US giants Amazon, Google, Apple and Meta have received a subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee.
Amazon, Google, Apple and Meta under indictment
The operations of the companies Amazon, Google, Apple and Meta are under the scrutiny of the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
The watchdog’s goal is to obtain information on how these tech companies moderate content.
Many have seen the House Judiciary Committee Chairman’s investigation as a political act.
The suspicion stems from the fact that the body’s chairman, Jim Jordan, did not direct the investigation towards Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Meta at random.
In fact, the senior executive of the watchdog body is at the same time also a Republican congressman from Ohio.
The big tech companies indicted according to Jordan received these subpoenas for a very specific reason.
“These subpoenas are the first step in holding Big Tech accountable.”
This is what Jordan’s press office said in a statement.
At issue is how these IT giants manage or channel content on the web.
Jim Jordan, Republican congressman from Ohio and former chairman of the House Judiciary is the prosecutor.
The demands levied against each of the apex companies in the Tech sphere are documents and communications about the collusion of government and big tech to direct free speech.
CEOs Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, Tim Cook and Andy Jassy may respond to the missive within a month.
Meanwhile on Wall Street, companies do not seem to be affected by the news involving them and are trading well.
Amazon gains 0.13% (€93.21), Alphabet Inc Class A (Google) appreciates 0.30% (€90.20), Meta gets +0.41% (€166.00) and Apple basically breaks even at €144.76.
News explodes on social media
The news was leaked on Wednesday, the day of the mention via missive by some insiders.
Soon the fact reached the ears of big investors and analysts as well as news outlets.
Watcher Guru, reported the news with a tweet thus shaking the web but not the stock market performance of the companies involved.
“JUST IN:
US House Judiciary subpoenas CEOs of Apple, Amazon, Meta, Google, & Microsoft for “collusion” with government to “suppress free speech.”
The collusion aspect of the investigation
Indictment of the largest and most powerful companies in the Tech sector by the House committee is a very old story.
The fear that private companies that are too powerful relative to others will make more or less clear-cut deals with the government to take advantage is as old as time.
Amazon, Google, Apple and Meta are these kinds of companies, entities so huge that they arouse suspicion.
If there were the will, and these companies could have come to an agreement with the government, they could have easily channeled consumption and public opinion.
The danger of an authoritarian drift of government with the placid contribution of big tech is real, though to claim that it exists is a long way off.
Based on concrete doubts supported by facts not yet known is the investigative action of the watchdog.
Only time will shed light on this controversial page of data mismanagement.
