6
Massively Misleading Answers from Big Tech CEOs to Congress
Mandel Ngan/Pool via AP
30 Jul 2020213
14:26
The most powerful tech CEOs in the country, representing Apple,
Google, Amazon, and Facebook, appeared before the House Judiciary Committee’s
antitrust panel to discuss their market dominance and censorship yesterday.
Here are some of the most misleading answers the CEOs gave Congress.
Yesterday, the CEO’s of major American tech firms Apple, Google,
Amazon, and Facebook appeared before the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust
panel to discuss the market dominance of their firms and issues relating to
censorship on their platforms. During the hearing, the CEOs made a number of
claims relating to their platforms and the competition they face. Each of the
CEOs made extremely misleading statements, with Google CEO Sundar Pichai
regularly misrepresenting how Google operates or the competition the tech giant
faces.
Here are six instances where the Masters of the Universe
stretched the truth:
1: Google’s Sundar Pichai Claims it ‘Faces New Competition Every
Day’
During the hearing, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told Congress
that the company faces intense competition, and that “new competitors
emerge every day.”
Pichai stated: “Just as America’s technology leadership is
not inevitable, Google’s continued success is not guaranteed. New competitors
emerge every day, and today users have more access to information than ever
before. Competition drives us to innovate, and it also leads to better
products, lower choices, and more choices for everyone.”
However, while it is true that many companies may make an
attempt to compete with Google, the chances of them being successful are
extremely slim. For example, Google accounts for 90 percent of online searches according to GlobalStats , while competitors such as Microsoft’s Bing and the
privacy-focused DuckDuckGo may attempt to compete with Google, the company
faces no real threat or competition.
Google’s search dominance is one of the reasons that the company
was able to suppress the search
results of Breitbart News and other conservative news websites, essentially
“purging Breitbart content from search results since the 2016 election,”
according to Breitbart News’ reporter Allum Bokhari.
2: Google CEO Sundar Pichai: ‘We Don’t Approach Work With Any
Political Viewpoint’
Pichai claimed during
yesterday’s hearing that the tech giant does not approach its work with any
particular political viewpoint, a concept disproved by Breitbart
News’ extensive reporting on the company’s political bias. During yesterday’s
hearing, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) addressed Pichai, stating:
You said something today different than you did with Ms.
Lofgren, you confessed that there is a manual component to the way in which you
blacklist content. It seems to be no coincidence that sites like Gateway
Pundit, the Western Journal, American Spectator, Daily Caller, and Breitbart
that receive the ire or the negative treatment as a consequence of your manual
tooling.
And it also seems noteworthy that whistleblowers at your own
comapny have spoken out. You said that one of the reasons you maintain this
manual tool is to stop election interference, I believe it is in fact your
company that is engaging in elction interference. You’re using your market
dominance in search to accomplish that election interference.
Pichai responded:
I strongly disagree with that characterization.
We don’t approach this work with any political viewpoint. We do
that to comply with law, known copyright violations, very narrow circumstances
and we have to do that to comply with the law, and in many cases, those
requests come [from] law enforcement agencies.
Breitbart News reported as far back as 2017 that political bias
was rampant at Google, with senior management reportedly “on the verge of tears” following President Trump’s election. One Google insider
told Breitbart News at the time: “After the 2016 election, we had an
entire TGIF dedicated to the election result, in which several of our top
management gave emotional speeches as though the world was going to end, and
seemed to be on the verge of tears. It was embarrassing.”
Recently Breitbart News reported that
Breitbart’s ranking in Google’s search engine had diminished significantly
following our publication of a story in 2016 that at an internal meeting
leaked to Breitbart News, top Google executives, including Sundar Pichai,
Sergey Brin, and Kent Walker, expressed their anger over President Trump’s
election and compared Trump voters to “extremists.” During the meeting, the
executives discussed their desire to make Trump’s election and the populist movement a “blip” in
history.
Breitbart News reporter Allum Bokhari writes:
Search visibility is a key industry measure of how findable a
publisher’s content is in Google search. New data shows that Google has
suppressed Breitbart’s search visibility by 99.7 percent since 2016.
On April 4, 2016, Breitbart ranked in the top ten search
positions (i.e., on the first page of Google search results) for 355 key search
terms; but now, as of July 20, 2020, Breitbart ranks in the top ten search
positions for only one search term. And, on April 4, 2016, Breitbart ranked in
the top 100 search positions for 16,820 key search terms; but now, as of July
20, 2020, Breitbart ranks in the top 100 search positions for only 55 search
terms.
Moreover, organic Google search traffic to Breitbart (measured
by unique visitors) is down 63 percent when comparing the first half of 2016
with the first half of 2020.
Breitbart News has repeatedly revealed Google’s political bias,
yet the company’s CEO still attempts to claim that the tech giant does not
approach its work “with any political viewpoint.”
3: Sundar Pichai Claims Google Has ‘Limited Presence in China’
While it is true that due to China’s restrictive “Great
Firewall” many U.S. companies such as Facebook and Google are unable to operate
directly within the country, that hasn’t stopped Google from making multiple
deals with the Chinese government and attempting to launch a censored search
engine for government officials.
The search app, codenamed “Project Dragonfly,” would have
featured a list of unsearchable terms based on topics that are blocked by the
government of China. It would also have linked users’ searches to personal phone numbers . Leakers
also claimed that Google’s privacy team had been denied access to the
project, something the company denied. A senior Google researcher, Jack
Poulson, resigned in protest at
the project in September of 2018.
After details of Google’s Project Dragonfly search engine
leaked, many came out in opposition to the company’s plans to operate in
China. 14 human rights organizations published an open letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai which
stated: “Google risks becoming complicit in the Chinese government’s repression
of freedom of speech and other human rights in China.”
Vice President Mike Pence stated : “Google
should immediately end development of the ‘Dragonfly’ app that will strengthen
Communist Party censorship and compromise the privacy of Chinese customers.”
Google has stated that they are “not close” to launching a
search engine in China but leaked discussions paint a different picture.
Google’s Keith Enright told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation
Committee on September 26th that there “is a Project Dragonfly,” but said, “we
are not close to launching a product in China.” Google’s search engine chief,
Ben Gomes, told a BBC
reporter at Google’s 20th-anniversary
celebration event: “Right now, all we’ve done is some exploration, but
since we don’t have any plans to launch something, there’s nothing much I can
say about it.”
But privately, discussions surrounding Project Dragonfly have
painted a different picture. According to one Google source, Gomes’s comments
to the BBC about Project Dragonfly were “bullshit.” Sources told the Intercept
that Gomes informed employees in July 2019 that the company planned to release
the censored Chinese search engine as soon as possible and employees were to
prepare the engine to be “brought off the shelf and quickly deployed” once they
received approval from Beijing.
4: Apple CEO Tim Cook Claims All App Developers Treated Equally
Google’s Sundar Pichai was not the only tech CEO to misrepresent
how his company operates, Apple’s Tim Cook also made the bold claim that all
iOS developers that attempt to have their app listed on Apple’s App Store are
treated equally.
Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) addressed Cook, stating: “Mr. Cook,
with over one hundred million iPhone users in the United States alone and with
Apple’s ownership of the app store giving Apple the ability to control which
apps are allowed to be marketed to Apple users, you wield immense power over
small businesses to grow and prosper. Apple is the sole decision-maker as to
whether an app is made available to app users through Apple’s app store isn’t
that correct?”
Cook responded: “If it’s a native app, yes sir.” Johnson then
outlined an investigation that found that app developers are very much at
Apple’s mercy when it comes to demands and changes to the App Store. Johnson
stated: “The app store is said to also discriminate between app developers
with similar apps on the Apple app platform, and also as to smaller app
developers versus large app developers. So, Mr. Cook, does Apple not treat all
app developers equally?”
Cook responded: “Sir, we treat every developer the same, we have
open and transparent rules, its a rigorous process. Because we care so deeply
about privacy and security and quality, we do look at every app before it goes
on, but those rules apply evenly to everyone…”
However, Breitbart News has reported that Apple has a long
history of removing apps from its store for a number of reasons and often with
little cause. Breitbart News reported in 2016 that the app
of the upstart social media network Gab was removed from the App Store by apple
over content posted by users on the platform, not content generated by the app
itself.
Gab CEO Andrew Torba commented at the time: “The double
standards of Silicon Valley are on full display with this app store rejection
from Apple. Apps like Tumblr, Reddit, and Twitter are flooded with pornographic
content and allowed to remain on the App store.”
