When it comes to big tech, US government official incompetence is embarrassing and horrify...

AppleInsider

The hearing on big tech antitrust matters on Wednesday was an embarrassment, and not a single governmental official there had the ability, will, or both, to bring any of the CEOs on hand to task.

The very best you can say about Wednesday's hearing is that it was bipartisan. But you can only say that because Democrats and Republicans alike displayed equal ignorance, and favored their own political careers instead of doing the job they said they were there for.

Whether you think Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon are shiny-clean saints, slightly murky figures, or outright criminal, it doesn't matter. If there's anything to get away with, they got away with it -- and that was it, that latest round was over with nobody but the tech CEOs scoring any points.

America originally took the basics of its legal system and its hearing procedures from the UK, where one of the authors of this editorial is from. In the UK, there is a weekly Prime Minister's Questions session, the PMQs, and it is lauded as among the greatest examples of democracy in action -- but only by the people involved. To the people, it is an embarrassment. Highly paid and in theory highly educated people act in it the same way schoolboys do in the yard.

And for the Americans on the staff, this was more of the same ignorance and posturing on the irrelevant that we've seen for the last 20 years. It was elected officials wrapping themselves in the flag, trying to score points for re-election campaigns. Instead of listening to answers, they'd cut off the answers, and keep reading what were pre-prepared statements in the form of the worst Jeopardy game show-like presentation possible.

Not one single person facing off against Tim Cook and the rest, did a good job and got a good answer. There was Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon who had specific questions about Amazon's alleged destruction of rival Diapers.com, but she was only able to make Jeff Bezos squirm until her time was up. And, that diapers.com example was from more than a decade ago.

But, at least Scanlon came armed with specifics and research. This hearing purportedly followed an investigation begun back in 2019 but most appeared to have been briefed for the first time on their way into the room.

More platform confusion on display belies bigger knowledge problems

As an AppleInsider reader, the difference between Twitter and Facebook is so obvious to you that it seems impossible anyone could get them mixed up. If you're not a user, though, it's all one big social media monolith and it's not your job to find out which is which.

But, knowing what the differences are in a hearing ostensibly about big tech power, it literally was the job of the committee to know the difference. You might hope that they would already know the difference between Twitter and Facebook, and that they would know what an app is. The fact that they didn't isn't shocking at this point, and the fact that they were incapable of finding out during this entire investigation is shameful.

At first, this seemed like it might be similar to the decision then-senator Steve King made when he tried to grill Google's Sundar Pichai about an iPhone issue. It might or might not have been technological ignorance, but it was certainly political maneuvering and it was playing to the crowd instead of trying to find the truth.

The representatives in this hearing did not know what they were asking either, and that is a clear abdication of responsibility. You and I can't pin Mark Zuckerberg up against the wall and get him to answer for years of Facebook's issues. This august body could, and have the power to do so -- and they just didn't.

Five minutes in government meetings is meaningless, no matter how many laps you take

After significant wrangling by both the committee and the tech CEOs, each committee member was granted what turned out to be three five-minute slots in round-robin and parliamentary fashion in which to ask questions. Obviously, that's inadequate. But, apparently if you give a politicians five minutes, they will take the five minutes. We counted about four minutes and ten seconds on the average per five-minute allocation, for the representatives themselves and their political agenda.

Even the ones who actually did ask questions instead of proselytizing, they tended to interrupt the answers in a handful of seconds. Sometimes that was right and necessary -- these four big tech people are not dumb and they know five minutes can be eaten up very quickly with some padding.

But most of the time, the interruptions were not to get back on topic or to delve or to pull a CEO up for talking nonsense -- and there was a fair amount of that nonsense, but discussions of all the CEOs portraying their companies as scrappy underdogs under constant threat is a topic for another day. Most of the time, a representative would interrupt an answer in order to ask their next pre-prepared question with no regard to the answer just given. Answers don't matter to them, being seen to ask your questions does.

Repeatedly, too, we had the outright offensive demand that the CEOs answer complex issues with just a yes or no. If you're allowed a complex answer, you can hide in the details but there's a chance you'll reveal the truth. With a yes or no, there isn't.

The only people who ever demand a yes or no, are ones who have no interest in the answer, or in the truth. They solely and exclusively care about how they look to their voters back home.

There used to be an office in the US designed to help with this, but it is long gone

In 1972, The United States Congress established the bipartisan Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). It was specifically established to educate and brief the House and Senate on complex scientific and technical issues of the day, and was instrumental in the early digital distribution of governmental documents to not just the feds, but to the public as well. It was governed by 12 members of Congress -- six Republicans and six Democrats and had a staff of 143 people, mostly scientists, with a smattering of support people.

It cost the federal government about $22 million per year in the early '90s. That's millions, not billions. It was dissolved as unnecessary and "wasteful" in 1995, with arguments saying that governmental officials were more than capable enough to understand and govern fairly on the issues and technologies of the day.

They weren't capable of doing that without the OTA then, and as the years have passed, this has only gotten worse, and the skeleton crew of mostly non-scientists doing this kind of work at the Government Accountability Office is underfunded and understaffed for the increasingly complex matters at hand. What isn't clear, is if this inability to govern on these matters without education is willful, or just incompetent.

Of course, it isn't clear how much the concept manned by a skeleton crew helps with the problem if that inability to deal with complex scientific or technological matters is willful. The European Parliamentary Technology Assessment (EPTA) performs roughly the same tasks, with roughly the same manning, and it doesn't seem to help decisions there either.

Not the first time, and it won't be the last

At first glance, this seems like more of the same that we've come to expect from the US government when it comes to technology. But, this time they went too far. Wednesday's hearing was the least productive federal hearing we've had the misfortune to have to sit through in two full decades. And yes, this includes the supreme court case discussing live video streaming service Aereo that likened the service to a parking lot and a dry cleaner's shop, somehow.

You know that each of the four CEOs had a debriefing with their executive board after the hearing. You can bet that each one of them had a stiff drink and counted their lucky stars that it went the way it did.

As CEOs, they should be relieved. As Americans, they should be scared. The House of Judiciary correctly and properly identified a huge issue, and it spoke correctly of the importance of this hearing. But then, it destroyed its authority by presenting a circus of schoolyard children. And, that comparison probably isn't fair to the children.

Maybe the next hearing, or the one after that will be better. We're not expecting it, though.

Mike Wuerthele

Okay gang, do me a favor, and we can keep this thread open.

We didn't make this partisan, and please don't take it as an opportunity to do so. And, please stay on topic.

canukstorm

"Maybe the next hearing, or the one after that will be better. We're not expecting it, though."

The next hearing is by the EU.  They tend to be tougher with respect to these things than their American counterparts.

Mike Wuerthele

canukstorm said:

"Maybe the next hearing, or the one after that will be better. We're not expecting it, though."

The next hearing is by the EU.  They tend to be tougher with respect to these things than their American counterparts.

Good, and I know. But that's not the governmental agency we were referring to, here.

cg27

"Do you remember what Clemenceau once said? . . . He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he may have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to the politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids." -- Gen. Ripper

DAalseth

But you can only say that because Democrats and Republicans alike displayed equal ignorance, and favored their own political careers instead of doing the job they said they were there for.

And this was a surprise why? This whole thing was targeted at political ads for the fall election. 

In a bigger vein why is this a subject for antitrust concerns at all. Whatever abuse these companies may have done, or at least are being accused of doing, none of them is a Monopoly. 

Which brings me back to my first point. This was all about posturing, getting clips for the fall political ads, making it look like they are doing something, and distracting from the real problems the country is facing that they are squabbling about, rather than salving.

Mike Wuerthele

DAalseth said:

But you can only say that because Democrats and Republicans alike displayed equal ignorance, and favored their own political careers instead of doing the job they said they were there for.

And this was a surprise why? This whole this was targeted at political ads for the fall election. 

In a bigger vein why is this a subject for antitrust concerns at all. Whatever abuse these companies may have done, or at least are being accused of doing, none of them is a Monopoly. 

Which brings me back to my first point. This was all about posturing, getting clips for the fall political ads, making it look like they are doing something, and distracting from the real problems the country is facing that they are squabbling about, rather than salving.

This editorial isn't written as if this was a surprise. And, frankly, I'm tired of it.

[Deleted User]

Yeah, it’s spectacularly bad. Good thing the government hasn’t had to take on anything really big like responding to a global pandemic .... oh, wait 

macosr

I do have a simple solution...if you want GOOGLE, FB, YT, TW, etc to filter the content you see then make it a setting. GOOGLE, TW, and FB are filtering content and erroneously flagging it. For those of us that don't want them to do this we should have the option to not enable it.

To be quite honest I have mostly left these platforms.

SpamSandwich

The hearing was a waste of time and everyone knows this. On the other hand, since none of the companies whose CEOs showed up committed any egregious acts, that should be considered a net plus.

DAalseth

Mike Wuerthele said:

DAalseth said:

But you can only say that because Democrats and Republicans alike displayed equal ignorance, and favored their own political careers instead of doing the job they said they were there for.

And this was a surprise why? This whole this was targeted at political ads for the fall election. 

In a bigger vein why is this a subject for antitrust concerns at all. Whatever abuse these companies may have done, or at least are being accused of doing, none of them is a Monopoly. 

Which brings me back to my first point. This was all about posturing, getting clips for the fall political ads, making it look like they are doing something, and distracting from the real problems the country is facing that they are squabbling about, rather than salving.

This editorial isn't written as if this was a surprise. And, frankly, I'm tired of it.

Understood. I meant it as more of a rhetorical question. 

anantksundaram

The one interesting question that was asked yesterday was about whether China steals technology.

It was disappointing to see Pichai, Cook, and Bezos dissemble on that question. The only one that bluntly and clearly answered the question  was Zuckerberg (but I suppose his stakes in providing that answer were low).

Mike Wuerthele

anantksundaram said:

The one interesting question that was asked yesterday was about whether China steals technology.

It was disappointing to see Pichai, Cook, and Bezos dissemble on that question. The only one that bluntly and clearly answered the question  was Zuckerberg (but I suppose his stakes in providing that answer were low).

I liked the question, but it had absolutely nothing to do with the topics at hand.

canukstorm

So instead of having useless hearings, the EU is going straight to implementing laws.  Good.

"Lawmakers in the EU have had it with Apple and other Big Tech firms unfairly favoring their own offerings over those of rivals. So they’re going to introduce several new laws that make this business practice explicitly illegal."

https://www.thurrott.com/apple/238484/eu-proposes-new-laws-to-rein-in-big-tech

Mike Wuerthele

canukstorm said:

So instead of having useless hearings, the EU is going straight to implementing laws.  Good.

"Lawmakers in the EU have had it with Apple and other Big Tech firms unfairly favoring their own offerings over those of rivals. So they’re going to introduce several new laws that make this business practice explicitly illegal."

https://www.thurrott.com/apple/238484/eu-proposes-new-laws-to-rein-in-big-tech

The hearings are still happening, and the laws are some time away. I'm not sure about the breathless nature of Thurott's piece.

canukstorm

These are some of Steve Jobs' emails revealed by the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee showing evidence of anti-competitive behavior

https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/30/21348130/apple-documents-steve-jobs-email-books-amazon-apps-antitrust-investigation-schiller

This is just one example. There are others.

bluefire1

I’m disappointed  that not one member of the Committee brought up the subject of  Section 230 of the Telecommunication Act and if immunity should still apply since, Apple aside, they have evolved from platforms to publishers. 

Mike Wuerthele

bluefire1 said:

I’m disappointed  that not one member of the Committee brought up the subject of  Section 230 of the Telecommunication Act and if immunity should still apply since, Apple aside, they have evolved from platforms to publishers. 

By no legal definition has even Twitter or Facebook evolved from a platform to a publisher. That may change with the ongoing reform, but today, all of them are very clearly platforms.

flydog

canukstorm said:

"Maybe the next hearing, or the one after that will be better. We're not expecting it, though."

The next hearing is by the EU.  They tend to be tougher with respect to these things than their American counterparts.

Based on what?  You've attended hearings in the EU and the US?  

linuxplatform

DAalseth said:

But you can only say that because Democrats and Republicans alike displayed equal ignorance, and favored their own political careers instead of doing the job they said they were there for.

And this was a surprise why? This whole this was targeted at political ads for the fall election. 

In a bigger vein why is this a subject for antitrust concerns at all. Whatever abuse these companies may have done, or at least are being accused of doing, none of them is a Monopoly. 

Which brings me back to my first point. This was all about posturing, getting clips for the fall political ads, making it look like they are doing something, and distracting from the real problems the country is facing that they are squabbling about, rather than salving.

They aren't being accused of being a traditional monopoly, no. But what they are accused of is being too big, too wealthy, too powerful and as a result exerting too much influence on the global economy, politics and culture. Case in point: Dell is #34 on the Fortunate 500 with a market capitalization of $45 billion. Apple? Market capitalization $1.1 trillion.

Then there is the outsized reach of the likes of Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Gmail, YouTube etc. As I said in another thread yesterday most of these politicians - as well as the people who write "how big is too big" articles - are really after Amazon (labor issues), Facebook (because it allows people to post ideas that they disagree with and Hillary Clinton lost) and Google (Snowden and again Hillary Clinton lost) but because Apple is so big it is impossible to go after their real targets without at least pretending to go after the company that is going to be the unchallenged #1 on the planet for the foreseeable future too.

flydog

canukstorm said:

So instead of having useless hearings, the EU is going straight to implementing laws.  Good.

"Lawmakers in the EU have had it with Apple and other Big Tech firms unfairly favoring their own offerings over those of rivals. So they’re going to introduce several new laws that make this business practice explicitly illegal."

https://www.thurrott.com/apple/238484/eu-proposes-new-laws-to-rein-in-big-tech

Well that's great, but there are zero facts cited in that article to support that Apple has favored "their own offerings over those of rivals."  This will turn out just like Vestager's absurd tax vendetta against Apple and Ireland, which went nowhere. 

Even if Apple did favor its own offerings--it hasn't--why should that be illegal?  It's their freaking store.   

But let's assume that by some miracle Vestager gets her way, and Apple is forced to allow developers to charge consumers directly instead of using IAP.   Do you really think Spotify, Telegram, and all these other greedy leeches are going to mark down the price of their apps to benefit consumers?  

Get real!