The Senate Commerce Commission voted Thursday to clear subpoenas for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Sundar Pichai and Twitter's Jack Dorsey.
The commission's unanimous vote marked the beginning of a new bipartisan initiative against Big Tech companies, which have come under increasing scrutiny and pressure by state attorneys general on issues of competition, consumer privacy and hate speech. .
Big Tech again under indictment
The Department of Justice has asked Congress to lift legal protections for online platforms like Facebook (Facebook shares - NYSE: FB), Google (NYSE: GOOG, GOOGL) and Twitter (NYSE: TWTR). The proposed changes would remove some of the fundamental protections that have protected companies from legal liability in the past for what people post on their platforms.
Among the Democrats' central criticisms is the fact that social media platforms have failed to fight disinformation in general and election-related disinformation in particular. At a White House event last week, officials said the legislative proposal protects the internet and prevents underhanded manipulation by social media.
Additionally, Attorney General William Barr said the administration will seek rules to provide people with the ability to sue online platforms for "bad faith censorship."
Democrats also focused their criticism of social media platforms primarily on hate speech, disinformation and other content that can incite violence or prevent people from voting. Republicans, on the other hand, have accused the social media giants of deliberately and in bad faith censoring the most conservative posts in ideology.
Antitrust action for Google
The three CEOs have been summoned to testify as the Justice Department moves towards antitrust action against Google. Lawmakers and consumer protection agencies accuse Google of abusing its domain in online search and advertising to stifle competition and increase its profits.
Google said that while its businesses are large, they are useful and beneficial to consumers. It claims its services face ample competition and have sparked innovations that help people manage their lives.
Most of its services are offered for free in exchange for personal information that helps Google sell its ads. For over a year, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have carried out extensive antitrust investigations of large tech companies, examining whether Google, Facebook, Amazon hurt competition, stifled innovation, or otherwise hurt consumers.
In the House, a judicial subcommittee carried out its own radical, bipartisan investigation of Big Tech's market dominance. Zuckerberg and Pichai as well as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Apple CEO Tim Cook testified in a highly anticipated hearing in July.
