Written materials. You are the ema offices that required for all meetings. I expect all members to wear a mask expect when speaking. I recognize myself for an opening statement. More than a year ago, this subcommittee launched an investigation into Digital Markets. The twoives b have been to document problems and since then, weve received millions as well as conducting hundreds of hours of interviews. There were experts here, the subcommittees Ranking Member. We work closely with all members who have taken this work seriously and study the issues. This is the most bipartisan effort ive been involved with. The purpose of todays hearing is to examine the dominance of amaz amazon, apple, facebook and google. Amazon runs the Largest Online marketplace in america, c capturing 70 of all online marketplace sales. It operates across a vast array of businesses from cloud compute i ing. Apple is a provider of smart phones with more than 100 million in the United States alone. Services include financial, the Business Model a record breaking fines. 18 billion alone. Last thing, google is the worlds Largest Online service. More than 90 of searches online. A billion users and browsers, smart phones. They stood out as titans in our economy. Stronger and more powerful than ever before. As they shift more of their work, these giants stand to profit. Locally owned businesses mean mom and pop stores face an economic crisis like any other in recent history. As hard as it is to believe that our economy will emerge from this crisis even more consolidated than before. These companies serve as critical arteries of commerce and communications. Because these companies are so central to our modern life, their Business Practices and decisions have an outsized effect on our economy and democracy. Any single action by one of those companies can affect hundreds of millions of us in profound and lasting ways. Although these four corporations differ in important and meaningful ways, weve observed common problems over the course of this investigation. First, each platform is a bottleneck for a key channel of distribution. Whether they control access to information or a marketplace, these platforms have the incentive and ability to exploit this power. They can charge xor bah bitant fees and extract valuable data from the people and businesses that rely on them. Second, each platform uses its control over Digital Infrastructure to surveil other companies, their growth, Business Activity and whether they might pose a competitive threat. Heech pleach platform has prote power by copying or cutting off access for any actual or potential rival. Third, these platforms abuse their control over Current Technologies to extend their power. Whether its through selfpreferences, predatory pricing or requiring buying additional products. Theyve wielding their power in destructive, harmful ways in order to expand. At todays who ahearing, wheae discover how each a affects our daily lives. So, why does this matter . Many of the practices used by these companies have harmful economic effects. They discourage entrepreneurship, heighten cost. Simply put, they have too much power. This power staves off new forms of competition, creativity and innovation. And while these dominant firms may still produce new, innovative products, their dominance is killing Small Businesses and manufacturing that are the american economy. Some harvest and abuse peoples data to sell ads from everything to new books to dangerous socalled miracle cures. When every day americans learn how much of their data is being mined, they cant run away fast enough, but in many cases, theres no escape because theres no alternative. People are stuck with bad options. Theyre predicated on the idea that if a company harms people, theyll choose another option. Were here today because that choice is no longer possible. In close iing, im confident th addressing the problems we see will lead to a stronger, more vibrant economy because concentrated economic power leads to concentrated political power. This goes to the heart of whether we, as a people, govern ourselves or whether we let ourselves be governed by private monopolies. American democracy has always been a at war against moply power. Throughout history, weve recognized that concentrated markets and political control are incompatible with democratic ideals. When the American People confronted monopolists in the past, oil tycoons or at t and microsoft, we took action to ensure no private corporation controls our economy or democracy. We face similar changes today. As gate keepers of the economy, they enjoy the power to pick winners and losers, to shake down Small Businesses and enrich themselves while choking off competitors. Their ability to call the shots, upended higher sectors and inspire fear represent the powers of a private government. Our founders would not bow before a king, nor should we bow before the emperors of the online economy. With that, i recognize mr. Senser for his opening statement. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank the ceos for quickly working with the subcommittee to appear today. The Memorial Service for john lewis on monday required our attention. However, this is vital. Throughout my long time in congress, i have prioritized oversight as one of our seminal responsibilities. Part of that responsibility is to periodically review the effectiveness of our laws. I think its a good and timely thing to bring to all of our companies. These unexpected and unprecedented times, your companies have provided motivations to our nations can meet a myriad of our daily needs. The delivery of groceries, virtual business for doctors. Connecting socially distant families. Or keeping our small and Large Businesses connected. That responsibility comes an increased scrutiny of your dominance in the marketplace. I want to reiterate something i said throughout this investigation. Being big is not inherently bad. Quite the opposite. In america, you should be rewarded for success. Were here to better understand the role your companies have in the digital marketplace and importantly, the effect they have on consumers and the public at large. You lead some of todays more powerful companies and my colleagues and i have a great interest about what your companies do with that accumulated power. We also know that the tech marketplace place is driven by data. So it found that they control the marketplace. There are broader questions surrounding data. Who owns the data . What responsibilities do companies have to share it with their customers or competitors . What is the fair market value of that data . Is there anything monopolistic in inquiring this and what about monotizing it . These are complex issues that congress regulators and even your own companies are wrestling with in the current technological landscape and the answers to which we owe the american consumers. Since the tech investigation began, we have heard rumblingings that are quick to say your Successful Companies have grown too large. Since this hearing was announced, seems those complaints have gotten louder. While i find these complaints informative, i dont plan on litigating each of these complaints today. Antitrust law of a consumer welfare standard has served this country well for over a century. Those laws have provided the framework and creativity to make way for some of our most successful and innovative companies. I will be the first to highlight that. However, as the business la landscape evolves, we must ensure that our existing antitrust laws are applied to meet the needs of our country and its consumers. As we know Companies Like facebook, youtube and twitter have become the Public Square of today where political debate unfolds in real time. But reports that descending views often conservative views are targeted or censored is seriously troubling. Conservatives are consumers, too. And they need the protection of the antitrust laws. The power to influence the big carriers with remarkable responsibilities. So let the facts be our guide here. Your companies are large. Thats not a problem. Your companies are successful. Thats not a problem either. But i want to leave here today with a more complete picture of how your individual Companies Use your size, success and power and what it means to the american consumer. I yield back the balance of my time. Thank the gentlemen. The chair now recognizes the distinguished chairman of the full committee, mr. Nadler, for his opening statement. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to thank you and the subcommittee members for the tremendous effort that you have all put into the subcommittees investigation. I appreciate your quell icallin this hearing today so that we can hear directly from the leersd of amazon, apple, facebook and google l and i look forward to an important dialogue. Today, it is effectively impossible to use the internet without using in one way or another, the services of these four companies. I have long believed with Thomas Jefferson and lewis brandice, that concentration of power in any form, especially concentration of economic or political power, is dangerous to a democratic society. That is why we must examine these and other companies that play a dominant role in our economy and in our society. And ensure that our antitrust laws give enforcers the tools they need to preserve a healthy marketplace. These principles have guided this committees year long investigation into competition and Digital Markets and they are the lens to which i approach todays hearing. The open internet has delivered enormous benefits to americans. Including a surge of economic opportunity, massive investment and new pathways for education online. But theres growing evidence that a handful of corporations have come to capture an outside share of online commerce. From providing the dominance search platform, retail platform and online messaging platform to providing the Cloud Computing in which hundreds of thousands of other businesses rely, these dominant platforms now comprise the essential infrastructure for the 21st century. By virtue of controlling essential infrastructure, these companies have the ability to control access to market. In some basic ways, the problem is not what we faced 130 years ago when railroads transformed american life. Both enabling farmers and producers to access new markets, but also creating a key choke hold that the railroad monopolies could u exploit. Notoriously abused the power in a variety of ways. They charged tolls. They discriminated among farmers, picking winners and losers across the economy and by expanding into business, they competed directly with producers, they could use their dominance and transportation to pay for their own services. These tactics by the railroads spurred fury and despair across the country. Congress niche waiting investigations to document these problems and enacted legislative solutions to outlaw these anticompetitive practices in the Railroad Industry and other industries dominated by unregulated monopolies and trusts. Importantly, congressional oversight and legislative reforms during this period did not prevent the arrival of new technology for human progress. That it was their old congress to ensure the new monopolists could not abuse their power. Today, the Digital Economy poses similar challenges. While the Underlying Technology is dramatically different, of course, new u digital intermediaries have the ability to control access to critical markets. If you are an independent merchants, developer or content producer, you are increasingly reliant on these powerful intermediaries to access markets and consumers. Of course the economy, many businesses live in fear of exclusion from these platforms. The fact some companies have shared with committee over the past year of this investigation. The subcommittees current review in the digital marketplace continues a long tradition in this committee of oversight of the antitrust laws in our economy. From the days of chairman emanuel seller, the House Judiciary Committee and his antitrust Sub Committee have conducted careful sectors voeing signs of consolidation and conduct. This has continued on a bipartisan basis over the years through chairman brooks and conniers and others. As a 1950 report described our mandate, quote, it is the of this subcommittee to investigate factors which tend to eliminate competition, strengthen monopolies, injure Small Businesses or promote undue concentration of economic power. To ascertain the facts and make recommendations based on those findings. Following in this tradition, our investigation has held hearings with industry and government witnesses, consultations with subject Matter Experts and a careful and pain staking review of large volumes of evidence provided by industry participants and regulators. While ultimately, it is the responsibility of the antitrust enforcement agencies to enforce the law, congress has an obligation to assess whether the laws and policies and the will to enforce those laws and policies are adequate to address the competition issues facing our country and to take action if they are found to be lacking. Given the dominant role these four companies play in our economy and society, it is only reasonable that our careful examination of the antitrust laws begin with them. I appreciate all of our witnesses today. The investigation would not be complete, indeed, its hardly begun, without hearing from the decisionmakers of these. I yield back the balance of my time. I thank the gentlemen and i now recognize the Ranking Member of the full committee, the gentleman from ohio, mr. Jordan, for his opening statement. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I also want to thank the Ranking Member. Not sure how many more Committee Hearings this subcommittee or the full committee are going to have this congress, but i want to thank jim for his great work for the constituents of wisconsin for this many years and for the work hes done this entire committee. Big techs out to get conservatives. Thats not a suspicious. Not a hunch. Thats a fact. July 20th, 2020, google removes br breitbart. April 19th, 2020, google and youtube announce a policy censoring the content that conflicts with recommendations the world health organization. Think about that. World health organization. Organization that lied to us. The organization that chilled for china and if you contradict something they say, they can say whatever they want. They can lie for china. They can chill for china. You Say Something against them, you get censored. June 29th, 2020, amazon bans President Trumps account on twitch after he raises concerns about defunding the police. June 4th, 2020, amazon bans a book critical of the coronavirus lockdowns written by a conservative commentator. May 27th, 2020, amazon smile wont let you u give to tgive te Family Research council, but you can give to planned parenthood. Facebook, june 19th, 2020, takes down posts from trumps reelection campaign. They silence a prolife advertisement. May 19th, 2020, former facebook employees admit facebook routineroutine ly suppresses conservative views. I havent mentioned twitter. I asked for you guys to invite them as a witness. You guys said no, i havent mentioned them two years ago. Four member of congress were shadowed two years ago. 435 in the house. Only four. Only four. Gates, meadows, nuance, jordan, get shah koed. What did mr. Dorsey tell us . It was just a glitch in our algorithm. What did you put in . If i had a nickel for every time i heard it was just a glitch, i wouldnt be as wealthy as our witnesses, but i would be doing all right. Weve heard that excuse time and time again. May 28th, they sensor President Trumps tweets. Sensors the white house quoting the president s comments a about the riots in minneapolis. June 2020, twitter sensors the president again. You can tweet all you want about the autonomous zone that happened in seattle, but the president tweets hes going to have one in washington, d. C. , oh, no, you cant do that. You get banned. Censored. Dozens of examples. I forgot one. I forgot one. Just last week, july 21st. July 21st. The leader of iran, Islamic Republic of iran, largest state sponsor of terrorism. Twitter allows this tweet. Quote, the Islamic Republic of iran will never forget the mar tor dom of sul mannie and will strike a blow in the United States. So you can threaten the citizens of this great country, the le leader of the largest state sponsor of terrorism, thats just fine, but oh, the president says hes not going to allow some autonomous zone in d. C. And he gets censored. All kinds of examples. Most of them from this year and thats whats critical to understand. Thmost of them from this year, election year. Thats what concerns me and so Many Americans because we saw what google did in 2016. We all know about the email the day after the election where top executives at google talked about the silent donation. In spite of their efforts to help clinton, President Trump won. But were 97 days before an election. And the power as the previous chairman and Ranking Member have said, the power these companies have to impact what happens during an election, what people, what american citizens get to see prior to their voting is pretty darn important. Thats why this Committee Hearing is important. We all think the free market is great. We think competition is great. We love the fact these are american companies. Whats not great is censoring people. Censoring conservatives and trying to impact elections. If it doesnt end, there has to be consequences. Thats what im concerned about what i think so Many Americans are concerned about. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, mr. Chairman. Before i yield back, we have a colleague. I would ask unanimous consent that mr. Johnson, the Ranking Member of the constitution subcommittee be allowed to participate in todays hear iin our customary practice for subCommittee Hearings. The gentleman makes a unanimous consent. I would object. Objection is heard. And now using todays why are we not allowing, it is customary. There was a anonymous consent request. Objection was heard. I will now introduce our witness. This has never happened in the history of the committee. I will now introduce todays witnesses. Our first, jeff bezos. Mr. Jordan, i have the time. Were talking about peoples liberties here. Mr. Jordan, you made a unanimous consent request. Objection was heard. Those are the rules. It is now my pleasure to introduce the rules. Jeff bezos put your mask on. Of amazon. Com. Mr. Bezos founded amazon in 19 excuse me. Im going to remind members of this committee unless you are speaking, our rules require you to pearwear a mask according to attending physician. Im speaking about another member of this committee. Ill begin again. It is now my pleasure to introduce todays witnesses. Our first is jeff bezos. Chief executive officer of amazon. Com. He founded it in 1994 as an online bookstore. Since then, theyve grown to be the largest retailer on the internet. He also oversees into areas including Cloud Computing, digital streaming and artificial intelligence. He received his bachelors of science from princeton. The second witness, chief executive officer of alphabet and google. He joined google in 2004 and has helped manage a number of successful products including google chrome, g mail and android operating system. He also overshowed the companys popular search products. Prior to this, he worked at mckenzie. Received a degree in metallurgical engineering, a masters from Stanford University and an mba from the Wharton School of university of pennsylvania. Our third witness is tim cook, chief executive officer of apple. Mr. Cook joined apple in 1998 and served as chief operational officer under steve jobs. In 2011, mr. Cook was named ceo. While at apple, he has overseen their expansion into new markets, the launch and developments of apple pay, apple watch, icloud, apple card and home pod. Prior to joining apple, he served as director of north american fulfillment for ibm. He received a bashlor of science from auburn and mba from Duke University school of business. Our last witness is mark zuckerberg. Founder, chairman and ceo of facebook. Mr. Zuckerberg initially launched facebook in order to help connect College Students at his school more easily. Since then, the company has grown into the Worlds Largest social media platform with 1. 7 billion global daily active users. He attended harvard before leaving the focus full time on developing facebook. We welcome all of our distinguished witnesses and thank them for participating in todays hearing and now, well begin by swearing you in and before i do that, i wanted to also remind you that you are the only ones from your Respective Companies invited to testify today. And in accordance with normal house practice in section g of the house Remote Committee proceeding regular lactions, yo sworn testimony must be your own. Let me know if at any point, you wish to mute yourself if you wish to confer with your county counsel. Will you mute your microphones and raise your right hands. Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony youre about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information and belief, so help you god . Yes. Yes. I do. Let the record show the witnesses answereded in the affirmative. Thank you and you may remain seated. Your written statements will be entered into the record in their entirety. U i ask you summarize your testimony in five minutes to help you stay within that time, theres a timing light in webx. When the light switches from green to yellow, you have one minute to conclude. When its red, it signals your five minutes have expired. Mr. Bezos, you may begin. Thank you, chairman. Ranking member and members of the subcommittee. I was born into great wealth. Not monetary wealth, but the wealth of a loving family. A family that fostered my curiosity and encouraged me to dream big. My mom, jackie, had me when she was a 17yearold High School Student in albuquerque. Being pregnant in high school was not popular. The school tried to kick her out. But she was allowed to finish. After my grandfather negotiated terms with the principal. She couldnt have a lock er. No extra krirk lars and couldnt walk across the stage to get her diploma. She graduated and was determined to continue her enl kags, so she enrolled in night school, bringing me, her infant son, to class with her throughout. My dads name is miguel. He adopted me when i was 4. He was 16 when he came to the u. S. From cuba by himself shortly after castro took over. My dad didnt speak english and did not have an easy path. What he did have was grit and determination. He received a scholarship to college in albuquerque, which is where he met my mom. Together, with my grandparents, these hard working, resourceful and loving people made me who i am. I walked away from a steady job on wall street into a seattle garage to find amazon, fully understanding that it might not work. It feels like just yesterday i was driving the packages to the post office myself, dream thag one day, we might afford a forklift. Customer obsession has driven our success. I take it as an article of faith that customers do the right thing. You earn trust slowly over time by doing hard things well. Delivering on time. Offering every day low prices. Making promises and keeping them and making principled decisions, even when unpopular. Our approach is working. 80 of americans have a favorable impression of amazon overall. Who knew Americans Trust amazon to do the right thing . Only their doctors and the military. The Retail Market is extraordinarily large and competitive. More than 4 of u. S. Retail. Theres room in retail for multiple winners. We compete against large players like costco, kroger and of course, walmart. A company more than twice amazons size. 20 years ago, we made the decision to invite other sellers to sell in our store. To share the same valuable real estate we spend billions to build market and maintain. We believe that combining the strengths of amazons store with the vast selection of products offered by third parties would be a better experience for customers. And that the growing pie of revenue and profits would be big enough for all. We were betting that it was not a zero sum game. Fortunately, we were right. There are now 1. 7 million small and medium u sized businesses selling on amazon. The trust Customers Put in us every day has allowed amazon to create more jobs in the United States over the past decade than any other company. Hundreds of thousands of jobs across 42 states. Amazon employees make a minimum of 15 an hour. More than double the federal minimum wage. And we offer the best benefits. Benefits that include health insurance, 401 k retirement and parental leave, which includes 20 weeks of paid maternity leave. More than any place on earth, Entrepreneurial Companies start, grow and thrive here in the u. S. We nurture entrepreneurs and start ups with stable rule of law. The finest University System in the world. The freedom of democracy. And a deeply accepted culture of risk taking. Of course, this great nation of ours is far from perfect. Even as we remember congressman john lewis and honor his legacy, were in the middle of a much needed race reckoning. We also face the challenges of Climate Change and income inequality and are stumbling through the crisis of a Global Pandemic. Still, with all of our faults and problems, the rest of the world would love even the tiniest sip of the elixir we have here in the u. S. Immigrants like my dad see what a treasure this country is. They have perspective and often can see it even more clearly than those of us who were lucky enough to be born here. It is still day one for this country and even in the face of todays humbling challenges, i have never been more optimistic about our future. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today and im very happy to take your questions. Thank you, mr. Bezos. Mr. Bachai, you are now recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Rank king member and members of the subcommittee. Before i start, i know this hearing was delayed for the ceremonies to honor the life of john lewis. Because of his courage, this world is a better place. Hell be deeply missed. Its hard, discussion of opportunity. This has never been more important as a the Global Pandemic poses dual challenge to our health and our economy. Expanding access to opportunity through technology is personal to me. I didnt have much access to a computer dwrgrowing up in indiao you can imagine my amazement when i arrived in the u. S. For graduate school and saw a lab of computers to use when ever i wanted. Accessing the internet for the first time set me on a path to Bring Technology to as many people as possible. It inspired me to build googles first browser, chrome. Im proud that 11 years later, so many people experience chrome for free. Google takes pride in the number of people who choose their product. We are even prouder of what they do with them. From the 140 Million Students and teachers using g sweet for education to stay connected during the pandemic. To the 5 million americans gaining Digital Skills to grow with google. To all the people who have turned to google for help. To find iing the fastest phone learning how to cook a new dish on youtube. Googles work would not be possible without a long tradition of american tradition. We employ more than 75,000 people in the u. S. Across 26 states. The promise of policies estimated that in 2018, we enlisted more than 20 million in the u. S. , citing as the largest capital in america that year and one of the top five for the last three years. One way we contribute is by building helpful products. Research found Free Services like search, j mag mail, maps a photos provide thousands of dollars a year to the average american and many are small bidses using our Digital Tools to grow. A family owned Stone Company in wiscons wiscons wisconsin uses google my business. A a store in vista, rhode island credits google with helping them reach customers online during the pandemic. Nearly onethird of Small Business owners say that without dingital tools, they would have had to close all or part of their business during covid. On the way we contribute is by being among the worlds biggest investors in research and development. By the end of 2019, our rnd spend had increased tenfold over ten years. From 2. 8 billion to 26 billion. And we have invested 9 billion in nine years. Our engineers help america remain a global lead ner emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, selfdriving cars and computing. Just as Americas Technology leadership is not inevitable, googles continuedguaranteed. Today, users have more access to information than ever before. Competition rises to innovate and leads to better products. Lower choices and more choices for everyone. For example, competition helps lower costs by 40 over the last decade, with savings passed down to consumers. Open platforms like android also support the foundation of others. Using android, thousands of mobile operators build and sell their own devices without paying licenses fees. This has enabled billions of consumers to offer cutting edge smart phones, some for less than 50. Whether Building Tools for Small Businesses, google succeeds when others succeed. Treating it responsibility. Ive never forgotten how access to technology and innovation changed the course of my life. Google aims to build products that increase access to opportunity for everyone. No matter where you live, what you believe or how much money you earn. We are committed to doing this responsibly in partnership with lawmakers to ensure every american has access to the incredible Opportunity Technology creates. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Cook is now recognized for five minutes. Chairman, Ranking Member, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to offer testimony. Before i begin, i want to recognize the life and legacy of john lewis. I join you in mourning of not only a hero, but someone i knew personally whose example inspires me and guides me still. Every american owes john lewis a debt and i feel fortunate to hail from a state and a country that benefitted so profoundly from his leadership. My name is tim cook. Ive been apples ceo since 2011 and a proud employee of this uniquely American Company since 1998. At apple, we make ourselves a promise and our customers a promise. Its a promise that well only build things that make us proud. As steve put it, we only make things for our family and friends. You could try to define this difference in a lot of ways. You can call it simplicity of design all those things are t e true, but if you want to put it simply, products like iphone just work. When customers give iphone a a 99 satisfaction rating, thats the message theyre sending about the user experience. But we also know that customer haves a lot of choices and that our products face fierce competition. Companies like samsung, lg, huawei and google have built successful businesses with different approaches. Were okay with that. Our goal is the best. Not the most. In fact, we dont have a dominant share in any market or in any product category where we do business. What does motivate us is that timeless drive to build new things were proud to show our users. Were focused on those innovations, on deepening Core Principles loiike privacy and security and creating new u features. If 2008, we introduced a new future of the iphone called the app store. Launched with 50 apps, it sewhi seemed like a lot at the time, the app store provided a safe and trusted way for users to get more out of their phone. Physical media like cds had to be shipped and were hard to whereupon dat update. From the beginning, the app store was a revolutionary alternative. Developers set prices for their apps and never paid for shelf space. We provide every developer with tools like compilers, programming languages and more than 150,000 essential Software Building blocks called apis. The App Store Guidelines ensure a high quality, reliable and secure user experience. Theyre transparent and applied equally to every developer. For the vast majority of apps, Developers Keep 100 of the money they make. The only apps that are subject to a commission are those where the developer acquires a customer on an apple device and where the features or services would be experienced and consumed on an apple device. In the app storess more than tenyear history, we have never raised the commission or added a single fee. In fact, weve reduced it for subscriptions and exempted additional categories of apps. Im here today because its reasonable and appropriate. We approached this process with respect and humility. But we make no concession on the facts. What began as 500 apps is now more than 1. 7 million. Only 60 of which are apple software. If apple is the gate keeper, apple wants to open the gate wider. We want to get every app on the store, not keep them off. Contributions are consistent. The ecosystem is responsible for 9 million jobs and facilitated 138 billion in commerce in 2019 alo alone. I share the committees belief that competition promotes innovation, that it makes space for the next great idea. And that it gives consumers more choices. Since apple was founded, these things have defined us. The first mac brought opportunity and possibility into the home. The ipod helped musicians and artists to share their creations and be paid fairly for it. This legacy does much more than make us proud. It inspires us to work tirelessly to make sure tomorrow will be even better than today. Thank you very much. I look forward to responding to your questions. Thank you, mr. Cook. Mr. Zuckerberg is now recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Before i begin, i want to add my voice to those honoring congressman john lewis and his service to our country. America has lost a real hero who never stopped fighting for the rights of every person. Chairman, Ranking Member, mem r members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. The Tech Industry is an american success story. The products we build have changed the world and improved peoples lives. Our industry is one of the ways that america shares its values with the world and one of our greatest economic and cultural exports. Facebook is mapart of this stor. We started with an idea to give people the power to share and connect. And we built services that billions of people find useful. Im proud that weve given people who have never had a voice before the opportunity to be heard. Before the opportunit be heard and given Small Businesses access to tools that only the largest players used to have. Since covid emerged, im proud that people have used our services to stay in touch with friends and family who they cant be with in person and to keep their Small Businesses running online when physical stores are closed. I believe that facebook and the u. S. Tech industry are a force for innovation and empowering people. But i recognize that there are concerns about the size and power of tech companies. Our services are about connection and our Business Model is advertising. We face intense competition in both. Many of your competitors have hundreds of millions or billions of users, some are upstarts, but others are gate keepers with the power to decide if we can even release our apps in their app stores to compete with them. In many areas, were behind our competitors. The most popular messaging service in the u. S. Is imessage. The Fastest Growing app is tiktok. The most popular app for video is youtube. The Fastest Growing ads platform is amazon. The largest ads platform is google. And for every dollar spent on advertising