“Gab empowers users to filter out this type of content, mute
users who share it, and also features a reporting system to flag illegal
content,” he continued. “Apple went out of their way to seek out this content
and find any reason to reject our app. We will continue to appeal this decision
and defend free speech for everyone. In the meantime, Gab can be accessed from
any mobile browser as always.” The Gab app is still unavailable in Apple’s app
store.
5: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Alleges Company Makes Up Less Than 1
Percent of Global Retail — Fails to Note U.S. Online Retail Market Dominance
Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world and CEO of e-commerce
giant Amazon, noted in his opening remarks claiming that Amazon was not a
monopoly that: “Amazon accounts for less than 1 percent of the [$]25 trillion
in the global retail market and less than 4 percent of U.S. retail.”
Bezos is correct about those figures, but conveniently leaves
out an extremely important one: Amazon accounts for 38 percent of all U.S.
online shopping. Research firm eMarketer reports that Amazon
accounts for approximately 38 percent of U.S. e-commerce sales, generating
around $260.86 billion in revenue. The reserach firm writes :
We forecast that Amazon’s 2020 US retail ecommerce sales will
rise 17.2% to $260.86 billion—4 percentage points higher than the expected
overall growth rate for US retail ecommerce sales. As a result, Amazon’s market
share will increase from 37.3% in 2019 to 38.7% this year while expanding its
lead over the No. 2 player from 31.7 points to 33.4 points. We expect this
momentum to continue into 2021 when it will reach 39.7% market share.
Andrew Lipsman, eMarketer principal analyst and report author,
noted: “What’s surprising is that despite accounting for nearly four in 10
e-commerce dollars, the company continues to gain market share and extend its
lead.”
So while Bezos is correct that in terms of global retail Amazon
does not have a monopoly, it does have a stranglehold on e-commerce in the
United States and a large chunk globally.
6: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Exaggerates Company’s
Competition
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a similar claim to Google CEO
Sundar Pichai, that the tech giant regularly faces competition from other tech
firms. Zuckerberg did this by suggesting that Facebook was competing with every
single tech product that connects people, this would include video calling
services such as Zoom or even niche social networks such as Pinterest.
“The space of people connecting with other people is a very
large space,” Zuckerberg told Congress. This is technically true but what the
CEO failed to mention is that 69 percent of Americans are using
Facebook, according to the Pew Research Center . The next most popular social media network is the
Facebook-owned photo and video-sharing app Instagram, which is used by 37
percent of U.S. adults.
Zuckerberg may be able to argue that in the broad definition of
tech that connects users together Facebook does not dominate the market, but in
terms of actual social media network dominance, Facebook’s power is
unparalleled.
Read more about the tech CEO’s recent hearing before Congress
at Breitbart News here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of
free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the
address lucasnolan@protonmail.com
Tucker Carlson to Rep. Jim
Jordan on Google: ‘Why Do You Think They Would Give You Money and Why Would You
Take It?’
30 Jul 2020585
1:59
Wednesday
on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson pressed
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) on his acceptance of campaign donations from Google.
According
to Carlson, they were Google’s second-largest political contributor. Jordan
described the contribution as an exercise of the First Amendment and denied any
Google’s contribution influenced his behavior.
“Look, if
they want to exercise their First Amendment liberty to give me money, I raised
$3 million last quarter. If Google gives me a few thousand dollar check, God
bless them. That doesn’t change who I am. You saw that today in the committee.
I went after Google. I went after them for the very issue you just raised,
Tucker. In 2016, Google tried to tailor their features to help Clinton in key
states. That’s directly from the e-mail, the head of their multicultural
marketing sector.”
Carlson
went on to press Jordan on what actions could be taken to against Google, where
it has been lacking.
“We are
working on it,” Jordan replied. “We’re working on it right now with folks in
the Senate. Josh Hawley is working on that. Our staff is working with Senate
staff on that issue. What is the way? What’s the best way to structure that
language? We’re looking at that.”
“We’re
also — what the Justice Department is doing. Bill Barr is looking at this issue
as well,” he continued. “So that’s the route — now, we may have to write some
other law. There are three possible remedies here. All I know is that there is
a big problem and there has to be a remedy we’re looking at, which is the best
course of action to take. But none of that happens, Tucker. None of it happens
if Jerry Nadler still in charge of the Judiciary Committee, and Joe Biden and
Kamala Harris get elected as President and Vice President.”
Follow
Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
“Our entire crony
capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy
approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This is the way a great
country is raided by its elite.”
