Rep. Jim Jordan attacks tech CEOs, saying they discriminate against conservatives – cleveland.com

WASHINGTON, D.C. - It seemed that everyone in Congress had a beef with the CEOs of Amazon, Google and Facebook at Wednesdays House subcommittee hearing on their market power.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee accused the companies of stealing intellectual property from smaller online companies and putting them out of business, buying out competitors to achieve a monopoly, and criticized their handling of disinformation meant to sway elections.

Ohios Jim Jordan, a Republican, accused the companies of waging an anti-conservative vendetta, reciting a laundry list of charges.

Ill just cut to the chase: big techs out to get conservatives, declared Jordan, of Champaign County, who is the House Judiciary Committees top Republican. Thats not a suspicion. Thats not a hunch. Thats a fact.

Jordan criticized Google for removing the home pages of Breitbart and the Daily Caller, and said the company has censored Breitbart so much that traffic to the conservative website has declined 99 percent. He criticized Google and YouTube for an April policy to censor content that conflicts with recommendations from the World Health Organization, the organization that lied to us, the organization that shills for China.

They can say whatever they want, said Jordan. You say something against them, you get censored.

Amazon banned a conservative commentators book critical of the coronavirus lockdown, and allows contributions to Planned Parenthood but not the Family Research Council, Jordan alleged, while Facebook took down a post from President Trumps reelection campaign, silenced an anti-abortion organizations ad, and routinely suppresses conservative views.

We all think the free market is great, we think competition is great, said Jordan. Whats not great is censoring people, censoring conservatives and trying to impact elections and if it doesnt end, there has to be consequences.

The tech CEOs denied a partisan tilt, with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying his companys goal is to offer a platform for all ideas. He said the company has community standards that aim to ban categories of harm, such as terrorist propaganda, child exploitation, incitement of violence, some more legalistic things like intellectual property violations.

I think that we have distinguished ourselves as one of the companies that defends free expression the most, Zuckerberg said.

Jordan urged the CEOs to speak out against against an online cancel culture mob that bullies people they disagree with.

Jordan asked Google CEO Sundar Pichai if he could assure Americans that his company wouldnt tailor its features to help Democratic Vice President Joe Bidens presidential candidacy over that of Republican incumbent Donald Trump. Pichai said tilting things in any direction was against our core values. He denied Jordans claims that his company conspired to favor Hillary Clinton during 2016, and said the companys search engines give conservatives more access to information than ever before.

Weve clearly communicated to our employees, any personal political activity, while its their right, needs to happen on their own time and resources, Pichai said. Any work we do around elections is nonpartisan.

After Jordans round of questions, Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon said she intended to redirect the subcommittees attention to antitrust law rather than fringe conspiracy theories. Jordan tried to shout her down.

We have the email, he said. There is no fringe ...

You do not have the time, the subcommittee chairman, Rhode Island Democrat David Cicilline shouted back, as Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin hollered for Jordan to Put your mask on!

If someone comes after my motives for asking questions, I get a chance to respond, Jordan continued.

The gentlelady is recognized, Cicilline pronounced, cutting off the exchange.

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Rep. Jim Jordan attacks tech CEOs, saying they discriminate against conservatives - cleveland.com

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