Tag: Google

Five takeaways as panel grills tech CEOs

The Hill logoThe long anticipated confrontation between the chief executives of America’s largest tech firms and Congress produced several memorable moments Wednesday and gave important insight into the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust’s investigation into competition in digital marketplaces.

The hearing — featuring Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai teleconferencing in — went more than five hours, with each lawmaker on the panel getting three rounds of questioning. 

Here are the five biggest takeaways from Wednesday’s hearing. Continue reading.

Scoop: Google to lift coronavirus ad ban

Axios logoGoogle will begin to allow some advertisers to run ads across its platforms that address the coronavirus, according to a Google memo sent to clients and obtained by Axios.

Why it matters: Democrats have argued that in banning attack ads targeting President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, including on YouTube, Google was shielding his campaign in a critical election year.

  • The broad ban had also stopped consumer advertisers, like retail and packaged goods companies, as well as corporate social responsibility advertisers like nonprofits, from running messaging about the virus. Continue reading.

Trump stumbles onto a new justification for losing the popular vote: It’s Google’s fault

Washington Post logoPresident Trump is back at the White House on Monday, after a week spent mostly at his private golf club in New Jersey. In short order, he was back to his typical routine at the executive mansion. Meaning, of course, that he spent some part of the morning watching cable news.

Shortly before noon, Fox Business aired a segment discussing testimony offered to the Senate last month. Robert Epstein, a psychologist who at one point was editor in chief of Psychology Today, told senators on July 17 that his research suggested Google had given millions of votes to Trump’s opponent Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. A guest on Fox Business named Oz Sultan, who worked with Trump’s 2016 campaign, looped that claim back into the broader, ongoing criticism of social-media companies that’s currently in vogue among conservatives.

Trump, though, quickly picked out — and exaggerated — the claim about Clinton votes.

View the complete August 19 article by Philip Bump on The Washington Post website here.

Trump accuses Google of anti-conservative bias without providing evidence

Washington Post logoThe president’s tweets on Tuesday morning came after a Fox News interview with an ex-Google engineer that aired on Monday.

President Trump accused Google on Tuesday of favoring negative news stories about him in the 2016 presidential election, apparently in response to a report on Fox News.

In a series of three tweets Tuesday morning, Trump said he had met in the Oval Office with Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, who told him the company didn’t boost Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, wouldn’t interfere with the 2020 election and wasn’t involved with the Chinese military.

“We are watching Google very closely!” Trump said in a tweet on Tuesday.

View the complete August 6 article by Hannah Denham on The Washington Post website here.

Watch: Google CEO Rejects Claims of Search Bias Against GOP

The House Judiciary Committee questioned Google CEO Sundar Pichai about widespread belief among many on the right that the search giant and other tech companies consistently filter out conservative news in favor of liberal results. Pichai explained Google search results are based on specific frameworks that employees can’t manipulate for any person, topic, or category.

View the December 13 post by Jerel Flint on The Roll Call website here. 

GOP turns its fire on Google

The following article by Ali Breland was posted on the Hill website September 9, 2018:

President Trump‘s fight against Google is making its way down Pennsylvania Avenue to Congress.

Republican lawmakers are ramping up their scrutiny of the tech giant after Trump accused Google of political bias and questioned whether regulators should take a closer look at its market powers.

Google added fuel to the fire on Wednesday by skipping a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on foreign influence operations.

Russian content on Facebook, Google and Twitter reached far more users than companies first disclosed, congressional testimony says

The following article by Craig Timberg and Elizabeth Dwoskin was posted on the Washington Post website October 30, 2017:

Credit: Matt Rourke, AP

Facebook plans to tell lawmakers on Tuesday that 126 million of its users may have seen content produced and circulated by Russian operatives, many times more than the company had previously disclosed about the reach of the online influence campaign targeting American voters.

The company previously reported that an estimated 10 million users had seen ads bought by Russian-controlled accounts and pages. But Facebook has been silent regarding the spread of free content despite independent researchers suggesting that it was seen by far more users than the ads were.

Tuesday’s planned disclosure, contained in draft company testimony obtained by The Washington Post ahead of three Capitol Hill hearings this week, comes as Facebook and other tech giants face mounting pressure to fully investigate the Russian campaign to influence American voters and reveal their findings to the public. Continue reading “Russian content on Facebook, Google and Twitter reached far more users than companies first disclosed, congressional testimony says”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar pushes for transparency in Google, Facebook, Twitter political ads

The following article by Maya Rao was posted on the Star Tribune website October 19, 2017:

The stronger proposed disclosure rules from Minnesota’s Klobuchar and colleagues are aimed at diluting Russian interference in elections.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., left, and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., speak about online political ads and preventing foreign interference in U.S. elections, during a news conference, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

WASHINGTON – Sen. Amy Klobuchar and a group of fellow U.S. senators are proposing stronger disclosure rules for paid political ads on sites like Facebook, Google and Twitter, in an effort to prevent covert foreign influence of American elections.

The legislation they unveiled Thursday follows revelations that Russian interests bought online ads during the 2016 presidential campaign, which are not subject to the same disclosure requirements of radio and TV ads. It’s a loophole that’s grown wider as more voters primarily get information online, and the senators said they would push to enact a law before the 2018 midterm elections.

“This exposes a national security vulnerability when it comes to online ads, a space where our laws have failed to keep up with technology,” Klobuchar said at a news conference. She is sponsoring the measure along with Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee; and Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who chairs the Armed Services Committee. Continue reading “Sen. Amy Klobuchar pushes for transparency in Google, Facebook, Twitter political ads”

Google uncovers Russian-bought ads on YouTube, Gmail and other platforms

The following article by Elizabeth Dwoskin, Adam Entous and Craig Timberg was posted on the Wasington Post website October 9, 2017:

Google found tens of thousands of dollars were spent on ads by Russian agents who aimed to spread disinformation across Google’s platforms. (Elyse Samuels/The Washington Post)

SAN FRANCISCO — Google for the first time has uncovered evidence that Russian operatives exploited the company’s platforms in an attempt to interfere in the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the company’s investigation.

The Silicon Valley giant has found that tens of thousands of dollars were spent on ads by Russian agents who aimed to spread disinformation across Google’s many products, which include YouTube, as well as advertising associated with Google search, Gmail, and the company’s DoubleClick ad network, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss matters that have not been made public. Google runs the world’s largest online advertising business, and YouTube is the world’s largest online video site. Continue reading “Google uncovers Russian-bought ads on YouTube, Gmail and other platforms”