Big mistrust of big tech the u. S. Congress questions that heads of apple Amazon Google and facebook on anti competitive behavior how the internet giants become too powerful and is that a need if the new laws to regulate them this is inside story. Hello welcome to the program on amazon apple google and facebook for companies that have changed the way we live work shop and stay in touch with our friends and family but the american tech giants have long been accused of abusing their power to drive out competition and mishandling user data the u. S. Congress has been investigating their Business Practices for years old wednesday politicians question the firms chief executives as they consider changes to antitrust laws will bring in our guests in a moment but 1st this report in washington d. C. You know as the Ranking Member of fittingly the tech giants appeared virtually to face questions the subcommittee chairman making clear he sees a problem their dominance is killing Small Businesses and you factoring in the overall dynamism that of the engines the American Economy their ability to dictate terms call the shots up and entire sectors and inspire fear represent the powers of a private government this was meant to be an inquiry into Business Practices do the 4 Companies Google amazon apple and facebook stifle rivals and kill competition one republican immediately made clear he also wanted to talk about bias online we love the fact that these are American Companies but whats not great is censoring people censoring conserves and trying to impact elections and if it doesnt end there has to be consequences from each of the 4 bosses a common theme they were innovators job creators the definition of american excellence theres room in retail for multiple winners we compete against large established players like target costco kroger and of course walmart a company more than twice amazon size 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 facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg face questions about the participant other social media platform instagram this said one congressman went to the heart of the inquiry basic story is the game is a threat that could potentially side in business away from baseball and so rather than compete with it has been good this is exactly the type of in the competitive acquisition at the end they just those were designed to prevent Mark Zuckerberg was asked about hate speech appearing on his site he insisted he was committed to intercepting it before most users saw it he said that this excess street was Company Running it 89 percent but he wanted to get that up to 99 percent zuckerberg also talked about the recent removal of misleading content or. Covert 19 and treatments dangerous he said we do prohibit content that will lead to imminent risk of harm and stating that there is a proven cure for when there is in fact no one might encourage them to take something that could have an adverse effect so we do take that down the subcommittee says it will hold new hearings of september this is not the end for the tech giants its the start and it puts them on notice if they dont look at their operations legislators well alan fischer aljazeera capitol hill. Lets bring in our panel in washington d. C. We have larry irving a former u. S. Assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information and a former Vice President of the tech Company Hewlett Packard in new delhi we have sharma put it and its a course india who specializes in indias Tech Industry and in belgium we have marco kohlberg a professor at the university of vienna and a member of the European Commissions expert group on Artificial Intelligence welcome to you all id like to begin in washington d. C. With larry king this is a 4. 00 trillion dollar industry it has billions of users it is invasive and im do using that word deliberately in almost every aspect of our lives is Congress Asking the wrong question this isnt about antitrust laws anymore about competition or about we should be treating this as a Global Situation where big tech needs policing is that right. Yes i know if you look at yesterdays hearing there were 2 thirds of the question i trust and its the end i trust committee but there are another one 3rd of the questions were about the larger issues of what big tech is doing and how were doing it so i say that were looking domestically and all of the implications of whats happening with big tech whats happening with these 4 companies but then i trust implications are huge because if you dont have competition youre going to depress innovation and you also have to get a Significant Impact on consumers so i think from the i trust committees standpoint getting that competition getting that innovation going is critical consumers care about competition consumers care about innovation but there are other questions and there are other parts of the u. S. Government other parts of the Public Discourse that are focusing on those issues as well but larry is competition the absolute answer to all of this i mean lets take a look at the Telecommunications Sector there is competition there but there are still monopolies are still Huge Companies controlling everything. United states has a uniquely interesting. And i trust environment so competition is a key component we look at competition as being an important part of anything we do in terms of our policy when you look at European Union india and asia they have different and i trust regime we kind of start a business standpoint and look at the Competition Model but thats not the only value here we do care about election interference we do care about hate speech we do care. About those other kind of core fundamental values that people are talking about but if you have a situation where a company is buying a company for the purpose of putting them out of business or threatening to put them out of business and we bought thats a competition problem if you have a company that sells products and then steals the best products being sold online and increase their own product at a lower price thats a competition problem so weve got to try to balance all these things these companies are u. S. Companies they were created here they were economic models they are technological marvel billions of people around the planet use them so one hand we want to continue the benefits that these Companies Give to people on the other hand we want to make sure that were not distorting the marketplace that people arent being harmed that innovation isnt being harmed and thats a delicate balance its not something that is going to come easy and congress is probably put our Congress United states is particularly not well armed to take on these issues because they dont have the kind of quick answers that i think most people on the planet are hoping for if they think theres a problem lets bring in mark kuchel the. U. S. Congress asking the right questions of Google Facebook amazon etc. Well i think of course this is about competition but it but its also about the enormous power that the Big Tech Companies have games during the last decade its about technology thats no longer i think just a technology but thats thats there in the middle of our lives im not surprised that big political tensions are now ready and are much more going to be about additional tech and new delhi its because schelm opponents we mentioned earlier one of our guests and mentioned india specifically it has a different anti trust regime a different set of antitrust laws whats indias biggest concern particular is one of the biggest developing markets when it comes to tech. So we do have a rule and its just one sees what some of the allegations that have been we instantly u. S. Iranian army for instance you know. Nobody said she was like do you know how to back east and those on the back. Against the cincinnati usually against amazon in the india one gets ecommerce is still very new to india and amazon is at the forefront of the indian it out in the country so if amazon has actually managed to get him and nods and. Be biased against the patents and or has been instrumental in getting Small Businesses. I wouldnt be surprised if there has not been given the annoyance to not even they are also given the fact that we want syrians in india have a very Little Chicks in so long 98 in the us in the us this is all breaking them just happened in the last ticket