details of those negotiations. i just said they're underway right now. i predict that the companies will eventually come to an agreement and i think this is kind of two large companies negotiating agreements, kind of normal case of -- >> right. here is why i pursue it precisely because it's a large company and in a way they stand in for hundreds of thousands of much smaller companies who are even in a more disadvantageous position with respect to negotiating with you. i guess the general proposition then you can speak to if you don't know the details of this, which is, is it okay to negotiate not just for financial terms in having someone be part of your fire unit but, also to try to extract in that negotiation leverage were respect to getting content from them? >> well, again i'm not familiar with the details -- >> i'm not asking you about that

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 you're 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 people's living rooms essentially, you're 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 doesn't belong? >> i think what i should do is offer to get you information. i will get it to your office for you because i'm not, not familiar enough with this. i could imagine there would be scenarios, if we're 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 about an emerging markets smart homes and price of home speakers. does amazon price below cost? >> not list price but often on promotion. sometimes on promotion it may be below cost, yes. >> several other companies did tell us that amazon is pricing echo prices way below cost making it nearly impossible for them to compete. and aggressively discounting alexa enabled speakers is a strategy to own the smart home. like many markets we heard about today, smart speakers with voice assistance like alexa and myriad of home appliances alexa can interact with make-up the next tech platform for companies to lock in customers. would you say the smart home market which the echo ring security system and other smart devices operate is a winners

take all market, yes or no? >> no, i wouldn't. especially if we, if we're able to succeed what we want which is, we would like our, our vision for this is that smart home speakers should answer to different way courts. >> when considering an acquisition -- >> case-by-case basis. just, it is important if we could achieve that, then i think you would get really good behavior on the part of, you know, competitive voice agents helping you. >> when you were looking at acquiring ring, you wrote the executive team, we're buying market position not technology, and that market position is very, valuable. if smart homes are not market with lock in effects why would a leading market position and momentum be so very valuable? >> sir, market position is valuable in almost any business. it is one of the primary things one would look at in an

acquisition. there are multiple reasons we might buy a company. maybe we're buying technology or ip. sometimes a talent acquisition, but the most common case is market position. that the company has traction with customers. they built a service. maybe they were the first mover. could be any number of reasons why they have that market position but that very common reasons to acquire a company. >> once a company becomes dominant in a market it can favor its own products and services. alexa enabled smart speakers make up over 60% of the smart speaker market. mr. bezos i asked alexa to play my favorite song, prime music the default player, right? >> i think that is true if you're a prime member, yes. >> "new york times" report found that when users alexa buy batteries, alexa would you like to buy double a amazon basic batteries. have alexa framed to favor amazon products when users shop by voice. >> time of the gentleman has

expired but the witness may answer the question. >> i don't know if it has been trained trained in that way. i'm sure there are cases where we do promote our own products. a common practice in business. so it couldn't surprise me sometimes if alexa sometimes promotes our own products. >> thank you. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from florida, mr. gaetz for five minutes. >> mr. pichai in our prior discussion you said google doesn't work with the chinese military. that answer was deceptive. google works with entity toss work with chinese military as common coy elaboration. one example is the university, where jeff dean who is the head of going a.i. served on the computers science advisory committee for the university. the university takes nearly $15 million from china's central military commission. you can see how if you don't literally show up at the offices of the chinese military i, if you're all showing up at the

same place working together working on a.i., that would lead to my concern but i want to talk about search because that is an area where i know google has real market dominance. on december 11th you responsed to the judiciary committee and answer to my colleague lofgren, we don't manually intervene on any particular search result. leaked memos obtained by "the daily caller" show that isn't true. those memos were altered a december third a week before your testimony and they describe a deceptive news blacklist, and a process for developing that blacklist approved by ben gomes who leads search with your company and also something called a fringe ranking, which seems to beg the question, you know, who gets to decide what's fringe? and in your answer you know you said to miss lofgren that there is no manuel intervention of search. that was your testimony but now i'm going to cite specifically

from this memo from "the daily caller." it says, that, i'm sorry, "the daily caller" obtained from your company. beginning of the work flow starts when a website is placed on a watch list. it continues this watch list is maintained and stored bier rose with access restricted to polly enforcement specsists t begs the question who the enforcement specialists are. access to the listing can also be shared on a need to know basis to enforce or enrich the policy violations. the investigation of the watch list is done in the tool athena, ares manuel review tool. you said to congresswoman lofgren there was no manuel review tool. your documents indicate there is a manuel review tool. help us understand the inconsistency. >> congressman, there are two parts in this. in general we algorithm i

