Hearing that will be taking place at noon eastern time on cspan3, on our website cspan. Org, and you can listen on the go with our free cspan radio app. Committee iswhat holding this hearing and why . Is the House Judiciary Committee antitrust subcommittee. They are holding this hearing because they have been having an investigation of the Digital Markets and Big Tech Companies in the past few years and this is a culmination of that investigation. Host why are they investigating these companies . Guest they are investigating these Big Tech Companies, apple, amazon, google, and facebook, because amongst the democrats and some republicans, these there is a feeling that these companies are too big, take up too much of the economy, gobble up competition by acquiring Smaller Companies, and amazons case by both selling products and being a platform, and in apples case running the app store. They feel that antitrust law has not kept up with what the Digital Economy looks like. Senator Elizabeth Warren has tweeted recently here is what you will not read and big techs bought and paid for research. Amazon, facebook, google, and apple have too much power over our economy, society, and democracy. What is she talking about when she says we need to break up big tech and stop mergers . Guest facebook is a very large company. They also own instagram and whatsapp, Huge Companies that people across the world use. Is that is saying Smaller Companies never have a chance to emerge into the marketplace and become successful, if facebook, which has the means to buy up Smaller Companies, keeps doing that. She thinks google is too big and it should be separated from youtube, that amazon should not be able to be both the seller for products and the marketplace of products. She thinks the federal trade commission and the department of justice should sue to have these companies spinoff from each other and become Smaller Companies. Host so it is a role for regulators, not for congress . Guest well, what congress can laws past new antitrust that would make it easier for federal regulators to do so. Currently, some of the lawmakers feel our antitrust laws that are on the books simply are not Strong Enough to do that and they want to give regulators a different way to be able to do so. Senator john thune, a republican, member of the Senate Leadership for their party, tweets sweeping protections for large Tech Companies have meant that, with few exceptions, internet platforms are not held responsible for the comments, pictures, and videos users post. No matter how harmful, it is time to reexamine these protections. Could this come up as well . Guest this issue could come up. The lawson under thune is talking about is also something the law senator thune is ing about is something addition, limiting section 230 is something lawmakers have been discussing. This law is obscure. 1996 part of the Communications Decency act. It makes it so tech platforms are largely not liable for what other people post on their platforms. The Tech Companies say it is allowed it allows them to moderate and keep things bad off on bothatform, but some sides of the aisle say immunity has gone too far. Bipartisan is their agreement about what needs to be done with these big where is there bipartisan agreement on what needs to be done with these Big Tech Companies . Guest there is not much. I talked to representative ken buck, a republican. He told me that after a year of investigating Tech Companies, he could needrust laws some changing. That strays from what republicans think historically. These bigorried that Tech Companies are biased again conservatives. What you will see is that there is not a lot of agreement. Everybody is matted them for some reason, but it is hard to know how they will go forward. They cannot agree on exactly what the problem is. Ashleyally gold gold, Technology Reporter with axios. We appreciate your time this morning. Guest thank you. Host coming up on the washington journal, we will have congressman ken buck, republican of colorado, on the program. He will take your comments about these big ceos. Also, the hearing on capitol hill with attorney general barr, youll be able to ask him about that as well. It is your turn to let washington know what you think of these Big Tech Companies, facebook, amazon, apple, and google. There ceos will be testifying this morning. Ceos will be testifying this morning. What do you think of the power of their Online Platforms . Lawrence in washington, d. C. , a democrat, you are up first. Good morning to you. Caller i ordered some things online, not from amazon. And thea lowes order other was from a music company. I got a tracking number on those orders. Initially, it said i would get it in a certain point in time. At least a week if not more. I got the order and was able to talk to the postal carrier. I said, what was going on . She said, perhaps they had some issues. I said the tracking said i was do to get it at a certain point in time and it did not happen. They said, well, the week before, they had to defer a lot of other deliveries so they could handle a lot of amazons orders because the Postal Service is handling a lot of those orders as well. Deference toe this amazon orders i have a neighbor who gets tons of stuff from amazon. There is sort of a miscarriage of justice, if you will, or service through the Postal Service as much as they are doing that kind of volume and giving deference to amazon. Timeshe new york Editorial Board this morning has a lengthy piece about todays hearings and the questions they believe members of congress should be asking these ceos. Amazon, is the subcommittee will probably focus on the companys relationship with thirdparty merchants. Such merchants use debts represent about 60 of amazon sales. They also operate an enormous shipping network and a Cloud Computing service that may raise alarms among regulators as well. According to the Opening Statement of jeff bezos, he will argue this. The Global Retail market we compete in is large and competitive. Are less than 1 of the 25 trillion Global Retail market and it less than 4 of retail in the United States. There is room in retail for many winners. For example, more than 80 retailers in the United States earn over 1 billion in annual retailer. We know that the success of a store depends on customer satisfaction. Every day, amazon competes against large, established players, like target, costco, and walmart. And while we have always focused on a Great Customer experience, sales initiated online or in even larger growth area for other stores. Online sales grew in the first quarter. Openingf bezoss statement before the house judiciary subcommittee today. That is what he will be saying to lawmakers. Robert in olympia, washington, you are a democrat. What do you think of these companies . Caller what bothers me about the whole thing is it seems to me it is about throttling peoples freedom of speech. We see what happens in the speech when you come out to have what happens in the streets when you come out to have your freedom of speech. Now what will happen with the internet . . Censor what people want to say on social media . Host would you pose those questions to the facebook ceo, Mark Zuckerberg . And what examples would you give him . Caller the fact of the matter is that the president can tweak whatever he wants to. What about everybody else . Who will censor it . Who will be the one to say you can say this, but not that . Host you want to know more about their operations. But any kind of rule to censor is leveraged in order to get them to do what to commit to certain rules and regulations about who posts what on their thing. Amazon, that is kind of a different deal. They just allow people to have a storefront and sell stuff all over the world. Concerned, they do every little retailer i favor they just have to understand. Store all over a the world. That is what amazon does. Censorshipt, on your argument, marsha blackburn, republican senator from big teche, tweeting frequently sensors conservative voices. Reform. 30 is ripe for nora, independent, good morning. Go ahead. Caller i was noticing the other day on my cell phone that i just got, it had a list. Agree to allow thirdparty countries all over the world to have access to my posts,emails, facebook , andthing in the world that is none of their business. We are the United States. We should not be able to be accessed by all these other Foreign Countries that we are not we do not get access to their stuff. Japan done been proven and china blocks us from seeing anything they do online, so why should they have access [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020]