in the u. S. , less than 10 cents is spent with us. Were here to talk about online platforms, but i think the true nature of competition is much broader. When google bought youtube, they could compete against the cable industry. When amazon bought whole food foods, they could compete against kroger and walmart. Now people can watch video, get groceries delivered, and send private messages for free. Thats competition. New companies are created all the time all over the world. And history shows that if we dont keep innovating, someone will replace every company here today. That change can often happen faster than you expect. Of the ten most valuable companies a decade ago, only three still make that list today. And if you look at where the Top TechnologyCompanies Come from, a decade ago the vast majority were american. Today, almost half are chinese. Aside from competition, there are other serious issues related to the internet including questions about elections, harmful content and privacy. While these are not antitrust issues and are not specifically the topic of todays hearing, i recognize that were often at the center of these discussions. We build platforms for sharing ideas and important debates play out across our services. I believe that this ultimately leads to more progress. But it means we often find ourselves in the middle of deep disagreements about social issues and highstakes elections. I personally dont believe that private companies should be making so many decisions about these issues by themselves. And thats why last year i made the case that there needs to be new regulation for the internet. Facebook stands for a set of basic principles, giving people voice and economic opportunity, keeping people safe, upholding democratic traditions like freedom of expression and voting, and enabling and opening a competitive marketplace. These are fundamental values for most of us, but not for everyone in the world, not for every company that we compete with or the companies they represent. As competition increases, theres no guarantee that our values will win out. Im proud of the services we build and how they improve peoples lives. We compete hard. We compete fairly. We try to be the best. When we succeed, its because we deliver great experiences that people love. Thank you and i will forward to answering your questions. Thank you. And i thank the witnesses for your opening statements. Before i begin recognizing members for questioning under the fiveminute rule, without objection im going to enter into the hearing record the documents and exhibits majority members will be referencing in their questioning today. These materials have been distribute today the witnesses. I will now recognize myself for five minutes. Over 85 of all online searches go through google, every Online Company in the United States depends on google to reach users. A business may sink or swim based on googles decisions alone. Numerous online businesses told us that google steals their content and privileges its own sites in ways that profit google but crush everyone else. Most businesses asked to stay anonymous due to fears that google would retaliate against them. He had to downsize his business and layoff half of his staff. He told us and i quote, if someone came to me with an idea for a website today, i would tell them to run, run as far away from the web as possible, launch a lawn care business, something google cant take away as soon as he or she is thriving. So my first question, why does google steal content from honest businesses . Mr. Chairman, with respect, i disagree with that characterization. Just last week i met with many Small Businesses, in fact, today we support 1. 4 million Small Businesses. Supporting over 385 billion in economic activity. We see many businesses try particularly even during the pandemic businesses an example, kettle bells from texas i have a limited amount of time. But my question is very specific. We heard throughout this investigation that google has stolen content to build your own business. These are consistent reports and so your testimony that that doesnt happen is inconsistent with what weve learned during the course of the investigation. Ill move on to a new question. Mr. Pichai, most americans believe when they enter a search query, google shows the most relevant results. My question, isnt there a fundamental conflict of interest between serving users who want to access the most and most relevant information and googles Business Model which incentivizes google to sell ads and keep users on googles own sites. We have always focused on providing users the most relevant information and we rely on the trust from users to come back for google every day. In fact, the vast majority of queries in google, we dont show ads at all. And we show ads only for a small subset of inkwers. They may be looking for Something Like tv sets or so on what is the value of the part that you do use the google ads for. Its a substantial part of your business. Whats the actual 200 billion . 300 billion . In terms of revenue, its around 100plus billion dollars, but thats a lot of money, mr. Pichai. Let me move on. Really, mr. Pichai, its googles Business Model thats the problem. Google evolved from a turnstile to a Walled Garden that increasingly keeps users within its sites. Over a decade ago, google started to fear competition from certain websites. These documents show that google staff discussed the proliferating threat that these web pages pose to google. Any traffic lost to other sites was a loss of revenue. Certain websites were getting, and i quote, too much traffic. So google decided to put an end to that. Mr. Pichai, youve been at google since 2004. Were you involved in these discussio discussions about the threat from vertical search . Congressman, without knowing the specifics, its you know, im not fully clear of the context. Definitely, when we look at vertical searches it validates the competition. When consumers shop online, over 55 of product searches originate with amazon. In the few categories which are commercial in nature, we see vigorous competition and we are working hard let me ask very specifically, the evidence that we collected shows that google pursued a multipronged attack. They began to steal other web pages content. In 2010 google stole restaurant reviews from yelp. Do you know how google responded when yeplp asked you to stop stealing their reviews . Ill tell you. Our investigation shows that googles response was to threaten to delist yelp. The choose gave yelp was, let us steal your content or disappear from the web. Isnt that anticompetitive . Congressman, when i run the company, im really focused on giving users what they want. We conduct ourselves to the highest standard. Happy to engage and understand the specifics and answers your questions further. I have one final series of questions. Did google ever use its surveillance over web traffic to identify competitive threats . Congressman, just like other businesses, we tried to understand trends from, you know, data, which we can see, and we use it to improve our products for our users. But were really focused on improving our i appreciate that, mr. Pichai. Googles own documents show that google did just that. Which is very disturbing and very anticompetitive. Google began to privilege its own sites. A report published just yesterday found that 63 of web searches that start on google also end somewhere on googles own websites. And to me, thats evidence that google is a Walled Garden which keeps users on googles websites. And its catastrophic for other companies online. My time is running out. Mr. Pichai, the evidence seems clear to me. As google became the gateway to the internet, it used its surveillance to identify competitive threats and crushed them. Its dampened innovation and dramatically increased the price of accessing users on the internet, ensuring that any business that wants to be found on the web must pay google a tax. With that, i recognize the Ranking Member of the subcommittee, mr. Sensenbrenner for his first round of questions. Thank you, very much. Ive been in congress 42 years. Thats coming to an end at the end of this year. During that period of time, during the decade of the 90s and the 00s, i was involved as chairman of the Science Committee and chairman of this committee and trying to make the net universal, open it up to everybody. One of the one of the theses that we used is the net should end up becoming basically the debate on issues, not only in our country, but throughout the world. And in exchange for that, this committee and the Congress GaveInternet Service providers immunity so if somebody said something defamatory in what they posted, the isps could not be a part of the lawsuit for defamation. After hearing mr. Jordan give a long line of censorship of conservative viewpoints, im concerned that the people who manage the net and the four of you manage a big part of the net, ending up