Hearing will come to order. I welcome everybody to this hybrid hearing. Both Ranking Member mister heiss and myself have wanted to have hearings resume in person. Especially when we are in session i made a promise to mister heiss that i would fight for that and today is the fruit of that effort i believe when we were in session, to the extent possible, protecting everybodys health and safety, we can and should be meeting like this. At least in hybrid form those members who are not comfortable or who physically cannot join us in the hearing room are more than welcome to join us through the web. We are happy to have them. We ask everybody, when they are not speaking, to wear a mask that is the guidance and the capitol hill position. That is the guidance of the chairwoman of this committee. It protects everybody i really appreciate that cooperation. Let me see. For members appearing remotely, just a few reminders before i get my Opening Statement. House rules require that we see you so pl
Do we ask everyone to turn on their cameras . Were getting ready to get started. The hearing will come to order. I welcome everybody to this hybrid hearing. Both ranks member mr. Hysse and myself have wanted to have hearings resume in person especially when we are in session. I made a promise that i would fight for that, and today is the fruit of that effort. I believe when were in session protecting everybody, those who are not comfortable or physically cannot join us in the hearings room, are more than welcome to join us through web i no noor. We ask everybody when they were not speaking, to wear a mask. I really appreciate that cooperation of for members appears remotely. House rules require that we see you, so police have your cameras turned on at all times during the course of the hearing. If they can let us you can use the chat function to send a request. And if that doesnt work, you can unmute and seek recognition. These arent ideal circumstances, but we are in the midst of a pa
One, in general. In general, i think when two companies are negotiating you are negotiating not just the amount of money that is going to change hands but also what youre going to get in exchange for the amount of money. That ask a fundamental way business works. To do you see at least to outsiders that would look like a structural conflict of interest . You are using your control over access to peoples living rooms essentially, youre using that in order to obtain leverage in terms of getting Creative Content that you want . Are you essentially converting power in one domain into power in another domain where it doesnt belong . I think what i should do is offer to get you information. I will get it to your office for you because im not, not familiar enough with this. I could imagine there would be scenarios, if were just talking abstract where it would be inappropriate and i can imagine scenarios where it would be very normal business and very appropriate. Good enough. I want to talk a
Thanks for taking my question, you added a sentence into the statement about the course of the economy depends on the path of the virus is this do you feel this idea or view is not widely enough understood do you feel you had warned back in may that too early reopening or cautious reopening might harm the economy do you feel that message is not heard and some of these reopenings took place perhaps sooner than they should have i think we feel that it might be the most central fact or the most central driver of the economy is the virus were seeing that again. You saw that during the lockdown when we got cases way down you saw the economy reopening. You saw spending go up and hiring go up now that the cases have spiked again. Again, the early data, highfrequency data suggests that theres a slower pace of growth at least for now. We dont know how deep or how long that will be. Its such an important sentence, we just decided that it needed to be in our post meeting statement. Its so fundame
I want to thank everyone for being here today to examine the use of persuasive technologies on internet platforms. Each of our Witnesses Today has a great deal of expertise with respect to to algorithms and as well as in the more narrow context of engagement and persuasion and brings unique perspectives to these matters. Your participation in this hearing is appreciated. I con vain this hearing in part to inform legislation i am developing to give consumers the option to engage with the platform without having the experience shaped by algorithm use specific data. Internet platforms have transferred the way we interact and made positive ways on society in ways too numerous to counting. The vast majority of content is innocuous and at its best it is entertaining, educational and beneficial to the public. However, the powerful mechanisms behind these platforms also have the ability or at least the potential to influence the thoughts and behaviors of literally billions of people. As one re