GOP Lawmaker: Big Tech ‘Out to Get’ Conservatives

By New York Post. Big Tech is “out to get” conservatives, Rep. Jim Jordan said in explosive opening remarks Wednesday as the CEOs of companies including Facebook and Amazon faced a Congressional grilling.

“I’ll just cut to the chase: Big Tech is out to get conservatives,” said the Ohio Republican with trademark zeal. “That’s not a suspicion, that’s not a hunch. That’s a fact.”

Jordan rattled off a series of double-standards in which the online voices of conservatives, including President Trump, have been silenced, while others have not been similarly restricted.

“The power these companies have to impact what happens during the election … [and] what American citizens get to see prior to their voting is pretty darn important,” said Jordan. . .

“Being big is not inherently bad. Quite the opposite. In America, you should be rewarded for success,” said Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) in his opening remarks. “[However], I share the concern that market dominance in the digital space is ripe for abuse, particularly when it comes to free speech.” (Read more from “GOP Lawmaker: Big Tech ‘Out to Get’ Conservatives” HERE)

_____________________________________________________

Zuckerberg Defends Instagram Acquisition, Cook Says All Apps Treated Equally

By CNBC. Rep. Jerry Nadler, D.-NY, on Wednesday drilled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for the social network’s 2012 acquisition of Instagram.

“The documents you provided tell a very disturbing story, and that story is that Facebook saw Instagram as a powerful threat that could siphon business away from Facebook,” Nadler said during the House Antitrust Subcommittee. “Rather than compete with it, Facebook bought it. This is exactly the type of anticompetitive acquisition that antitrust laws were designed to prevent.” . . .

“At the time, almost no one thought of them as a general social network or competing with us in that space,” Zuckerberg said. “The acquisition has been wildly successful.” . . .

Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson pressed Cook on whether the App Store treats all app developers equally. When Johnson asked if Apple employs two people to help Chinese search engine Baidu help navigate the store, Cook said he did not know.

Johnson also asked about a recent agreement that would allow Apple users to rent movies on Amazon Prime without using Apple’s in-app payment mechanism, which takes a 30% cut of sales, and whether other app makers could enter into the same arrangement. (Read more from “Zuckerberg Defends Instagram Acquisition, Cook Says All Apps Treated Equally” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE