03:00PM (#60344803)

            Brandenburg was the case where the KKK went before the Supreme Court and won on censorship grounds. Interestingly enough they do not mention that the subject was a member of the KKK on their website.
            https://www.aclu.org/other/acl... [aclu.org]

            Cornell fills in the pertinent details that the ACLU leaves out about the case.
            https://www.law.cornell.edu/su... [cornell.edu]

            There is also Skokie where they represented Nazi's before the Supreme Court on censorship grounds and won.
            https://www.law.cornell.edu/su... [cornell.edu]
            https://www.aclu.org/issues/fr... [aclu.org]

            I am not defending either organization, both of which I find abhorrent. I am defending free speech.

            • by dryeo ( 100693 )

              Still, my right to freedom of association says I don't have to let them speak on my property or pay attention to them.

              • Correct, and chances are really good that your property hasn't become the public square for a nation of 350 million people. In the case of Facebook 1.62 billion people log in every day and 2.6 billion every month. That's about one in five people and one in three people on the planet. Zuckerberg couldn't even name a single competitor to Facebook the last time he testified. Which is funny because Twitter owns the microblogging market and most queries for a competitor to Twitter list Facebook as their number o

                • by dryeo ( 100693 )

                  Seems more of an anti-trust issue then an excuse to try to regulate their speech and associations. Facebook seems to have bought out every potential competitor and while Google did have a superiour product at one point, they also have grown too big.
                  There's been only a few times private spaces have been considered the town square and even in those cases, I think the owners would have been in their rights to ban disruptive behavior. There's a lot of difference between someone standing off to the side offering

                  • It's definitely an antitrust issue. There are very limited options for breaking them up compared to something like an oil company. They have abused their power with competitors and political censorship. You can address the issue with competitors by prohibiting purchases of potential competitors and making them spin off products such as Instagram, Maps or YouTube.

                    The political censorship is the harder problem that cannot be addressed by breaking them up. The simplest solution I can think of is to force commo

                    • by dryeo ( 100693 )

                      Well working backwards to your points.
                      A company town is much like a normal town, and the streets and such should be treated the same, including freedom of speech.
                      Your university example sounds like simple assault, which should be prosecuted as such. There are limits to speech, no matter the speech, and using a bull horn in an unsafe manner should be prosecuted.
                      It is a good idea to allow all political speech on these platforms, including symbols and such. This way, my political party, the Goatse party, can c

            • I hate Illinois Nazis.
        • since the barrier to entry in their space is very low (re:Gab, Reddit, /. and a thousand other social media platforms).

          That said, it's safe to say we _do_ have access to them on equal terms. They are allowed to have terms of service though. If I walk into a McDonalds and start yelling racial epitaphs at the top of my lungs they'll tell me to get out. Heck they can even call the cops. That's exactly what these platforms do.

          If, OTOH, you want to yell racial epitaphs at the top of your lungs there are
          • Problem is that when someone tries to make an alternative to such sites, busybodies start going after them, and if they refuse to kowtow they instead target their hosts, payment providers, and eventually their families.

      • A recurring problem, especially in the US, is that some companies are "too big to fail". If Facebook's servers got EMP'd right now I wouldn't raise an eyebrow but it would cause untold chaos for a sizable chunk of the planet.

        Facebook is a water tower filled to the brim with radioactive waste: Too big to fail, too risky to break up, and too dangerous to be in the hands of one man capable of knocking the entire thing over.

    • by ljw1004 ( 764174 )

      Only the most biased of partisans will refuse to see what is plainly obvious to the rest of the country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com], https://www.foxbusiness.com/te... [foxbusiness.com], https://www.judiciary.senate.g... [senate.gov]

      Just to check those were the citations you meant to give? The foxbusiness one notes "Cernekee also could not really explain whether or how potential cultural biases actually made their way into the company’s products, like its algorithm" which sounds like a euphemism for "bullshit".

      The senate testimony one argues that no one should send out blanket encouragements for people to vote, unless they can establish that their encouragement will be acted upon equally by voters of both parties, and hence is bo

    • So, have you deleted your FB account yet? It's been almost a decade for me. I lack nothing.

    • compared to common voter suppression tactics like closing polls early, not having enough polls and making it difficult to register to vote (or baring ex cons from voting long after they've served their time via poll taxes).

      Our "First Past The Post, Winner Take All" electoral system also amplifies the problem by creating elections that are won by tinnie tiny margins.