cannily we have robust policies to do so, user feedback and user ratings to val evaluate, 300,000 experiments and launched 300,000 improvements to search and we don't manually tune. the question was time was in the context is there someone behind the curtain manually tuning individual search result? we don't. we generally approach it algorithmically. in order to come ply with the law in every country we operate n for example, there may be actor, website identified as interfering in elections. we then have to put that site on a list so that doesn't appear in our search results against queries. so other examples would be violent extremism -- >> is that done manually, mr. pichai, that process you described, is that done manually? >> we could get reports from law enforcement agencies, you know, we are complying -- it is a

known-based -- >> manuel component or there is not a manuel component. which is it? >> for creating those lists that process can involve manuel portion. >> great. that is sort of the concern that i have. you have now said something different today than you said to miss lofgren because you have confessed that there is a manuel component to the way in which you blacklist content. and it is, seems to be no coincidence that it cites like gateway pundit, the western journal, "american spectator," "daily caller," and "breitbart," that receive the ire or the negative treatment as a consequence of your manuel tooling. it also seems noteworthy that whistle-blowers at your own company have spoken out. you said one of the reasons you maintain this manuel tool to step election interference. i believe it is in fact your company that is engaging in election interference and it is not just my view.

mike whacker, came out and was a whistle-blower indicating that the manuel blacklist targets that google specifically goes after are those who support president trump, who hold a conservative viewpoint, and he left your company in 2019 because he was speaking out against these outrage mobs. so can you see how when you empower individuals, some of the same individuals that project veritas has exposed as labeling people as terrorists who say make america great again or who support the president, that in fact can be the very election interference we're concerned about, you're using market dominance in search to accomplish that election interference? >> congressman, with respect i strongly disagree with that characterization. we don't approach this work with any political viewpoint. we do that to comply with law, known copyright violations, very in narrow circumstance and we have to do that to comply with the law. in many cases those requests can

come from law enforcement agencies. >> your own employees saving it for very different reason. your own employees are political bias. >> yield back. >> can i be recognized for unanimous cone sent request? >> yes. >> with i ask we may be permitted with third round of questioning. >> no objection. recognize the chairman of the committee, mr. nadler. journalism industry in country are in economic free fall. over 200 counties in america no longer have a local newspaper and tens of thousands of journalists have been laid off in recent years. the reason journalism is in freefall is that google and facebook now capture the vast majority of the digital ad revenue. although news publishers produce valuable content it is google and facebook increasingly profit off that content.

publishers have told us that google able to maintain the dominance in these markets in part through anti-competitive conduct as well as -- [inaudible]. mr. zuckerberg, in 2015 facebook reported high and quickly growing rates of video viewership on its platform. based on these metrics, news publishers fired hundreds of journalists, choosing instead to boost their video division. in 2018 it was discovered that facebook had inflated these metrics and had known about inaccuracy several years before facebook publicly disclosed this. mr. zuckerberg, did you know these metrics were inflated before they were publicly released? >> congressman, no, i did not and we regret that mistake and have put in place a number of other measures since then to make sure we -- >> do you realize the harm that this caused journalists across the country? >> congressman, i certainly know

how important it is that the metrics we report are accurate and we put in place measures to make sure it cannot occur. >> what do you have to say to the journalists who lost their jobs because of facebook's deception? >> well, congressman, i disagree with that characterization and also your description of -- >> reclaiming my time. google, meanwhile, maintains its dominance in part through aggregating data across-products and services. mr. pichai, i understand google collects user data on users browsing activity through its chrome browser. does google use that data for its own purposes either in advertising or to develop and refine its algorithms? >> mr. chairman, we do use data to improve our products and services for our users. anytime we do it we believe in giving users choice, control, transparency. we make it very clear and we

give them simplified settings to choose how they like their data used. >> so you use, you do use the data you get from these companies for your purposes? >> my understanding was whether we used data in general to improve our products and services and you we do use data to show ads but we give users a choice. they can turned a personalization on or off. >> this obviously, use of this data from all these companies gives you tremendous advantage over them and any competitor. does the ability to make money any affect google's algorithm in terms of what news appears in a typical users search results? >> the way we rank our search results we don't take into account commerical relationship we have. >> okay.

