“Oh. Fuck. Off!” — @swin24 after about two minutes of passively overhearing the Congressional antitrust hearing

My sentiments exactly, of course.

Also really regretting choice to watch this on a big screen

We interrupt this hearing for a weird digression about capitalism putting men on the moon and Communist China

Ahh it was a lead up to accusing @Google of being a communist sympathizer.

Matt Gaetz opening by asking tech leaders to say if they don’t support “American values” and whether Google will “adopt anti-police policies”

... annnnnd, now we've moved on to asking tech leaders if they're agents of Putin

... @RepArmstrongND Armstrong points out how GDPR & other data privacy laws can end up boosting entrenched big businesses while hurting smaller companies

... and now Kelly is calling on Congress to act on protecting users' data from cops! Yes! #antitrusthearing

Google's @sundarpichai says "we want to serve all our users... On our platforms, including YouTube, there are more conservative voices than ever before, and we believe in freedom of expression." #antitrusthearing

"We do get complaints across the aisle," Pichai adds, mentioning criticism from Socialists

We're now at the stage of paranoid & performative Congressional outrage where an email about encouraging Latino voting = an admission that Google wanted to throw the election to Democrats (Thanks, Jim Jordan!)

Is anyone gonna talk about antitrust?

"Put your mask on! Put your mask on!" another lawmaker is now yelling at Jim Jordan, who won't stop interrupting

On this Amazon & http://Diapers.com  nonsense: https://reason.com/2019/09/05/the-new-trustbusters-are-coming-for-big-tech/ #Antitrust #antitrusthearing

Remember when we warned you they sure as hell weren't going to stop with Backpage? https://reason.com/2017/08/07/they-wont-stop-at-backpage/

#AntitrustHearing

They won't stop reading wild accusations and then cutting off the tech CEOs when they try to somehow answer seriously and calmly

IS IT TRUE YOU'RE THE WORST & DOING ALL THE ILLEGAL THINGS?

Well, that's sort of a tough question to answer beca-

THANK YOU. WHAT ABOUT SACRIFICING PUPPIES TO ALIENS. YAY OR NAY?

Um, wh-

WHAT IF IT SAVES ONE CHILD OR CONSERVATIVE TWITTER ACCOUNT?

Have these people never heard of store-brand groceries, goddamn

Oh, man, I was tweeting about store-brand groceries and missed the rep's excuse for why this isn't like store-brand groceries

Oh my god, Sensenbrenner is now asking them how they would spin off like the "baby bell" phone companies in the '80s if they had to

a 40-year-old landline phone controversy is definitely just like Facebook and Google

Geezus, @RepGregSteube seems to be under the impression that Facebook pries into employees' personal views before hiring them & keeps a running tally of how many liberal and conservative content moderators it employs

also this has nothing to do w/antitrust
#antitrusthearing

It's like Gaetz things he's a clever TV detective and if he just keeps demanding "But didn't you try to throw the 2016 election to Hillary Clinton Google/Facebook/Apple? Didn't you? Diddddn't you?" he'll somehow elicit a dramatic confession #AntiTrustHearings