Investigation looking at whether they have achieved such a major monopoly that they are now legally stifling their much smaller competitors because of the crown of virus pandemic these testimonies are being carried out virtually and the line up includes the c. E. O. s of alba betting Google Facebook apple and amazon now each of these companies have been accused of manipulating their platforms and search results to promote their own products and interests google users know that any time they search for a product the 1st several results are typically advertisements but today the topic of conversation included how google has benefited from those results. What is the value of the part that you do use the google ads form and its a substantial part of your business whats the actual going 2cb3cb. Of revenue its i dont 100100 plus 1000000000. 00 but thats a lot of money mr. Now facebook was quick to defend its size and its acquisition of instagram and whats up by claiming china is also looking to dominate the social media world with the popular out tick tock but it was facebooks ownership of instagram which it previously acknowledged was a competitor there raised questions about whether it violated federal law. Mergers and acquisitions that. Would control compared to threats violate the end. Your own words you could just use a gram to neutralize a competitive threat if this was an illegal merger at the time of the transaction why shouldnt the now be group you know it was. Congressman i think the f. T. C. All of these documents and reviewed this and you know honestly voted at the time not to challenge the acquisition. Or rituals is really interesting given the timing of all of this that were in the middle of a pandemic why did they choose to have these these hearings now well thats one of the things that was mentioned by the leaders of this committee they noted that during the lockdown that weve seen as a result of this pandemic it has really hit Small Businesses the hardest you know your mom and pop shops are the ones that are now going out of business and a lot of people are now going online theyre going to Facebook Google amazon all of those sorts of websites which means that the Tech Companies that are being discussed here today are actually getting even more powerful so a lot of them are saying well now is the time to hold them accountable now is the time to push for more oversight especially now as we see a lockdown that we dont see ending and a lot of social Media Presence even more now during the pandemic are to correspondent Rachel Blevins thank you for that report. From our lets turn to the west coast and investigative journalist ben swan lets dive deeper into this ben should lets start with the general question right the broader look into this should there even be a line drawn when it comes to internet businesses and how big can they be or how big they can be absolute. Really there should be its not a question of whether or not a company can be big its whether a company can violate antitrust laws by absorbing and as rachel explained their kind of swallowing up competitors in order to create anticompetitive practices in a free market system if you dont have competition you dont have a free market you have one company that dominates everyone and everything and thats what antitrust is there to stop so its not a question of how big facebook gets its a question of how big of facebook or google or an amazon gets by essentially devouring anybody who is a competitor and by the way its almost ironic that facebook complains about the chinese and to talk when facebook actually looked at purchasing to talk at one point and wanted to do so well and theyre looking to create something similar a platform of their own on facebook now if that were to be banned here in the United States its really interesting and mind boggling what were seeing but there are clearly a number of issues when it comes to these monopolistic structures like being able to freely express various political viewpoints are even something as simple as just knowing youre getting the best deal as a consumer at amazon assures us were getting the best deal no matter what but are we seeing any of these issues right now when it comes to this online activity. Well were seeing issues across the board right when it comes to Tech Companies we have nothing but issues right now on one side you have you know the issue of Tech Companies censoring speech you and i talk about this quite a bit but its really a very serious issue and were seeing it at an absolutely staggering level right now where media Tech Companies are essentially deciding what speech is allowed to be heard and what is not facebook and instagram that you know collaborative is essentially some of the worst offenders in terms of removing content that they dont like you tube is doing the same thing on the other side of it you have amazon thats not doing that but they have their own practices for instance amazon as we have talked about in the past has been accused of going and using the data that it collects on merchants on its site to create its own products and essentially underbid merchants on its own site using their data and their information so theres a lot of what you would say say are antigay competitive practices that are taking place as these Companies Get bigger and Something Else thats very important you know rachel was talking about the timing of this its important to recognize that over the past 4 months as weve been under this coronavirus lockdown Tech Companies have gotten much bigger much richer and much more influential and powerful in american and Global Society and that is something you have to take a very close look at as more and more