Google CEO to be grilled by Congress next month

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is set to testify in Congress on 5 December where he is expected to be questioned regarding project Dragonfly and Google’s alleged political bias.

Google was already summoned to a public hearing in September and faced heavy criticism after it declined the invitation.

According to the Washington Post, Google’s chief executive will reportedly respond to questions which are likely to focus on allegations of political bias against the US President Donald Trump in its search results.

The US President complained on Twitter earlier in 2018 about Google being biased against conservatives: “Google search results for ‘Trump News’ shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent.

“Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of results on “Trump News” are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!"

Pichai was expected to try and dispel any idea of bias in its powerful search algorithms at the hearing next week.

He will also have to deal with questions regarding the“Dragonfly” search engine the company is reportedly building for the Chinese market.

Google is facing a backlash from the public and even thousands of its own staff over its plans for Dragonfly.

A group of employees published an open letter on Tuesday complaining about the search engine, calling on their employer to cancel the project and claiming the search engine lacks transparency.

“Many of us accepted employment at Google with the company’s values in mind, including its previous position on Chinese censorship and surveillance, and an understanding that Google was a company willing to place its values above its profits,” the letter reads.

“After a year of disappointments […] we no longer believe this is the case.

“Giving the Chinese government ready access to user data, as required by Chinese law, would make Google complicit in oppression and human rights abuses. Dragonfly would also enable censorship and government-directed disinformation, and destabilize the ground truth on which popular deliberation and dissent rely.

“We refuse to build technologies that aid the powerful in oppressing the vulnerable, wherever they may be.”