The tech hearing is delayed about an hour to allow time to clean the room between hearings, @business is hearing

This gives me time to drink more coffee and set it up on my actual TV, per pro tip from @KurtWagner8

It's ON

This hearing is already tense, with Jim Jordan interrupting to try to say more about claims of anti-conservative bias. "Unless you are speaking our rules require you to wear a mask" Cicilline says. Introducing witnesses (the CEOs) now.

"do you swear and affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you give is true" -- everyone getting virtually sworn in. Better not lie!

I hope they figure out how to zoom in on the speakers because this is going to be a LONG day if it means staring at thumbnails of these leaders so small their expressions are undetectable

OK they zoomed in on Pichai so only Bezos, the world's richest man, had to give his opening statement as a thumbnail. Everyone is just reading their opening statements right now, which you can read here: https://judiciary.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=3113

"why does Google steal content from honest businesses?" Cicilline says.
"I disagree with that characterization," Pichai says.
Cicilline says he's talking about search results.

Nadler says that the documents Facebook provided showed Zuckerberg thought Instagram was a threat and wanted to buy it to quash the competition.

Zuckerberg: "In the space of mobile photos and camera apps, which was growing, they were a competitor."
Nadler cites a document where Zuckerberg tells Facebook's CFO that they needed to buy time by buying Instagram.

Nadler says "this is exactly the type of anticompetitive acquisition that antitrust laws were intended to prevent"
Cicilline says the failures of the FTC in 2012 have no bearing on whether this was a violation of antitrust laws

Zuckerberg on the Instagram threat: "One thing about startups though is you can often acquire them" https://twitter.com/HouseJudiciary/status/1288540085890232320?s=20

Rep. Scanlon, after Jordan's questioning: "I would like to redirect our attention to antitrust as opposed to fringe conspiracy theories"
Rep. Jordan gets angry, gets told to follow the rules and put his mask on yet again, there's absolute chaos.
Then back to Qs for Bezos.

"WhatsApp was also both a competitor and complementary," Zuckerberg says. "They competed with us in the area of social messaging which is an important space."

Zuckerberg has now said under oath that both WhatsApp and Instagram were competitors

Jayapal says Zuckerberg cloned Instagram with Facebook Camera, and then used that app to threaten Instagram into being purchased by Facebook, according to documents. Zuckerberg says he doesn't view that conversation with @kevin as a threat.

These internal documents are quite informative. https://judiciary.house.gov/online-platforms-and-market-power/