of the population shifts to their thinking their communication their shopping everything moves online and then you mentioned data obviously these Companies Collect so much data from there are consumers we know that but isnt that an issue and itself when is that a Cyber Security issue that can be present and then were going to we see. So its not just the Cyber Security issue i believe that this is really at its core a human rights issue the question becomes Data Collection who does that data actually belong to and this is something that Congress Actually is shying away from they dont want to address this question because the reality is that amazon Facebook GoogleInstagram Twitter to talk all these companies have one thing in common right no matter what business theyre in the actual business theyre in is the business of harvesting peoples data the question becomes who is data who does it belong to whose property is it is my date up my property or is it facebooks property is it instagrams property is it googles property and that is going to become i predict one of the most fundamental questions of our time and its a question that these Tech Companies are not answering because if you if congress would look at this and say hey in fact your data actually belongs to you the user and therefore if a company like a facebook or you tube or an amazon uses that data they must compensate you for your data you were completely it would be a complete game changer you flip this whole tech argument on it said but Everyone Wants to run away from that because they dont want to acknowledge a very simple idea that your data actually belongs to you one much like youre saying at this is not human being brought up today which is really interesting but i do want to get to this question on last question facebook c. E. O. Mark zuckerberg hes arguing that if the u. S. Health innovation defending facebook obviously the Chinese Companies will surpass them is there really any validity to this argument or is this kind of a plan to to capitalize on that rising anti chinese sentiment within u. S. Government for that push or even more regulatory rollbacks yeah it absolutely is its absolutely untrue that if facebook is forced to stop sincere in people in the United States that china will take over the world those 2 things have nothing to do with each other the idea that to talk. Is big and if tick talk keeps growing facebook has to continue to innovate facebooks not in of innovating at this point in fact facebooks not doing any innovation what theyre doing is theyre going out and buying up smaller competitors in order to prevent competition and as i mentioned at 1. 00 to buy to talk themselves and now facebook is leading the charge in trying to plant the seeds that tick talk should be banned in the United States and theyre a big part of that argument as well so what theyre doing is now trying to use Regulatory Power to keep out competition the other thing thats not really being discussed today and its very important is that section 230 protection thats been given to Tech Companies its important that congress remembers you cannot get rid of section 230 it creates innovation on the internet you cant allow the abuse of it which is what companies are doing theyre abusing it you dont get rid of the law that protects people doing it the right way you would force the law to stop those who are using it the wrong way and it will be interesting to see where we go from here because of law and whether or not the u. S. Competition laws will will be changed after this event stick around here because i have one more story to cover with you today so. As protests continue on a nightly basis across portland more federal officers have been called up to intervene and this is having a huge effect on Business Owners well after protests for us kicked off they may many Business Owners struggled with their businesses suffering from broken windows and even being looted while some Business Owners there are struggling to deal with protesters calling up of even more federal agents has them even more concerned that violence will only increase well joining us now to discuss is the us cohost and. Again and so on welcome back ben we know that oregon the governor announced that a phased withdrawal of federal agents is going to start this thursday and that will that even help to diffuse this some of the tensions or the situation there. Well i would think that it would help to diffuse some of them look the important thing to remember is that when the feds are sending in essentially back up to help put down these protests in theory theyre not supposed to be really dealing with protesters who are essentially destroying business is a portland theyre really there to protect federal buildings and federal monuments federal installations from being damaged or destroyed by protesters in theory thats the idea in reality having federal agents there does seem to agitate people even more it brings about more of a sense of agitation now its important to know that the governor of oregon has said they will begin a kind of withdrawal of those federal forces from portland beginning on thursday but the compromise that was reached is that local and state police would be used to protect those federal monuments and federal buildings important so its not that the feds are abandoning its that the state of oregon has agreed to protect the question is will that appease protesters because you and i both know sarah there are lots of different kinds of people there are people who are legitimately protesting Police Brutality there are certainly agitators in that crowd there and tea for groups in those crowds there are people who want to sow chaos and there are others who are looking for reform theyre not pushing for the same agenda and in portland i think you see a bigger clash of that the just about anyplace else in the congo a lot of people taking advantage of the situation and you see the people who are looting banga as we watch these protests continue and there seem to be these new groups joining in now and it just indicates that these really may not be slowing down at all and who else is getting involved yes so apparently you know you not only do you have as i mentioned you know you have the b. L. M. Protesters who are out there and certainly you have anti protesters who are out there but there have been new groups that have been joining up over the past couple of weeks and theyre actually signifying themselves by wearing matching colored t. Shirts so in one case teachers are. I mean out in there marching wearing red t. Shirts weve seen groups of nurses march weve seen mothers and fathers as different groups marching they all were different colors in some cases its yellow its up its orange so what theyre doing is theyre trying to signify as kind of potential. Demographic blocks professional blocks of people who arent showing solidarity with these marches so we do see certainly growth there whats really is surprising about this era is were talking about somewhat you know 5060 days of daily and nightly protests in portland and this keeps going on and it doesnt seem to be slowing down and the other thing is the city of portland in the state of oregon does not seem to have any plan on how to put this down or and when i say put down i dont mean with the with a heavy hand but how do you eventually deal with people to a point where you say you dont need to keep burning the city you dont need to keep destroying businesses we have to come to some kind of agreement here and thats the tough part because it has been going on for so long but i want to get to the Macro Economic level here ben protesters and theyre even angrier now because of these broader structural it issues with the economy and that will provide little to no opportunities especially now and the middle of a pandemic how are these protests going to change that. Well thats a really good question im not sure these protests can change that there is a legitimate issue here in terms of Macro Economics and the fact that you have a lot of these protesters who are not people who necessarily have a bright Economic Future in front of them you have a nation thats heavily indebted you have a lot of College Students who have gone to college and they have massive amounts of debt cant find work you have a system thats not working for everybody and so i think what were seeing is kind of a bleed over yes we have the issue of Police Brutality thats a major kind of cornerstone of these marches but it is larger than that and the people who are there seem to be frustrated with more than that so the question becomes where. Do we begin to start to deal with issues to resolve those frustrations im not sure but just about anybody is giving answers to that right now because unfortunately the answers go back to systemic problems in the Education System in the professional systems in the wall street in Banking Systems these are deep issues that i dont think leaders necessarily want to tackle right now theyd rather talk about things that are more on the surface because when you get short attack those issues theyve got to deal with themselves and they dont want to do that its really truly a you make a great point theyre talking about these complex issues going into the roots and the issues of the problem that the Economic Impacts at these these families and these people are suffering from that star at education they start at such a young age and having these resources for them which at which its going to be a hard one hopefully at some point will will be able to tackle in some way shape or form who was a cohost on investigative journalist ben swan thank you for being with us today you know to serve things. Time now for a quick break but stay here because when we return china and the European Union are looking to strengthen economic and trade ties but how will the u. S. React thats next as we go to break here the numbers are bad but. I. I. I. Was a pandemic notice that you know borders are just flying to nationalities. And some are. Saying the. Judge is coming very close is. We can do better we should do. Everyone is contributing each way but we also know that this crisis will not go on forever the challenge is great the response has been massive so many good people are helping us. It makes us feel very proud that were in it together. Conservative media to the political left in the United States. Will surely in their socialism profoundly changing the country on the other hand by. Claiming nothing would fundamentally change so we should visit or is it as no use just a. Kaiser one for my guide to financial survival this is. A device used by professional scallywags to earn money. Thats right these has flaws are simply not accountable and were just adding more and more to the. Totally destabilize the Global Economy you need to protect yourself and get informed. On wednesday the Federal Reserve held its 3rd scheduled meeting since the start of the chronic pandemic well fed chairman powell noted Economic Activity in jobs they picked up in the recent months they still remain low willpower expects a long road ahead for economic recovery even with the improve Economic News in may and june overall activity remains well below its level before the pandemic and the contract contraction in real g. D. P. In the 2nd quarter will likely be the largest on record a full recovery is unlikely until peop