ordinance. Amazon is literally building out the market even in that sense so if these allegations put it out it just highlights how state institutions. But the for india particularly theres also the security situation as well when it comes to big tech lets take the case of blackberry a few years ago where they wanted say the Indian Government wanted access to Blackberry Service blackberry said no and that very disappointed disappeared in the country as a result where do you read it where does the indians that figure their security versus freedom comes into this comes into play. So this has been an ongoing debate in india for several years like the black leagues and you mentioned recently there has been discussions in india and say screw it you know hes evander who was just chinese at the vols of you know didnt see shootings so its an online debate mean to monitor the lines of we government has been there its Companies Course they do the same tours is india and there are a lot of junk just in there including the fact is you know does not have the answer to some of the kind of so who is that is to say arent we joe or an arms on what we need. Diplomacy is being discussed in someones instantly. So in that sense that we dont really see it is a serious concern for median government even when it comes to the new nominee has been taking steps to ensure they do a receipt for a new nuisance larry i think in washington d. C. Security obviously a very key concern for the u. S. Government as well and for governments all over the world because there are so many people involved in big tech either as consumers or people working in the industry surely its time to stop treating them like businesses a more like nation states i mean one of the congressman did say that these are almost have the power of small governments maybe it is time to look at that way. I dont think weve ever been in the situation were in today traditionally the biggest comes United States had huge market power United States and some market power globally i think i heard facebook has 2600000000 users apple. Is one of the most Important Technology anyone the planet the i phone ubiquitous when you look at whats happening with google and you look and happening with any of these companies theyre different than any Companies Ever before then ill grant you but but the problem is how do you regulate a global company. That people want to use that people see huge benefit and say were going to stop them providing the benefits to the consumer thats the balance that i think the congress is trying to deal with and i trust in authorities on the European Union started fine use it on the one hand we do see potential abuses and again until you have a court case im a lawyer until these allegations are proven their allegations so youve got to go through a process which is a long process with well heeled Companies One of the things i want to historically look at a t. N. T. Are you look at microsoft you look at General MotorsUnited States has had these big global spreading companies that people said were dominant companies i. B. M. Over time newer smarter more Innovative Companies come along and undercut those companies or replace those companies so are we when i started the government in your apartment commerce the concern around the planet was microsoft and how much power they had when i started in Telecommunications Policy sort of a t. N. T. And how much power they have now court did involve themselves and did change the structure of those companies over time i think youre going to see the same thing with regard to the big board today but i also think were going to see innovative entrepreneurs who just arent willing to settle for the status quo and thats the combination we need focus government and companies that come in and say i can do this better than you do it and im going to prove in the marketplace im going to come to i guess in new delhi in belgium but id like to follow up a quick point with you larry i. B. M. 18 t. Old the companies that you mention even the one used to work full heel apocalypse actually sold us something we all know the product thats the difference and that scary that something that will come congress doesnt understand well it is time surely to police that because were the product. I think youre going to see policing and yes it was the 1st salvo congress started acting were in the middle of our election season im a democrat which may not be important to rest the world but in our political system democrats generally have had a more focused approach on competition have been much more concerned about and i trust enforcement the republicans are much more market oriented i do believe that in a biden presidency youre going to see a lot more scrutiny. I dont know how this is going to end up and nobody else does either because the reality is and i trust a geisha takes a long time it is a slow process and these very Large Companies have a lot of ability to protect themselves again and i trust enforcement thats the reality so its going to be political persuasion and its going to be and i trust in forstmann and i think those 2 forces are going to be whats going to be required to really make some significant differences its not the people United States not the regulators are unaware whats the right solution that benefits consumers and competition because to your point we may be the product but there are billions of people who are doing this product and benefiting from this product in particular in a pandemic i get an amazon product every day delivered at my door maybe to be an alternative but i do know that right now if i walk up and down my block in washington d. C. Every other house is getting something members on people are going to give that up. Its like a shell of what it in new delhi we have a whole raft of International Treaties treaties there are many of them countries signed up to them is it time for an International Digital treaty. Most definitely and i would just like to bring in you know the gentleman before me was talking about he really shouldnt certain entrepreneurs would go ahead and bring this not lead but at the same time. I mean i dont want to set an example you know we have really massive booming young stand out ecosystem the other were 2nd or 3rd largest started because system for google and facebook have always need acquisitions in india and they continue to be very involved with the community so. For a young entrepreneur or with those dreams to do to you know sort of build a business that believes that monopoly. Can get really intimidating and hard for instance in the eagle reception and simply never will still look really good he got responders focusing on the short on marketplaces and sector but amazon continues to be the leader because nobody can match that kind of money and muscle and marketing next that and amazon can bring. Global digitization i i i believe that is something to be not that it was a Genetic Companies are not just privy agnostic they are not limited to internet is not limited to has a general engine on hand in most cases unless the government or or or or or or green party has a has a many dont want leading the people access something has created a war garden everyone can access everything on the internet so in that context on all governments only leaders should come together and sort of into an internet economy that is more conducive and nurturing us businesses and was a defensible market coburg in belgium is there something to be learned from the chinese the chinese have their own almost own separate ecosystem from the rest of the world theres no huge amount of facebook theres not a huge amount of twitter theyve got their own versions of that domestically theyve managed to control the flow of information is there something to be learned from that. Well what can we learn from it is that politics doesnt need to be totally powerless and in the face of these these companies but i think its not a good solution to the too close borders theyre saying its better way to as we just discussed to try to govern this globally. The problems we we see here with Digital Technologies in general its not only about these. Particular companies i think the problems we see are global and so it i think it would benefit everyone else citizens over the world if we had more regulation of the global level but of course so far this is not not happening not happening