facebook andgoogle greatly threatened journalism in the united states. reporters have been fired, local newspapers have been shut down and now we hear google and facebook are making money whoever what news they let the american people see. this is a very dangerous situation. and unfortunately my time has expired and i have to yield back. >> thank the gentleman for yielding. i now recognize the gentleman from florida, mr. stuebe for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i will pick up where i left off. mr. pichai, there are rioting groups that are going unchecked with the posting of what i would contend is very violent video yet yesterday i was sent a youtube video about doctors discussing hydrochloroquinn, discussing not dangers of children returning to school. when i clicked on the link, it was taken down. i was sent a different link on youtube. it was taken down. i checked to make sure. it says this video has been

removed for violating youtube's community guidelines. how can doctors giving their opinion on a drug that they think is effective for the treatment of covid-19 and doctors who think it is appropriate for children to return back to school violate youtube's community guidelines? when all of these videos of violence is all posted on youtube? >> congressman, we believe in freedom of expression and there is a lot of debate on youtube about effective ways to deal with covid. we allow robust debate in the area, during a pandemic we look to local health authorities, so for example, in the u.s. it would be cdc for guidelines around medical misinformation in a narrow way which would cause harm in the real world and so for example, if there is aspects of a video, if it explicitly states something could be a proven cure and that doesn't

meet cdc guidelines. >> it is free expression of speech and you have these doctors giving their opinion as doctors, and i don't understand why youtube, therefore google thinks it is appropriate to silence physicians and their opinion what can help cure people of covid-19. i will switch quickly to mr. zuckerberg. i think pat this point it is fairly obvious that technology platforms have been stifling conservative news and opinions. you employ a panel in of content moderators. can you explain how facebook chooses who these moderators are? >> thanks, congressman. we do hire a lot of people around the world to work on safety and security. our team is more than 30 or 35,000 people working on that now. we certainly try to do this in a way that is neutral to all viewpoints. we want to be a platform for all ideas. i don't think you build a social

product with the goal of giving people a voice if you don't believe that people being able to express a wide variety of things is ultimately valuable for the world and we try to make sure that our policies and our operations ultimately reflect and carry that out. >> is there idealogical diversity amongst the content moderators? >> congressman, i don't think we choose to hire them on the basis of an ideology. they're hired all over the world. there are certainly a bunch in the u.s. there is diversity where they're hired but certainly we don't want to have any bias in what we do and we wouldn't tolerate if we discovered that. >> you don't specifically hire say conservative moderators, democrat, liberal moderators so there is a content balance in your moderators? >> congressman, in terms of the 30 to 35,000 people or more at

this point doing safety and security review, that is correct. in terms of the people setting the policies i think it is valuable to have people with diversity of viewpoints involved so we make sure we have the different viewpoints represented in the policy development process. we also consult with a number of outside groups whenever we develop new policies to make sure we're taking into account all perspectives. >> what are some of those outside groups that would be conservative leaning? >> congressman, i need to get back to with you a is list of specific group. it would depend on what the topic is. >> can you think of one. you said you can think of outside groups. can you think of one outside conserve group you reach out to and use as a content moderator? >> congressman, i'm talking about different externlynal stakeholders and groups that are inputs to our policy development process and i'm not involved in

those conversations directly. so i would have to get back to you with specifics on that but i'm quite confident that we speak with people across the idealogical spectrum when we're developing our policies. >> i would very much appreciate a follow up on that. real quickly can you briefly explain the approval process for third party fact-checkers and how many fact-checkers does facebook employ. >> yes, thanks. we work with 70 fact-checking partners around the world. the goal of the program is to limit the distribution of viral hoaxes. things that are clearly false from getting a lot of distribution but we don't ourselves want to be in the business of determining what is true and what is false. that feels like an inappropriate role for us to play. we rely on an organization called the pointer institute and i think it is called the independent fact-checking

organization that has a set of guidelines what makes an independent fact checker and they certify those fact-checkers. any organization that gets certification from that group is qualified to be a fact-checking partner within facebook. >> thank you. gentleman's time has expired. we'll, i will recognize mr. johnson for five minutes and then we'll take a short break of the committee. mr. johnson, you're recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. bezos, amazon has a significant problem with countier fit products being sold on its platform. counterfeit products not only rip off the owners of legitimate businesses, they also can be dangerous. counterfeit medicine, baby food, automobile tires and other products can till. amazon has said it is fixing, it is fixing its counterfeit

problem but counterfeiting seems to be getting worse, not better. amazon is a trillion dollar company but amazon customers are not guaranteed that the products purchased on your platform are authentic. amazon acts like it is not responsible for counterfeits being sold by third party sellers on its platform and we've heard that amazon puts the burden and cost on brand owners to police amazon's site even though amazon makes money when a counterfeit good is sold on its site. more than half of amazon's sales come from third party seller accounts. why isn't amazon more aggressive in insuring that counterfeit goods are not sold on its platform and why isn't amazon responsible for keeping all counterfeit products off of its platform? >> thank you. this is an incredibly important issue and one that we work very hard on.