Karen McQuillan
Mark Zuckerberg’s Silicon Valley investors are uniting with
the Koch network’s consumer and industrial investors to demand a huge DACA
amnesty
Big
Tech Floods House Judiciary with Cash as Committee Intensifies Antitrust Review
AP/Jose Luis Magana
29 Jul 2020592
7:12
Apple,
Amazon, Facebook, and Google have donated vast sums of money to members of the
House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee in advance of its Big
Tech hearing on Wednesday.
The House
Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administration Law
will hold a hearing on Wednesday, which will feature
testimony from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO
Sundar Pichai, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
This
arises as Republicans and Democrats have become increasingly critical of the
big tech’s dominance on the Internet; however, big tech companies’ donations to
members of the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust may undermine
potential efforts to find antitrust solutions against the power and influence
of these big tech companies.
During
the antitrust hearing, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY),
and Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-OH), will ask these tech giants questions
alongside members of the House antitrust subcommittee. The House Judiciary
antitrust subcommittee members include :
House Judiciary Committee
Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law Subcommittee Chairman David
Cicilline (D-RI)
House antitrust subcommittee
Vice Chair Joe Neguse (D-CO)
Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD)
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA)
Rep. Val Demings (D-FL)
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA)
Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA)
House antitrust subcommittee
ranking member Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI)
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)
Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO)
Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND)
Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL)
As the
House Judiciary Committee prepares to hold its hearing, Amazon, Apple,
Facebook, and Google have donated large sums to the members of the committee.
Google
Google
has donated $140,939 to members of the House
Judiciary Committee during the 2020 term. Google donated $96,939 to House
Judiciary Democrats, and $44,000 to House Judiciary Republicans. $26,439 of the
donations came from individuals, whereas $114,500 of the donations come from
political action committees (PACs).
Further,
they have donated large sums to the committee’s leaders and members of the
antitrust committee, including :
Republicans:
1.
$10,000 to Ranking Member Jordan (R-OH)
2.
$5,000 to Buck (R-CO)
3.
$1,000 Steube (R-FL)
Democrats:
1.
$8,705 to House Judiciary Committee Chairman
Nalder (D-NY)
2.
$6,570 to Neguse (D-CO)
3.
$2,500 to Johnson (D-GA)
4.
$2,000 to Raskin (D-MD)
5.
$1,941 to Jaypal (D-WA)
6.
$2,025 to Demings (D-FL)
7.
$2,101 to Scanlon (D-PA)
8.
$5,531 to McBath (D-GA)
Facebook
Facebook donated $110,390 in total to the House
Judiciary Committee during the 2020 cycle. Facebook donated $100,620 to House
Judiciary Democrats and $9,770 to House Judiciary Republicans. $85,890 of the
total donations came from individuals from Google, $24,500 of the donations
came from PACs.
Zuckerberg’s
company donated to members, including :
Republicans:
1.
$770 to Jordan
2.
$1,000 to Armstrong
Democrats:
1.
$16,705 to Nadler
2.
$1,210 to Raskin
3.
$1,613 to Jayapal
4.
$3,800 to Demings
5.
$1,000 to Scanlon
6.
$12,783 to McBath
Amazon
Amazon donated $124,700 to the House Judiciary
Committee, with $88,410 going to Democrats, and $36,290 going to Republicans.
$37,200 of the total donations came from individuals within Amazon, and $87,500
came from Amazon-related PACs.
The
e-commerce giant donated to individual members, including :
Republicans:
1.
$1,730 to Jordan
2.
$715 to Gaetz
3.
$2,500 to Buck
4.
$2,500 to Steube
Democrats:
1.
$9,900 to Cicilline
2.
$1,000 to Neguse
3.
$1,000 to Johnson
4.
$4,510 to Raskin
5.
$15,398 to Jayapal
6.
$6,000 to Demings
7.
$1,015 to McBath
Apple
Apple
donated the least money to members of the House Judiciary Committee, only donating $13,962 during the 2020 cycle.
$12,167 went to House Judiciary Democrats, while $1,795 went to House Judiciary
Republicans. $13,962 of the donations came from individuals within Apple.
The tech
company donated :
Republicans:
1.
$0 to House Judiciary members that will speak
during Wednesday’s hearing.
Democrats:
1.
$2,800 to Raskin
2.
$198 to Jayapal
3.
$2,033 to McBath
As these
companies prepare to testify before the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee,
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Brendan Carr noted that
big tech companies wield influence similar to that of a country.
