Google CEO Sundar Pichai had to explain to Congress why looking up the term idiot on Google’s search engine produced pictures of President Donald Trump.
Republicans concern that Google’s search results are biased against conservatives, so he has to patiently responds to questions about the search engine.
Lamar Smith: You’ve never punished a Google employee for manipulating search results?
Pichai: It’s not even possible for an individual employee to do that.
Smith: I disagree. I think humans can manipulate the process.
Steve King asks how a mean picture of him showed up on his granddaughters iPhone
Pichai: Sir, the iPhone is made by a different company.
King: IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN AN ANDROID! It’s just… it was a hand-me-down of some kind.
During the hearing, King also suggested that Congress should check Google employees’ social media profiles to monitor their political leanings.
Rep Steve Chabot said that he needed to go to the third or fourth page of search results to find positive coverage of the Affordable Care Act repeal bill.
Chabot: I know Google’s attitude, the algorithm made us do it, I don’t know if I buy that.
Rep. Ted Lieu said to GOP lawmakers after it was suggested Google search results are purposefully negative for some lawmakers:
If you want positive search results, do positive things. If you don’t want negative search results, don’t do negative things. And to my colleagues, if you’re getting bad results, don’t blame Google or Twitter, consider blaming yourself.
People were pretty mad with the ignorance and incompetence in the committee hearing:
Bonus: Monopoly man watches disapprovingly as congress yells at Google’s CEO