counterfeits are a scourge. they are a problem that is not, does not help us earn trust with customers. it's bad for customers, it's bad for honest third party sellers. we do a lot to prevent counterfeiting. we have a team of more than 1000 people that does this. we invest hundreds of millions of dollars in systems that do this we have something called project zero which helps brands serialize individual products that helps with counterfeits. we have other program as well. >> i'm glad you have those features in place why isn't amazon responsible for keeping all counterfeit products off of its platform? >> we certainly work to do sew, congressman and we do so not just for our own retail products but for third party products as well. >> okay. well, thank you. we've heard from numerous third

party sellers and brand owners that amazon has used knockoffs as leverage to pressure sellers to do what amazon wants. for example, the founder of pop sockets testified in january that amazon itself was selling knockoffs of its product. after reporting the problem, it was only after his company committed to spending two million dollars on advertisements that amazon appears to have stopped diverting sales to these knockoffs. what is your explanation for that business practice? >> that's unacceptable. if that, if those are the facts and if some, some one somewhere inside of amazon said you know, buy x in dollars in ads then we'll help you with your counterfeit program, that is unacceptable. i will look into that and will get back to your office for that. what i can tell you we have a counterfeit crimes unit.

we attempt to prosecute counterfeiters. i would encourage this body to pass stricter penalties for counterfeiters and increase law enforcement resources to go after counterfeiters because they are bad actors. >> but your company is making money off counterfeit goods being sold on your platform, isn't that correct? >> if it does, sir, in my view it would only be short term. i would much rather lose a sale than lose a customer. we make money when the customer comes back. >> fair enough, sir. making companies pay extra to avoid having their products disappear in rankings, seems to be so unfair especially to small businesses. the american dream is threatened when that happens. don't you think so? >> sir, i'm not exactly sure what you're refer towing. if you're talking about what we were just talking about a second ago i agree completely. that is unacceptable. >> totally different situation now. >> okay. >> where a company that is

selling on your platform but is not paying anything extra gets buried in the rankings and, but companies that pay extra are able to get their products pushed up and they avoid getting pushed down. is that an acceptable practice? >> sir, i think what you're referring to is the fact that we offer a an advertising service basically for third party sellers to drive additional promotion to their products. that is a voluntary program. some sellers use it, some don't and it has been very effective helping people promote their products. >> with that i yield back, thank you. >> the gentleman yields back. the committee will stand in brief recess. melissa: big tech's power under fire at capitol hill. you were watching ceos of apple and amazon and facebook

and alphabet, of course, who is the parent of google, all facing off with lawmakers. we'll take you back to the hearing just as soon as it resumes. i'm melissa francis. david: i'm david asman in for connell mcshane this is "after the bell." major averages closing in the green, extending gains after federal reserve keeps interest rates near zero. we should mention all companies represented today were firmly in the green, sometimes about twice as much as the market in general. let's go to susan li to talk about all of this. what did you think of the hearings, susan? susan: we heard a lot of topics being covered, consumer buys, jeff bezos, working with military, china, counterfeit goods, hate speech, you name it. what is making rounds on social media is the one exchange with jeff bezos and congressman. >> jayapal and third party sellers

to make amazon's own goods. >> i can't guarranty you that policy has never been violated. i'm familiar with the "wall street journal" article you're talking about. we continue to look into that carefully. i'm not yet satisfied we've gotten to the bottom of it. susan: that is causing a lot of headlines right now. amazon operate as marketplace you should not use data you're getting from the third party sellers. we're looking at the counter who is getting the most heat and "new york times" says sundar pichai has gotten 33 questions. jeff bezos getting 22 to 25. same thing as mark zuckerberg of the one getting the least amount of heat is tim cook of apple. only getting 12 questions so far but some other notable exchanges include nadler talking to mark zuckerberg instagram. kevin sightser the founder of the video app, when facebook copies their own features.

pichai, talking about working with the military heading into the election in 2020. overall i haven't heard anything new. i don't think it changes market minds in terms of where the companies are going. i think earnings tomorrow is bigger for them in terms of the what the bottom line is. david: i think you mate be right about. that i want to bring in a opinion nell to discuss all of this. hone heroin, capitalist pig founding member and fox news contributor, russell hawley, around i will be ping-ponging with my colleague melissa francis. russell, i did not see any knock out punches. susan went through the lies. i didn't see any clearly effective jabs. clearly the markets didn't think any companies were hurt by it. they in general were doing as well as the dow in general was. what was your impression? >> in my opinion the conversation would have been a lot more productive, would have more effective jobs if the

conversation was happening at the same time. there was split in antitrust competition and fairness conversations and whether people are being censored in various platforms t didn't feel like the same conversation happening through the committee. i feel like it damaged the ability to have follow-up questions that were useful. david: melissa. melissa: well, i have don't know. jonathan, i would ask you, i would say that at least these lawmakers seemed a lot more well-versed than they normally do. they went deep down pursuing amazon on the idea they were using really aggressive tactics in order to clone products they saw on the website or have knockoffs of them. finally jeff bezos was forced to say he doesn't know anything about it but he would investigate it. doesn't know what story they're talking about, but that would never be a acceptable practice to have knockoffs on there unless a company agrees to go

invest millions of dollars in advertising with the site. it did seem like they were better prepared than usual. they went into the detail on facebook and, and this idea that you know when they're going to acquire a company, they say well we can clone you or acquire you and we have the documents here and emails to back up what we're saying. i'm paraphrasing, but what was your impression of their level of knowledge? >> i said it was lacking and pretty embarrassing. at one point, mark zuckerberg, melissa was accused of doing something twitter had done when it comes to supposedly censoring. i to be honest this is a dog-and-pony show. perhaps these tech ceos are about the only group that is less popular than the congresspeople themselves. it is too bad, melissa because they're incredibly important to all of us. those few companies that were represented today, they account for 20% of the entire market. and without their stock performance, the entire market would actually be down this

year. so this, investment perspective this government type of antitruster action is a real risk to the market. you know microsoft, is the best example. the government went after microsoft in 2001 doing what? antitrust, giving away the browser for free. that stock was flat for 13 years. this might be fun for the congressman to show off their supposed technology but it's a real risk for the company and those who invest in it. melissa: i guess my expectations of lawmakers are even lower than yours. we'll bring you back to the tech hearing just as soon as it resumes. right now president trump is delivering remarks on restoring u.s. energy dominance in texas. let's take a quick listen to that. president trump: thanks also to interior secretary david bernhart. david, thank you. energy secretary dan brouliette. texas has really kept him very busy. where's dan? you've been kept very busy very

busy. great senator, great friend of mine, senator ted cruz. a great friend of mine. he is out there fighting for you. thank you, ted. these are representatives, jodey arrington, mike conaway. thank you, fellows. thank you. [applause] great job. a very, very special man, a very special talent and governor greg abbott. thank you. [applause] thank you, greg. great job you're doing. he is working hard. you're doing a fantastic job. our people are working together. you're getting everything you need. good, thank you for doing so. it is such a good job. thank you, dan patrick, lieutenant governor. thank you very much, dan. great help. great team. no better team in the country, thank you. midland county, judge, terry

johnson. thank you, terry. thank you. [applause] your former governor, a great man, a friend of mine, secretary of energy rick perry. nobody did a better job than myrick. thank you, rick. [applause] we have some other distinguished guests and local leaders. we just want to thank you all for being here. thank you all very much. great honor. thank you very much for being here. [applause] under the last administration america's energy industry was under relentless and unceasing attack. you know that. but the day i took the oath of office we ended the war on american energy and we stopped the far left assault on american energy workers. enough the assault, the sought, you've seen come again, i have a strong feeling you won't have to worry about it. if you do, you're in big, big trouble. i withdrew from the one-sided

energy destroying paris climate accord. it was a disaster. [applause] it cost us billions of dollars. it would have made us a non-competitive nation. we canceled the obama administration's job-crushing clean power plan. you know all about that. [applause] i approved the keystone xl and the dakota access pipelines immediately upon assuming office. we opened up anwar in alaska, on energy exploration, ended the moratorium on coal leasing oned if federal lands and reopened public lands and offshore areas to oil and gas exploration. that is where david bernhart has done such a great job. thanks, david. we unlocked the full energy potential of texas and new mexico. new mexico, we're proud we have been there we're proud to help. you were fantastic.

a lot of jobs. since my election, oil and job production in the permian basin more than doubled. [applause] under the trump administration the united states has increased oil production by 3.1 million barrels per day. that is some number. never been anything like that number. for the first time in nearly 70 years, we have become a net energy exporter. [applause] the united states is now number one producer of oil and gas on the earth. we maintain the domination long into the future. we will never lose this position. my administration is announcing today that export authorizations for american liquified natural gas can be extended through the year 2050.

[applause] mr. governor, is that long enough. 2050. that seems like a long time. he said let's make it longer. at the same time, we're strongly protecting our environment, air pollution is down significantly since i took office, while other countries are polluting the world's air and oceans. we will we will never sees to be a leader in our environment. that is what is happening. people don't know about us. we love our environment. under your administration the united states will continue to have among the cleanest air and cleanest water anywhere on earth. that is what we have. thanks to our pro-american energy policies we're also taking jobs and factories from countries with pour

environmental standards such as china and bringing jobs back to america where they belong. [applause] before the invisible enemy struck our shores we created 800,000 new energy jobs. a third of them in texas. that was just the new jobs. add on to that, millions of other jobs. after the china virus struck we implemented historic economic relief. when oil crashed i got saudi arabia, russia, and others to cut nearly 10 million-barrels a day and got opec plus and mexico to agree to the deal and hence we're okay now. we're back, we're back. i will tell you, i can tell you, that i spoke with dan and greg and i spoke with senator ted cruz, i spoke with a lot of people and, we were very close to losing a very powerful, great industry. and we did a job. we did a great job all together. working together.

a job like i think nobody could have done. and now we're back. now we'll keep expanding. you will see it is happening but we really did. we did a great job. i want to thank frankly, saudi arabia, i want to thank russia, i have want to thank mexico. i want to thank opec as they call it plus. it is called opec plus. that is opec plus a lot of other countries but they all came together and they did a job for the industry and we appreciate everybody's help. this action stablized world oil prices that had been in a freefall and saved millions of energy jobs and frankly it saved our industry. four months ago, people were very, very concerned about that industry. now it will be a question of how fast will you put people on. through the paycheck protection program we provided over one billion dollars in emergency aid to keep texas energy workers on the payroll. we kept them all on the payroll.

we opened up 30 million barrels of space and strategic petroleum reserve, allowing american companies to store surplus oil to be sold at a later time and we filled up our 75 million barrels in the strategic reserve, and dan, you have done a fantastic job on that, thank you very much i only wish he bought it when oil was selling for zero. you get a barrel plus 37. i said dan, why didn't you make that deal, i would have loved that? but you did well, thank you very much. i'm taking another bold action to support energy jobs in texas. in a few moments i have will sign four critical permits granting approval to vital pipeline and railway infrastructure on our nation's border. that is a big deal. this will include two her

permits allowing import of texas crude to mexico. a giant proposal for, you have been after that one for many years. i said what do i know about it? if you want to do it, it's okay with me. and we're doing it. so that has been a long time in the making. we're joined today by some of the incredible patriots of the texas oil and gas industry who are benefiting from america's energy boom. josh gin, was born and raised right here in odessa and midland. where's josh? thankthank you, josh. [applause] after spending a few years away at school, josh came back home to west texas. josh's dad worked on the oil rigs. josh worked on the oil rigs and hopes his three children will work one day doing the same kind of incredible work and looking for the wonderful opportunities in american energy.

josh, thank you very much. congratulate your families you will have a great future. appreciate it. [applause] ryan welch spent five years in the army, supporting our victory in the gulf war. [applause] hello, brian. thank you, brian. then he became an energy worker. did you make the right move, brian? i think so, right? better believe it. with over 25 years of experience brian is senior pumper with double eagle energy. do they treat you well? they better, they better. i will come back and see -- david: president trump in midland, texas talking to a lot of oil folks down there. of course the oil situation has turned around quite nicely. it is still lower than a lot of those oil executives would like at about $41 a barrel but remember when it was zero dollars for a future contract on oil. in fact it cost you to get your oil out of your production

facility into the hands of buyers at one point. that turned around when the president was able to convince opec and the russians to limit their production, which, that increased economic activity led to rising prices. meanwhile we're still waiting for the tech hearings to start up again. we have jonathan hoenig and russell hawley, future labs managing editor. jonathan, i want to go to you about the question of censorship because that does seem to be a hard case for tech executives to defend, particularly google, when it was clear there was an incident not long ago which right-wing publications were kept out of its search mechanism. they denied today, ceo of google denied that, or of alphabet, which owns google, denied they have any kind ever idealogical algorithms. i don't believe that, do you? >> well, david, i think the tech companies are in a tough bind

because many times they're often times, david, they're blamed for what is put on their websites. for example, if potentially dangerous or harmful material is promoted, those tech titans themselves could be, could be at risk. so they're in a very tough bind unfortunately. i don't think it is their policy in my belief to purposely censor any one group. david: i don't know. let me switch to russell for a second because we all remember that election night wake that they had at google in which they were lamenting the election of donald trump and suggesting that any success that he and his campaign had using, whether it was google, facebook, whatever, that they would try to interfere with those opportunities that the trump campaign used. then, you have, you have also this section 230 which essentially says, if i have a platform, i'm not subject to any

of the liability -- actually let's leave that for the judge. we have fox news senior judicial analyst judge andrew napolitano. first just to go back to russell for a second. do you believe as jonathan, there is not an idealogical algorithm? >> i definitely don't believe there is an idealogical algorithm but more importantly, these are american businesses. these are american businesses with rules and very much the same way that you can't walk into a 7-eleven without shoes on you can't say certain kinds of things on facebook or twitter without there being consequences. whether the government needs to step in and regulate what those policies are is a really slippery slope as far as what kind of information gets regulated there. david: yeah. >> you mentioned section 230 will be brought up elsewhere. that also makes it so that people who say things in other places are just as liable as the platforms themselves. i think remembering this is not, these are not government organizations. these are private companies and that those rules have to apply is an important thing to keep in mind. david: right but they are

private companies that have an exemption that other private companies don't have. now we have judge andrew napolitano in with us. it is called section 230, judge. this is part of the 1996 telecommunications act and if tech companies are platforms for all views, they do get, because of 230, protection from lawsuits. however, if they begin actively editing and even censoring content that goes on their platforms, they are no longer open platforms. they're more like publications and they are not exempt from lawsuits. where do you think they stand on this issue? >> well, that is not an antitrust function as you know, david. david: i understand. >> that is a protection they received from the days when the internet was in its infancy and mark zuckerberg was operating out of his harvard dorm room. now he is the king ever of the

hill. i heard voices ted cruz and richard blumenthal condemn the immunity the tech companies have. they are a bulletin board. they are not permitting anything scurrilous on there but they can't be held liable for what is on there. if you have liberal democrats and conservative republicans questioning this liability it probably will go but as one of your other guests just said, these decisions are arguably protected by the first amendment. if they want to favor republicans or favor democrats they are free under the law to do so. david: then they are publications. right but then their definition is institution changes from an open platform. >> yes. david: where they're not at all responsible for the content to one where they are responsible where they actually edit content and in some cases censor the content. >> so -- david: go ahead, judge. >> can be sued for what they,

for what they post. that will force them to charge a fee because they're going to have to pay insurance. they will not deal with this out of their on pocket. that will change radically the availability of the internet if people have to pay to use it. congress must be careful what it does because it may make this worse. david: russell, do you think the trump campaign will be able to use social media as effectively time as they did last time? >> absolutely. i think it is happening right now. the trump campaign is prolific across facebook and twitter and doing so quite effectively. you take a look at any post that comes from the campaign on facebook or on twitter. it receives actually more traffic by post than it did in 2016. the president's reach when it comes to social media is honestly one of the more impressive things that he has done as a politician is being able to expand that -- david: russell, forgive me. does appear the committee is getting back into action.

let's listen in. >> allows amazon to review non-public aggregate date to inform private brands even in instances where there are only a few third party sellers. i just want to drill down on that a little more. where exactly does amazon draw the line? >> i'm sorry, aggregate data would be in more than one seller and the of course you have to remember that the person seeing the report would have no way of knowing how many sellers are inside that group or what the, you know, what the breakdown would be between those sellers. remind you not that different from perhaps a best-seller list or product ranking which we do make public for all. >> i want to be clear, does amazon allow the use of aggregate data private user brands when there are only three sellers for a product? >> yes, sir. >> does amazon look at aggregate

data when there are only two sellers for a product? >> yes, sir. >> am i will correct that amazon is conducting an internal investigation on the use of third party data? >> yes, we're basically trying to understand some of the anecdotes we saw in the "wall street journal" article. >> will you commit to informing this committee on the outcome of that investigation including on the exact circumstances of when amazon is allowed to view and or use aggregate data? >> yes, we will do that. >> now i want to move, music can be used to drive revenue. obviously a reason it is important. i want to talk about twitch for a second. new reporter are indicated twitch users are take down requests pursuant to the copyright act. twitch allows users to stream music but does not license the music, is that correct? >> i'm going to have to ask that i can get back to your office with an answer to that question.

i don't know. >> so that would be great. i have just two more questions related to. that if twitch is responding to dmca notice and takedown requirements should we, should one, twitch, consider proactive licensing music instead of retroactively adhering to those notices? these are questions we're interested, i'm primarily concerned about small and up and coming musicians, people that are not necessarily labels, easy for them to get cease and desist notices out as well as we continue to move forward there. >> yes, congressman. that is an important issue. i understand it and we will, i will get back to your office on that. >> all right. earlier this year google announced plans to retire third party cookies that websites attached to users browsers. this allows users to be tracked across the internet. consequence of that change is that it will put other digital advertising market participants at a disadvantage because they can no longer track users. at the very, very danger of

being pro-cookie because i'm not when i use my computer as well, and i understand there are legitimate privacy concerns with third party cookies but i do want to focus on the competition aspect. did this action also place google at a disadvantage or does google have alternative means of collecting that user data to inform its digital advertising activities, mr. pichai? >> congressman, as you rightly pointed out there is an area where we have focused on user privacy and users clearly don't want to be tracked with third party cookies. other browser user apple, foundations implemented these changes. we are doing it thought fully giving time for the industry to adapt, because we know publishers depend on revenue in this area but it is an important change and we have to be focused on privacy to drive the change