He wrote in an op-ed, “A handful of corporations with
state-like influence now shape everything from the information we consume to
the places where we shop. These corporate behemoths are not merely exercising
market power; they are abusing dominant positions.”
Sean
Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @ SeanMoran3 .
The Bushes, the Clintons, China... and Trump
The Clinton, Bush, and Trump families will forever be intertwined in not just American history, but the history of the world. The past several years have certainly seen a major change in what once seemed to be a warm relationship between the Trumps and the Clintons, two elite New York clans inhabiting similar circles that have now become the political equivalent of the Hatfields and McCoys. To a lesser extent, because they never seemed particularly close, the same can be said about the Trump and Bush families as well.
We also all remember, prior to his being nominated as the Republican presidential candidate in 2016, that President Trump had to contend with the man who was considered by many the most powerful threat to his possible presidency in the GOP establishment -- former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. During the early portion of the primary, Bush, whose campaign never recovered from the early attacks from Trump, was continually embarrassed and even seemingly bullied by the cocksure future president.
But, despite a past prior to politics that was full of congenial exchanges, former candidate Trump was well aware of the failures of the Clinton and both Bush administrations, as much of his “America First” policy was predicated on undoing the damage of a combined 20 years of pro-globalist American leadership.
At the top of the list of these failures is the issue of America’s previous China polices. The “Red Dragon,” which had been rightly banished from most of the global economy until the 1970s, was unwisely allowed to be put on the fast track to global economic inclusion beginning in 1986 when at the behest of politicians including then Vice President George H.W. Bush, the communist nation achieved “observer” status with the predecessor to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
This, along with other smaller and incremental steps would set the stage for the country to eventually join the WTO as a “founding member” in 2001. This only occurred after President Clinton signed the U.S.-China Relations Act of 2000 on October 10th of 2000. This consequential bill finally granted China full, permanent, and normal trade relations (NTR) status.
T hese extremely dangerous developments were enabled by not only Clinton, but with a major push from the previous president, George H.W. Bush, who unfortunately also saw Red China through rose-colored glasses. It was Bush 41’s administration that, in addition to playing an instrumental role in the formation of the WTO, also planted the seeds for America’s subsequent deference to globalism.
These moves did not come without warning however, as the years leading to United States’ ascension into the WTO saw major labor unions in the manufacturing sector oppose the organization due to fears (that would later be realized) that as a result of the deal, much cheaper labor in China would lead to massive job losses and factory closings in America.
And truth be told, between the years 1999 and 2011, more than five million U.S. manufacturing jobs were lost. Further reinforcing fears of the globalization of vital manufacturing was a landmark study that attributed nearly one million of these manufacturing job losses, and almost 2.5 million total job losses, to competition from China.
Even worse, perhaps, than just the economic decimation that would be suffered by American workers, was what became the legitimizing of the brutal and corrupt Communist Chinese government. Over the years, the Chinese government has leveraged their advantage in technological manufacturing to continually attempt to execute international espionage campaigns.
Earlier this year , it was reported that Chinese-made phones issued by the U.S. government to low-income households were infected with malware. This phenomenon is not limited to attempted hacks against Americans exclusively, as a recent CNN report detailed how thousands of low-cost phones manufactured by China’s Tecno and sold in some of the poorest and most vulnerable countries in Africa including Ethiopia, Cameroon, and Ghana were sold with Triada malware pre-installed . In addition to collecting personal data, this strain of malware runs up mobile data and registers users for unwanted subscriptions.
Recent reports have also cited China’s inhumane treatment of their Uighur Muslim minority that has seen as many as one million Uighurs being detained in what the Chinese government calls “voluntary education centers” in Xinjiang. As a result of that, this week saw more than 130 UK lawmakers address a letter to Chinese Ambassador Liu Xiaoming condemning China and accusing Beijing of “ethnic cleansing.”
The truth in all this is, both political parties prior to the 2016 election victory of Donald Trump had largely failed America. American Politicians sat on a global lead and allowed for the emergence of a new evil empire that has effectively filled the power vacuum left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union. For the survival of America in the new global landscape, at a minimum, another term from the “political outsider” Trump is of vital necessity.
Julio Rivera is a business and political strategist, the Editorial Director for Reactionary Times , and a political commentator and columnist. His writing, which is focused on cybersecurity and politics, has been published by websites including The Hill, Real Clear Politics, Townhall and American Thinker.
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