Sundar Pichai is heading to Washington. Google’s CEO will be speaking to the House Judiciary Committee on December 5th. The congressional hearing is expected to cover topics such as the search engine the company is building for China, as well as possible censorship and bias in its search results.
Sundar Pichai is the latest tech guru to be grilled by Congress, following Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who spent two days testifying in early 2018.
Bob Goodlatte, a GOP representative from Virginia, stated that this hearing is needed because companies like Google have the power to suppress information. There’s been rising controversy over Google allegedly silencing conservative news and voices. Even President Trump claimed that Google pushed negative stories about him while hiding positive ones. He alleged that Google is controlling the flow of information to the public. He called it a “serious situation” and promised that his administration would address it.
Google swiftly put out a denial, claiming that its results aren’t biased. However, that denial has done nothing to calm rising concerns.
Of particular concern is the news that Google is working on a search engine for China. Called Project Dragonfly, this search engine would be in partnership with China’s government and in compliance with their censorship laws. Results for certain websites, such as Facebook, would be blocked. Many search terms would be blocked as well. Presumably it would allow the government to survery users’ activity. It would also allegedly link phone numbers to searches, which would reinforce fear and silence people.
The project has drawn widespread bipartisan criticism. Amnesty International began a campaign against it. Vice President Mike Pence has also blasted Google for the project. Even a number of Google’s own employees have spoken out against this move in an open letter.
Pinchai is expected to answer questions about all of these issues and more.
Dil Bole Oberoi
