You can always count on our less-than-tech-savvy Congresspeople to ask some really dumb questions whenever they host the big tech companies for a hearing.
However, the dumbest question asked at Wednesday’s Congressional hearing on antitrust issues wasn’t concerning lack of tech knowledge. It was a question about cancel culture.
You might be thinking, what does cancel culture have to do with antitrust laws? And you’d be right for asking because the answer is nothing. But that didn’t stop Republican Congressman Jim Jordan from asking Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai about cancel culture.
“Mr. Cook, is the cancel culture mob dangerous?” Rep. Jordan asked the Apple CEO.
Ironically, this question came immediately after Jordan’s Democratic colleague, Rep. Jamie Raskin, pushed back against how the conservative members of Congress were all “whining” about anti-conservative bias throughout the hearing. Reminder: this hearing was about antitrust and anticompetitiveness among these four tech giants.
Tim Cook seemed a bit confused about the question at first, but did share his thoughts after sharing out loud how he defined cancel culture.
“Somebody with a different point of view talks and they’re cancelled…I don’t think that’s good,” replied the Apple CEO. “I think it’s good for people to hear different points of view and decide for themselves.”
Rep. Jordan continued down the line of the tech CEOs, inquiring about if any of them were concerned about “cancel culture mob.”
While Google CEO Sundar Pichai offered up a more general response of how the search giant values freedom of expression and uplifts more diverse voices, Zuckerberg and Bezos leaned into the discussion.
“I am very worried about some of the forces of illiberalism I see in this country that’s pushing against freedom of expression,” replied the Facebook CEO.
“I am concerned in general about that,” responded the Amazon founder. “It appears to me that social media is a nuance destruction machine and I don’t think that’s helpful for democracy.”
The question appears to have been sparked by New York Times writer Bari Weiss’ resignation letter, which was published earlier this month and sparked debate within media circles. Rep. Jordan specifically referenced the letter, in which Weiss assailed cancel culture, at the hearing.
“I guess my point is that you are four pretty important guys leading four of the most important companies on the planet and it would sure be helpful if you spoke out against this,” explained Rep. Jordan as if he was trying to explain even to himself why he brought up this topic during a hearing on antitrust issues.
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The discussion ended back with Tim Cook, when the Republican Congressman from Ohio cited Apple’s classic “1984” Super Bowl ad. Rep. Jordan referenced the commercial, trying to tie it to the cancel culture debate and big brother authoritarianism from the so-called “mob.”
But, it was clearly a reach. After all, we’re talking about a commercial made to sell Apple products.
“I remember [the ad] very well,” replied Cook, the CEO of the very company who created the ad. “It was Apple versus IBM at the time.”