using this as a political screen. Conservatives are consumers too. And the way the net was put together in the eyes of congress is that everybody should be able to speak their mind. Mr. Zuckerberg, mr. Jordans litany of censorship zeros in on facebook. Exactly what are your standards in, quote, filtering out political speech that maybe some people out there dont agree with. Thank you for the opportunity to address this. Our goal is to offer a platform for all ideas. We want to give everyone in the world a voice to share their experiences and ideas, a lot of that is day to day things that hap lap in their lives, some of it is political. We distinguished ourselves as one of the companies that defends free speech the most. We have standards around what you can and cannot say. I think you would likely agree with most of them. They began categories of harm such as promoting terrorist propaganda, child exploitation, incitement of violence, some more legalistic things like intellectual property violations. And they also ban things like hate speech that could lead to dehumanizing people if i may ask a specific of you. It was reported that donald trump jr. Got taken down for a period of time because he put something up on the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine. Now, i couldnt take it myself, but there still is a debate on whether it is effective in treating or preventing covid19. And i think that this is a legitimate matter of discussion. And it would be up to a patient and their doctor to determine whether hydroxychloroquine was the correct medication given the circumstances. Why did that happen . Congressman, first to be clear, i think what you might be referring to happened on twitter. Its hard for me to speak to that. I can talk to our policies about this. We do prohibit content that will lead to imminent risk of harm. Stating that theres a proven cure for covid, when there is in fact none, might encourage someone to take something that could have some adverse effects. We take that down. We do not prohibit discussion around trials of drugs or people saying that they think that things might work or personal experiences with experimental drugs. But if someone is going to say that something is proven, when in fact it is not, that could lead people wouldnt that be up to somebody on the other side of the issue to say that this is not proven . I know as a fact that, you know, for people with certain conditions, its contra indicated and they shouldnt take it on that. Wouldnt that be up to somebody else to say, okay, what somebody posted on this really isnt true and heres what the facts are rather than having a twitter or a facebook take it down . Congressman, in general, i agree with you and we do not want to become the arbiters of truth. I think that would be a bad position for us to be in and not what we should be doing. On specific claims, if someone is going to go out and say that hydroxychloroquine is proven to cure covid when in fact it has not been proven to cure covid and that statement could lead people to take a drug that in some cases some of the data suggests it might be harmful to people, we think that we should take that down. That could cause imminent risk of harm. Thank you, i yield back. I recognize the distinguished chair of the full judiciary committee, mr. Nadler from new york for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Zuckerberg, i want to thank you for providing us information during your investigation. However, the documents you provided tell a very disturbing story and that story is that facebook sought instagram as a powerful threat that could siefen business away from facebook. Rather than compete with it, facebook bought it. This is the type of ak admisscq that the laws were trying to prevent. On the day facebook bought instagram, which you described as a threat, you wrote, quote, one thing about startups is you can often acquire them. You were referring to Companies Like instagram in that quote, were you . I dont have the exact document in front of me. I have always been clear that we viewed instagram as a competitor and as a complement to our services. In the growing space around after smartphones started getting big, they competed with us in the space of mobile cameras and mobile photo sharing. But at the time, no one thought of them as a General Social network. People didnt think of them as competing with us in that space. You know, i think that the acquisition has been wildly successful. We were able to continue investing in it and growing it as a stand alone brand that reaches many more people that i think the cofounder or i thought would be possible at the time while incorporating some of the technology into making facebooks photosharing products better. So yes. Okay. In early 2012 when facebook contemplated acquiring instagram, a competitive startup, you told your cfo that instagram could be disruptive to us, and you described them as a threat, saying that instagram can meaningfully hurt us without becoming a huge business. What did you mean when you described instagram as a threat and when you said that instagram meaningfully hurt facebook . Did you mean that consumers might switch from facebook to instagram . Congressman, thanks for the opportunity to address this. At the time, there was a small but growing field did you mean that consumers might switch from facebook to instagram . Thanks. Congressman yes or no, did you in the space of mobile photos and camera apps, which was growing, they were a competitor. Ive been clear fine. In february of that year, february 2012, you told facebooks chief Financial Officer that you were interested in buying instagram. He asked you whether the purpose was to neutralize a competitor or improve your services. You answered it was a combination of both, saying what were really buying is time. Even if new competitor springs up, those products wont get much traction. Mr. Zuckerberg, what did you mean when you said the purpose of the deal was to neutralize a potential competitor. Those arent my words. Yes, ive been clear that instagram was a competitor in the space of mobile photo sharing. There were a lot of others at the time. They competed with other apps. It was a subset of the overall space of connecting that we exist in and by having them join us, they certainly went from being a competitor in the space of being a mobile camera to an app that we could help grow and get more people to be able to use and be on our team mr. Zuckerberg, mergers and acquisitions that buy off potential competitive threats violate the antitrust laws. You purchased instagram to neutralize a competitive threat. If this was an illegal merger at the time of the transaction, why shouldnt instagram now be broken off into a separate company . Congressman, i think the ftc had all of these documents and reviewed this and unanimously voted at the time not to challenge the acquisition. I think with hindsight, it probably looks like obvious that instagram would have reached the scale that it has today, but at the time it was far from obvious. A lot of the competitors that they competed with, including Companies Like path, which were hot at the time and had great founders and entrepreneurs running them, dave moore and i worked closely with them, i dont think path exists today. It was not a guarantee that instagram was going to succeed. The acquisition has done wildly well largely because not just of the founders talent, but because we invested heavily in building up the infrastructure and promoting it and working on security and working on a lot of things around this. And i think that this has been an american success story. Thank you. Mr. Zuckerberg, youre making my point. In closing, mr. Chairman, i want to end where i began. Facebook, by mr. Zuckerbergs own admission, facebook saw instagram as a threat that could potentially siphon business away from facebook. Rather than compete with it, facebook bought it. This is the type of anticompetitive acquisition that the laws were meant to prevent. It should never have been permitted to happen and it cannot happen again. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I would remind the witness that the failures of the ftc do not alleviate the antitrust challenges that the chairman described. I will recognize the gentleman from colorado and thank him for cohosting one of the most important field hearings we had in colorado that was very critical in this investigation. Youre recognized for five minutes, mr. Buck. I want to offer my appreciation to you for the bipartisan you have approached the subcommittees investigation. Capitalism is the greatest instrument for freedom this world has ever seen. This Economic System has lifted millions out of poverty. It has made america the freest, most prosperous nation in the world. Our witnesses have taken ideas born out of a dorm room, a garbag garage. You have enjoyed the freedom to succeed. I do not believe big is necessarily bad. In fact, big is often a force for good. I want to address one issue. Mr. Pichai, in october 2018 google dropped out of the running for a pentagon contract to complete the joint enterprise infrastructure contract which was valued at more than 10 billion. Googles stated reason for removing itself from the bidding process is that the u. S. Militarys project did not align with googles corporate values and principles. This is the same u. S. Military that fights for our freedoms and stands as a force for good across the globe. These are the same soldiers, sailors and airmen that sacrifice their lives to ensure you have the freedom to build your company and set your corporate policies without fear of government interference unlike in communist china. I find it interesting that months after making this decision to withdraw from the jedi contract, marine general joseph dunford, the chairman of the u. S. Joint chiefs of staff, warned the Senate Armed Forces committee that the Chinese Military was directly benefitting from googles work. It made me wonder, what values google and communist red china had in common. I asked myself, self, is it that the Chinese Communist party imprisons uyghurs . Could it be that china forces slaves to work in sweat shops . Maybe they align on the design to suppress free speech. Did google agree with the decision to lie to the world about the covid19 pandemic . Then i thought about googles dragon fly experiment. I wondered if you agreed with the chinese governments use of Technology Platforms to spy on its own people and enforce security laws. If maybe, its that your companies align with the Chinese Communist espionage policies where the strategy is to steal whatever cant be produced domestically. These values that allow google to work with the Chinese Military but not the American Military without any hint of attribution. During our field hearing in my home state of colorado, i heard a story that sounded so brazen and contrary to free market principles that i thought it must have been in the chinese. Google took advantage of your a company that relied on your search engine. Google misappropriated lyrics and published those lyrics on googles own platform. However, genius caught google in the act red handed. When genius suspected this corporate threat was occurring, the Company Incorporated a digital watermark in its lyrics that spelled out, red handed. In morse code. Googles lyric boxes contain the watermark. After google executives stated that they were investigating this problematic behavior, genius created another experiment to determine the scope of the misappropriation. It turns out that out of 271 songs where the watermark was applied, 43 showed clear evidence of matching. Your company which advertises itself as a doorway to freedom, took advantage of this small company, all but extinguishing their freedom to compete. Your correspondent values once stood for freedom, a platform that threat capitalism flourish and helped bring countless people across the globe out of poverty. My question to you, mr. Pichai, do you think that google could get away with following chinas corporate espionage playbook if you didnt have a monopolistic advantage in the market. I want to address the important concerns you raised. First of all, we are proud to support the u. S. Government. We recently signed a big project with the department of defense to help protect Pentagon Networks from cybersecurity attacks. We have projects under way with the navy w the department of veterans affairs, happy to follow up and explain more. We have a limited presence in china. We didnt offer any of our services in china. And with respect to music, we license content there, in fact, we license content from other companies and so this is a dispute between genius and other companies in terms of where the source of the content is. Happy to engage and explain what we do here further. Thank you. I yield back, mr. Chairman. I now recognize the gentleman from georgia, mr. Johnson, for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Cook, with over 100 million iphone users in the United States alone and with apples ownership of the app store, giving apple the ability to control which apps are allowed to be marketed to apple users, you weld immense power over Small Businesses to grow and prosper. Apple is the sole decisionmaker as to whether an app is made available to app users through apples app store, isnt that correct . Sir, the app store thank you for the question. The app store is a feature of the iphone, much like the camera is and the chip is. And so my point is, and im sorry to interrupt, but i want to get to the point, point is that apple is the sole decisionmaker as to whether an app is made available to app users through the apple store, isnt that correct . If its a native app, yes, sir. If its a web okay. Thank you. Throughout our investigation weve heard concerns that rules governing the App Store Review process are not available to the App Developers. The rules are made up as you go. They are arbitrarily interpreted and enforced and are subject to change whenever apple sees fit to change and developers have no choice but to go along with the changes or they must leave the app store. Thats an enormous amount of power. Also, the rules get changed to benefit apple at the expense of App Developers and the app store is said to also discriminate between App Developers with similar apps. On the platform and also as to small App Developers versus large App Developers. So, mr. Cook, does apple not treat all App Developers equally . 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 apps those rules apply evenly to everyone. And as you can tell by going from some developers are favored over others, though, isnt that correct . That is not correct. And as you can tell from going from sir ill give you an example. Has two app stores two App Store Employees assigned to help it navigate the app store bureaucracy, is that true . I dont know about that, sir. Well, you dont have other App Developers who have that same access to apple personnel, do you . We do a lot of things with developers including looking at their beta test apps regardless of whether theyre small or large. Let me ask you this question. Apple has negotiated exceptions to its typical 30 commission for some apps like amazon prime. Is that is a reduced commission such as the one that amazon prime gives available to other App Developers . Its available to anyone meeting the conditions, yes. Okay. Let me you this, apple requires all App Developers to use apples Payment Processing system if those Developers Want to sell their goods or services to apple users through apples app store, isnt that correct . That is correct. Because its by processing payments for apps that you allow into the app store, you collect their Customer Data and you use that data to inform apple as to whether apple should whether or not it would be profitable for apple to launch a competing app, isnt that correct . Sir, 84 of the apps are charged nothing. The remaining 16 either pay 15 or 30, depending upon the specifics. If its in the second year of a subscription as an example, it only pays 15 . If you look back at history whats to stop apple from increasing its commission to 50 . Sir, we have never increased commissions in the store since the first day it operated in 2008. Nothing to stop you from doing so, is there . No, sir. I disagree strongly with that. Theres a competition for Developers Just like theres a competition for developers. The competition for developers they can write their apps for android or windows or xbox or playstation. We have fierce competition at the developer side and the customer side which is so competitive, i would describe it as a street fight for market share in the cell phone business. Has apple ever retaliated against or disadvantaged a developer who went public about their frustrations with the app store . Sir, we dont we do not retaliate or bully people. Its strongly against our company culture. Time of the gentleman has expired. The chair recognizes the gentleman from florida, m mr. Gaets. Mr. Zuckerberg made the claim that facebook is an American Company with American Values. Do you take a different view, that your companies dont embrace American Values. Its great to see that none of you do. Im worried about googles market power, how it concentrates that power and how it wields it. Project maeven was a project that google pulled out of citing ethical concerns and you made the decision to pull out of that joint venture, following receipt of a letter from thousands of your employees saying that google should not be in the business of war. My question is, did you weigh the input from your employees when making the decision to abandon that project with the United States military . Congressman, thanks for your concern. As i said earlier, were deeply committed to supporting the military and the u. S. Government. We have undertaken several projects since then. We take our