      Fix the above with Universal Vote By Mail, Automatic Voter Registration, Universal Suffrage & Ranked Choice Voting and the power hel
  • <cynicism>Between all of them don't they have enough money to basically buy the U.S. Government right out from under us and put whatever figureheads they want in there?
    ..Oh, sorry, I forgot for a moment: they already do that, don't they? Guess these particular clients of theirs are misbehaving and need to be replaced. Or is the whole thing just theatre, a put-on, so the American public still actually believes that Congress has the interests of the Country as their top priority and not 'corporate heal
    • Between all of them don't they have enough money to basically buy the U.S. Government right out from under us and put whatever figureheads they want in there?

      Sorry, the U.S. Government is already owned by Big Oil, Big Pharma and the Military Industrial Complex. If Silicon Valley wants to buy them out, they're gonna need a lot more money.

    • There was an Onion headline a few years back which said "American People hire lobbyist to represent them in Congress"

      2008 proved that the gov't is owned by big business, in a rather shameless manner.

  • I don't know about AMZN, APPL, and GOOG, but they're retreading old territory with FB:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • I'm a huge net neutrality supporter... however this whole thing is a mess. Scientific papers require references, research, and other supporting data before you can mass-publish claims to hundreds of thousands of people. Mr YeeHaw who's aunt said dogs can fly sometimes when the moon is out shouldn't be able to post this claim to 100's of thousands of users who might beleave him without any supporting data. Automatic flagging of questionable claims is pretty much the only way for platforms to manage these
    • If you shouldn't be able to tell massive lies to lots of people so easily, then that would put most of the main stream media, like CNN out of business. That's all they do, is grab footage of one thing, and edit, dub, splice and mix-in footage from something else entirely to paint a whole new picture that they fabricate. They do this all the time, and have been caught over, and over.
      • lol, nice call out to a single network like CNN is the only ones who do that shit. I laughed at Fox News during the Impeachment hearings where Fox News kept switching to previous non-live footage while damning Trump testimony took place. I generally go to the BBC or NPR for my news... they generally don't do that shit.
        • I did say "most" main stream media. I specifically called out CNN, because they were the first ones to come to mind with multiple, big offenses. Going way back to editing the 911 call with Zimmerman being carefully edited with key parts cut out to make Zimmerman look worse than he might have otherwise.

          I think multiple news channels more recently got caught talking about how bad Coronavirus is and that our ICU's are at critical capacity and people dying, and then air footage of ICU's in Italy (which was
    • Scientific papers are abandoning those practices to some degree or other. Being first is becoming more important than the science. That and the SJW thing is reducing the scope to...allowed and acceptable science, which is not science.

    • That's as much an education problem as it is an information distribution problem. Maybe if we'd prioritized actual education over standardized testing and making sure "no child is left behind" by lowering the bar for those capable of learning until everybody could hop on board, we wouldn't have reached a point where there's a critical mass of non-critical thinkers available to pass along complete fabrication as truth and say actual facts and scientific research are "just, like, your opinion, man."

      Granted,

      • We used to have a joke about the teenager still in elementary school who barely fits into the desk... because people knew of kids who repeated multiple years of school. Now this never happens; people can't even get the joke.

        The propagandists have taken over and become more skilled; naturally they attack reason, truth, and science like they do enemies nations because that is what they know best and is the most effective. We've had decades of this (going full strength since Reagan) and as a result, we have

  • Zuck knows his "rivals names" because he allows them to get to a certain size so that he can claim they have full reign to take him over if they want.
  • Where's Microsoft? Should have broken up this power-wielding giant decades ago. They are still holding a tight grip on the office market everywhere. The way they exerted monopolistic power on programs, standards and formats cannot be achieved adt all by the companies here today. Oh, they are not 'social media', I get it. This is strange and half-hearted attempt at regulation.

  • Partially wasted by partisan nonsense and bumbling know nothing politicians...

    Most amusing question so far "Why did you fire Palmer Lucky?"

  • So content gatekeepers need to be smacked because the people to easily believe the lies and propaganda they amplify-

    AND

    Content gatekeepers are silencing the lies and propaganda and that's not fair.

    The internet is not full of stupid people and trolls. That's just social media.This is the sort of problem that solves itself.

  • I'm not American, but I felt that this was a media and advert show of absolute incompetence and that the CEO's are currently popping Champagne. Questions like "Did you sign off" instead of "Who signed off" or "Was there anything you did" instead of "What and why did you". Most questions missing the point being outdated or over obvious. Its like they received a main and financial dump and couldn't make heads or tails of it.

    If the committee would have read 1000 related comments posted on sites like SlashDo

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