10am! House Judiciary, antitrust hearing. I'm most interested in upcoming testimony from Microsoft Prez Brad Smith. In past months, they've come out as a brilliant advocate for the needs of a free and plural press in Australia, EU. Loved + appreciated. /1 judiciary.house.gov/calendar/event…
This dimension today is important - the downstream impact to journalism from lack of antitrust enforcement, particularly Google and Facebook. Investigations globally have connected the duopoly's stranglehold upstream to its unique access to data, particularly tracking users. /2
Microsoft, like with Apple, is a critically important voice and yes showing strong leadership by supporting press, consumer privacy and calling out uneven bargaining power considering size of their own companies. I respect this and yes it's easier due to their own biz models. /3
There is a common thread. If you're a trusted brand, particularly one in which consumers directly pay for your product, then you have a heightened level of attention to one customer (users) and avoid the "healthy tension" of balancing advertisers' interests and consumer trust. /4
"the market power of Google and Facebook due to the unprecedented amount of data collected by these companies" -
@davidcicilline has quickly become an expert on the often hidden dynamics of their market power. References @DCNorg statement in opening (digitalcontentnext.org/wp-content/upl…).
@davidcicilline has quickly become an expert on the often hidden dynamics of their market power. References @DCNorg statement in opening (digitalcontentnext.org/wp-content/upl…).
Also references landmark investigations overseas. most uncovered story is how much more digital savvy the press, lawmakers, staffers, think tanks, state and federal regulators across all political parties here, UK, EU, Australia, Canada have gotten... many have played a role. /6
Opening statement by @RepKenBuck also hits home Google and Facebook dominance. Buck also clearly understands the data issue and ties to downstream symptoms from market power including, yes, censorship decisions he doesn’t trust. These are all downstream issues from antitrust. /7
A good question for a witness (yes, looking at Glenn Greenwald) is whether they've actually run a self-funding publishing biz. interesting side note, Clay Travis worked under me at one point 13yrs ago. These are complex issues, all seem to be taking issue with market power. /8
bizarro world. Lawmaker associating the President of the second largest company on the planet with Ayn Rand in an apparent attempt to discredit an argument of a need for antitrust enforcement of Google and Facebook? /9
Side note, can someone educate Clay Travis on the history of the internet if he’s going to attempt to play more than entertainer? I don’t have the patience. Thx. /10
Jordan's argument about more speech requires nuance as it ties back to dominance of Facebook and Google and their algorithmic amplification decisions. That's a real issue allowing them to maximize profits and suppress counter speech in the process. See @techreview yesterday. /11
“When companies start threatening countries...” President of second largest company on planet speaking truth to the power of Facebook and Google.” Extraordinary. /12
Here is Smith’s full answer directly pointing at Google and Facebook’s threats. Facebook went further than Google before caving. But both demonstrated they are willing to put profits ahead of democracy. /13
watch work of journalism prof. His statement (in blue) takes sentence fragment from letter (in yellow), changes "could" into a "would" and applies a pov outside of reality to make his point in order to protect Google+Facebook harming news. Sorta wild. /14 
https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1363287750548598785?s=20
Campbell Brown's outrageous threatening statement reported a few years ago was just entered into the record by @davidcicilline. It created important context when Facebook and its leadership decided to go to war with democracy for profits in Australia. /15
https://twitter.com/jason_kint/status/1362217871238168577?s=20
Bipartisanship. 👏🏽 Watch this. Republican Ranking Member showing leadership with Democratic Chair asking whether their joint bill would cover @DailyCaller, @BreitbartNews, @theintercept, etc. super helpful to move this above politics to democracy, antitrust amd competition. /16
that's a wrap. good hearing. helpful to keep the impact on journalism, news publishers and free press top of mind as lawmakers and regulators work through the imbalance in bargaining power demonstrated by Google and Facebook. /end
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