forward. >> but you have other ways of collecting that information, correct? >> on our first party services, you know, we don't rely on cookies and obviously when people come and type into search -- >> i'm not asking you to rely on cookies, i'm asking do up other ways of collecting it with gmail and consumer facing platforms? >> we don't use data from gmail for ads, congressman. to the. stuart: extent on services where we provided as, users have consented to ad personalization, yes we do have data. >> thank you, i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. i now recognize the gentlelady from florida, miss demings. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. mr. mark zuckerberg during discussions from changing facebook platform policy from 2012, you said, that i quote in any model i'm assuming we enforce our models against competitors much more strongly. it sounds like facebook weaponizes its policies to target competitors. why would facebook enforce

policies against competitors more strongly? >> congresswoman, when we were a much smaller company we saw -- >> this is 2012 now. this was in 2012. so please, go right ahead. >> sure. we've had policies in the past that have prevented our competitors, which of at the time we were primarily worried about larger competitors, from using our platforms to grow and compete with us. so we had some of those policies. we continually review them over time and -- >> mr. zuckerberg -- senior facebook employ eidentified messaged me as app on facebook and said that we will restrict their access. was this another example of enforcing facebook's policies against competitors much more strongly? message me? >> congresswoman, i'm not familiar with that specific example but we did have that policy.

>> okay, let's move -- in 2014 other facebook product managers openly discussed removing pinterest's access to facebook's platform tools of the as one employee said, hey, i'm 100% in favor of the idea moving it from pinterest but i am not recommending removing it from netflix going forward. why would facebook product managers want to restrict pinterest's access to facebook but not netflix? >> congresswoman, i'm not familiar with that exchange. i don't think i was on that. >> why do you think, you wouldn't have to be on that but why do you think they made that decision? , or would make a decision like that? >> well, congresswoman, as i said we used to have a policy that restricted competitors from using our platform and pinterest is a social competitor with us. it is one of the many competitors that allow people to

share -- >> mr. zuckerberg, examples and supporting documents strongly suggest that facebook does weaponize its policy platform policies and enforcing them to selectively undermine competitors but let's move on. mr. cook, i am concerned that apple's policies are also picking winners and losers in the app economy. and that apple rules mean apple apps always win. mr. cook, in 2019 apple removed from the apple store certain apps that helped parents control their children's devices. do you remember what justification >> yes, congressman -- congresswoman, i do. it was that the use of technology called mdm, mobile device management, placedded kids' data at risk. and so we were worried about the safety of kids. >> okay, all right. so you were concerned about --

is that the app basically undermined kids' privacy. but another app that used the same tool was appture, owned by the saudi arabian government. do you recall what apple's position was towards this app? >> i'm not familiar with that app. >> okay. apple allowed this saudi app to remain. so there are two types of apps. they use the same tool. apple kicks one out and said that that was, one that was helping parents but keeps the one owned by a powerful government. if that is correct, mr. cook, that apps that supposedly did the same thing, why do you, why would you keep the one owned by a powerful government? >> i'd like to look into this and get back with your office -- >> it sounds like you apply different rules to the same

apps. >> we apply the rules to all developers evenly. >> did the fact that apple had -- [inaudible conversations] let me just ask you this, does the fact that apple had its own parental control apps that were competing with these third-party app contribute to apple's decision to kick them off the apple store, mr. cook? what do you think about that? >> it did not. there's over 30 parental controls on the app store today, so this is plenty of competition in this area. and i would point out that this is not an area where apple gets any revenue at all. we do this -- >> because i didn't ask anything about revenue, i did -- that was not my question, but i'm out of time, and thank you so much, mr. chair. i yield back. >> i now recognize the ranking member of the full committee, mr. jordan, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i

would yield to the gentleman from florida, mr. gaits. >> just as mr. pichai gave prior testimony to congress saying there wasn't editorial manipulation from their platform, you have previously given testimony to the congress saying that there is not editorial manipulation that disadvantages conservatives, and just like in the case of google, there have been whistle blowers from facebook that not only have offered evidence indicating your testimony was not truthful, but there is even video that suggests that content moderators that you employ are out there disadvantaging conservative content. i'm wondering if you are familiar with the experiences of zack mcelroy and reinhardtwig -- ryan hartwig, two people who participated in content review, and what is your response to the very damning video evidence expect testimony -- david: weapon censorship on twitter and yahoo!, ideological algorithms on google, fake products on amazon, a lot of stuff they've been talking about the out. if you care about this and you want to see the rest of the

hearing, you can watch with it streaming live on foxbusiness.com. but for now, that does it for melissa and me. lou dobbs starts right now. stay tuned. ♪ ♪ lou: good evening, everybody. the ceos of tech giants amazon, facebook, apple and google today testifying before a house judiciary subcommittee. lawmakers four of the world's richest men in their virtual hearing about their massive companies that dominate technology and social media. the tech titans are worth about $200 billion. looking every bit the part of voracious masters of the universe looking to destroy anything in their path. just kidding. all four ceos