Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook will appear before a Congressional leader subcommittee on Wednesday for an antitrust hearing along with the CEOs of Apple, Alphabet Inc, and Amazon.com Inc.
Mr. Zuckerberg will discuss the recent competition in the U.S technology sector since he has been allegedly accused of antitrust issues for recent Facebook acquisitions. He will also warn the committee about a possible influence of China in the U.S technology industry.
We believe in values — democracy, competition, inclusion and free expression — that the American economy was built on – Mark Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg positioned the antitrust issue as a geopolitical event. He explains how China is making its version of everything from the Internet to Apps and exporting the ideologies to other countries. Already India decided to ban Chinese apps to reduce the tech influence in the region.
So Mr. Zuckerberg will call for “rules for the internet” to the Congressional leaders to make the tech companies understand what they can do to make less harm to the society.
Year-long Investigation on the tech industry antitrust issues
The subcommittee has been dealing with the anti-competitor behavior of the tech giants for some time now. They’ve already recorded hundreds of hours of interviews and millions of documents during the yearlong investigation.
The investigation is focused on the four top U.S Companies Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon. Following issues will dominate the investigation-
- Google for its ad market;
- Facebook for the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp;
- Apple for its App Store policies;
- Amazon for third-party sellers;
The subcommittee is expecting to publish a full report on the investigation this summer. The hearing can be compared to the Congressional hearing of Microsoft that happened two decades ago.
Since last June, the Subcommittee has been investigating the dominance of a small number of digital platforms and the adequacy of existing antitrust laws and enforcement – House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler and Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline
In 2000, a U.S judge ruled that Microsoft had been breaking the antitrust laws by using predatory behaviors. The Microsoft Antitrust Case report in 2001 showed that 19 states alleged the company for monopolizing the market and showing anti-competitive behaviors.