While there were difficult moments for all companies, they’ll walk away content for now that there is no credible threat of antitrust enforcement in the US.
The format of the hearing made for uncomfortable viewing: Delayed an hour because of the need to disinfect the room, paused for 10 minutes to fix a technical issue, a lag in connection to Mark Zuckerbeg, and in-fighting in the room about the wearing of face coverings all contributed to it being an odd piece of theatre. It was arguably overambitious in hearing from all four companies in one sitting, and coupled with the five minute rule for questioning, it was difficult to properly develop arguments or chains of thought.
No coherency from the House Judiciary Committee on a line of attack: A good majority of questions to the tech companies related to issues of mis and disinformation on their platforms, rather than related to competition practices. A common theme was accusing the platforms of anti-conservative bias (particularly given an imminent presidential election in the country), and their stance on China. There were even questions about the removal of tweets directed to Facebook, promoting some to question congress’s even basic understanding of the companies they seek to break up.
A handful of difficult moments: During the six hour hearing, there were times when the companies were put under the spotlight. Facebook for instance was called up over emails about neutralising potential competitors, Amazon faced difficult questions about using data from third party sellers to price its own products. For Apple, it was about whether they applied app store commissions consistently. Here answers were less forthcoming with most of the companies promising to provide further detail offline.
The biggest threat still comes from Europe: While the US efforts are weak at this point, in Europe there is probably a greater probability of success. Countries such as Germany, and increasingly the UK, are upping the ante. They are being spurred on by Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission executive vice president who has drafted new rules that would lower hurdles to force big tech to change and even restrict them from moving into new product areas. This comes alongside already ongoing antitrust investigations into Apple’s App Store, Google’s acquisition of Fitbit, and Facebook’s purchase of Giphy to name but a few.