employees one input, we make decisions based on a variety of factors. As a company, we were new in the cloud space at that time, since then thank you. Thats a sufficient answer. You did take their feedback into account. In fact, some of your googlers have recently sent you a letter where they asked you to exit other partnerships as a consequence of ethical concerns. They asked you to stop doing business with american Law Enforcement saying that police broadly uphold White Supremacy and google should not be engaged to any service to police. You provide some of the most basic services to police like email. But you also provide services that help keep our cops safe when theyre doing their job and so my question is here in front of congress and the American People, will you take the pledge that google will not adopt the bigoted antipolice policy that is requested in the most recent letter. Congressman, we have a long track record of working with Law Enforcement when it is supported by due process and the law, we push back against overbroad requests. We are transparent about the requests we get. But we have a long history of following the law and cooperating with i understand the history. Im asking about the future. To the Law Enforcement who are watching today, can they rest assured that under your leadership, google will not adopt these bigoted, antipolice policies . We are working with Law Enforcement in the way that is consistent with law and due processes in the u. S. I appreciate that and i know that will be comforting to the police who utilize your services. You mentioned earlier in your in the discussion about china that your engagement in china was very limited. But yet google has an ai china center, the Chinese Academy of sciences has published a paper saying that it enhanced the targeting capabilities of a fighter aircraft. You collaborate with chinese universities. One of your googlers while under your employ was cited in Chinese State media saying, china is like a sleeping giant, when she wakes, she will tremble the world. The former secretary of defense, mr. Shanahan, said that the lines have been blurred in china between commercial and military application. A general dunford says your company is directly aiding the Chinese Military and peter teal who serves on mr. Zuckerbergs board at facebook said that googles activities with china are treasonous. He used you of treason. Why would an American Company with American Values so directly aid the Chinese Military but have ethical concerns about working alongside the u. S. Military on project maeven. I understand your point about cybersecurity and those things. But project maeven was a specific way to ensure that our troops are safe on the battlefield. If you have no problem making the j20 chinese fighter more effective in its targeting, why wouldnt you want to make america as effective . Congressman, with respect, we are not working with the Chinese Military. Its absolutely false. I had a chance to meet with general dunford personal. We clarified what we do in china. Its very, very limited in nature. Our ai work in china is limited to a handful of people working on opensource projects. Im happy to share and engage with the office to my gosh. When the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff says that an American Company is directly aiding china, when youre working with universities and when your employees are talking about china trembling the world, it seems to call into question your commitment to our country and values. I see our time is expired. I recognize the gentleman from maryland for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Zuckerberg, as you know the proliferation of fake Facebook Accounts was a key tool in the strategy of russian interference in the American Election in 2016. American Law Enforcement, the senate, the house have all found that Vladimir Putin engaged in a sweeping and Systematic Campaign to undermine american democracy in 2016 and to work for a victory for donald trump. In his remarkable book, Cambridge Analytica and the plot to break america, a whistleblower who worked for several years at cambridge an analytica, Steve Bannons goal was to change politics by changing culture. Facebook data, algorithms were his key focus. They identified people who exhibited the three traits in what they call the dark triad. They proceeded to bombard and activate these people. A sma with increasingly dark and manipulative messages from fake facebook pages both to get them to vote for trump but more importantly to activate them as racists and white nationalists. He goes onto describe the remarkable success of this campaign, both electorally, but also politically in the country in terms of sowing the terrible racial and ethnic divisions that you see in america today. So they waged a Mass Campaign of psychological warfare to polarize america around race and religion. And it worked for them but i didnt work so well for america. So, mr. Zuckerberg, which parts of this narrative have you addressed, or are you planning to address, or do you just see that essentially as the cost of being a forum in a marketplace for ideas . Is there nothing that can be done about the use of facebook to in gender social division in america . Congressman, thank you. Since 2016 there have been a lot of steps that weve taken to protect the integrity of elections. Weve hired i think its more than 30,000 people to work on safety and security. We have built up ai systems to be able to find harmful content including being able to find more than 50 Different Networks of coordinated and authentic behavior, nation states trying to interfere fear in elections let me just pause you there for a second. Im interested in that. The stop hate for Profit Campaign is a coalition that includes the color of change, the Antidefamation League and other groups and theyre targeting facebook right now for a boycott because of the rapid spread of hate messages online, the presence of bgroups trying o interrupt black lives matter protests. So theyre asking you to remove these pages and to join the movement for civil rights by not allowing that kind of content, theyre boycotters including a lot of big companies, levis, mcdonalds, and so on. But you seem not to be that moved by their campaign and i just wonder what you think about what theyre asking you to do. Congressman, thanks. Were very focused on fighting against election interference and focused on fighting against hate speech. Our commitments to those issues and fighting them go back years before this recent movement. Since 2016, the defenses that the company has built up to help secure elections not just in the u. S. But around the world, i think are some of the most advanced that any company or government has in the world now. We collaborate with Law Enforcement and intelligence agencies and are able to sometimes identify threats coming from other countries before governments are even able to. In terms of fighting hate, we have built really sophisticated systems. Our goal is to identify it before anyone even sees it on the platform. And weve built ai systems and as i mentioned have tens of thousands of people working on safety and security with the goal of getting the stuff down so that way before people even see it. And right now were able to proactively identify 89 of the hate speech that we take down before i think its even seen by other people. I want to do better than 89 . I would like to get that to 99 . But we have a massive investment here. We invest can you just my time is almost out. Can you just address the proliferation of fake accounts . I understand you get 6. 5 billion fake accounts produced there, but you have a profit motive thats linked to that, because thats what shared with your investors. Are you working to try to fair it out, these fake accounts . The gentlemans time is expired. The witness may answer the question. Congressman, absolutely. We work hard on this. We take down billions of fake accounts a year. A lot of that is just people trying to set up accounts to spam people for commercial reasons. A very small percent of that are nation states trying to interfere in elections. Were very focused on trying to find those. Having fake and harmful content on our platform does not help our business. It hurts our business. People do not want to see that stuff and they use our Services Less when they do. So we are aligned with people in order to take that down and we invest billions of dollars a year in doing so. I yield back. Thank you. The committee will stand in recess for ten minutes while we fix a technical feed with one of your witnesses. Benefitted from his leadership. My name is tim apples ceo sinc 2011. I now recognize the gentleman from north dakota, mr. Armstrong for five minutes. Google has received criticism about bias from conservatives and content moderation. As a result, a significant portion of the American Public has lost trust in your company. A lack of public confidence