During a three-and-a-half-hour hearing with Googleâs CEO in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, members of Congress largely spent time whining about finding negative coverage of themselves on the internet and blaming Google for it.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle got a crash course in how search tools work in Google as they grilled CEO Sundar Pichai on alleged political bias by his company.
In a stunning complaint lacking any self-awareness, Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) complained that he had to go âdeep into the search resultsâ to find any favorable stories about Republicansâ attempts to repeal Obamacare.
âYour company is in effect picking winners and losers and affecting elections,â he alleged without evidence. Pichai responded that his companyâs search algorithms âhave no notion of political sentiment.â
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said he was frustrated that he couldnât edit his Wikipedia page after ranting that the Southern Poverty Law Center stirs up âhate.â (It doesnât.)
âMy chief of staff went on [Wikipedia], she told me, every night for two weeks and put proper, honest information in with proper annotation, and Wikipediaâs liberal editors around the world would knock it out every day and instead put up a bunch of garbage,â he said. Pichai did not respond, as Gohmert never actually asked a question.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) took it upon himself to tell Pichai how his own company works after asking if Google employees have ever been punished for manipulating search results.
âItâs not possible for an individual employee or group of employees to manipulate our search result,â Pichai tried to explain. âWe have a robust framework, including many steps in the process where ââ
âWell, my time is up,â Smith interrupted. âLet me just say I disagree. I think humans can manipulate the process.â
On the other side of the aisle, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) wanted to know why his appearances on MSNBC werenât bigger hits on the search engine.
âItâs hard for me to fathom being on MSNBC for, like, eight minutes each show, four times, and thereâs more content on Breitbart News than MSNBC,â he said. âIf youâd let me know about that. Iâd appreciate it.â
Cohen also requested that Google create a tutorial phone line for people using the search engine.
Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) wanted to know if Google can track his movements through his iPhone. When Pichai said he would have to look at the congressmanâs phone settings to know, Poe whined that it wasnât a good enough answer.
âItâs not a trick question,â he said. âYou make $100 million a year. You ought to be able to answer that question.â
But white supremacist Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) might have had the best self-own of all when he complained that his 7-year-old granddaughter inexplicably found negative depictions of him while playing with an iPhone.
âI have a 7-year-old granddaughter who picked up her phone before the election, and sheâs playing a little game, the kind of game a kid would play, and up pops a picture of her grandfather, and Iâm not gonna say into the record what kind of language was used around that picture of her grandfather, but Iâd ask you, how does that show up on a 7-year-oldâs iPhone thatâs playing a kidâs game?â he asked.
âCongressman, iPhone is actually made by a different company,â Pichai reminded him.
âIt might have been an Android,â King responded.
Pichai said he would be happy to speak to King privately to understand his issue better.