GOOG Alphabet Inc

By John McKinnon and Dustin Volz 

WASHINGTON -- A year ago, GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch was defending big tech firms against liberals who want to punish them for anticompetitive conduct, deriding the idea as "hipster antitrust."

Last week, the Utah senator appeared to throw in with the tech industry's critics. In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, Mr. Hatch called for the agency to investigate Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., for possible antitrust behavior that he called "disquieting."

For big tech companies, it was just the latest sign of a political storm in Washington that has been gathering for more than a year. Already accused of neglecting to patrol spurious political content during the 2016 election, the industry faces continuing allegations of taking too little responsibility for content published on their platforms in general.

And to the extent tech firms have sought to police more content in recent months, conservatives say they have been targeted unfairly.

This week, lawmakers will start a series of hearings delving into many of those concerns. The hearings will likely highlight the industry's political troubles, and point to practices that might be addressed in legislation or executive action in the months and years ahead.

Wednesday's hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee are expected to include Facebook Inc. COO Sheryl Sandberg, Twitter Inc. CEO Jack Dorsey and a representative of Google, as yet unconfirmed. Later in the day, the House Commerce Committee will examine Mr. Dorsey, whose platform has been a focus of many Republicans' ire.

Another hearing in early October, by a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, will focus on antitrust concerns, a big portion of which is likely to delve into the overwhelming market dominance of a handful of internet companies.

Atop this week's Senate committee hearing agenda will be the efforts of the tech platforms to stamp out foreign election interference. The committee has been investigating Russia's multipronged campaign to influence the 2016 election for the past year and a half.

Both Republicans and Democrats want Facebook, Google, and Twitter to explain how they are protecting the 2018 midterms from abuse amid repeated warnings from top U.S. intelligence officials that the election process remains under attack by Moscow.

All three companies last month announced they had scrubbed their networks of fake accounts tied to Iran's state broadcasting arm, disclosures that widened concerns about how foreign governments -- not just the Kremlin -- are using social media to advance their geopolitical aims.

Tech companies have long been able to rely on popular support, noted Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.), the chairman of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee. But "they don't necessarily have that now, and an understanding of public frustrations outside Silicon Valley often seems to escape them," he said, adding tech will have to "answer hard questions" in this week's hearings.

Together, the hearings underscore the once unthinkable possibility of sweeping action to curb the tech firms' power. "I want to have a conversation about policy solutions," said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, who put out a white paper this summer with far-reaching ideas for regulation.

"I'd like to hear from the companies what ideas they think make sense," Mr. Warner said, "to combat misinformation, protect consumer data and privacy and promote competition in this space."

Adding to the pressure has been a campaign by Republicans, led by President Trump, to cast the firms as anticonservative in the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, a campaign that has taken particular aim at Google. The president has promised investigations.

"Social Media is totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices," the president tweeted in mid-August. "They are closing down the opinions of many people on the RIGHT, while at the same time doing nothing to others."

The tech companies adamantly deny any bias against conservatives, but many conservatives now worry privately that the big tech companies, in their newfound zeal to quash fake news and hate speech, also are stifling legitimate political debate.

Conservatives, in particular, allege tactics such as "shadow banning," in which an individual's social-media content can be blocked or minimized by a platform. For their part, Democrats worry about privacy and antitrust concerns, and a repeat of the 2016 campaign, when they believe social media contributed to their losses.

All of which points to tech companies facing consequences in Congress next year -- particularly if Republicans maintain control of both the House and Senate -- in the form of possible new transparency requirements showing how algorithms run searches, news feeds and other operations.

Rep. Greg Walden (R., Ore.), chairman of the House Commerce Committee, said his committee's hearing will "pull back the curtain" on how Twitter makes decisions on content.

"Whether intentional or not," Mr. Walden said, "algorithmic bias can have wide reaching consequences on how information and news are shaped for consumers."

Meanwhile, abuse of user privacy and data has sparked enough concern to make a move toward privacy legislation a driver of whatever happens in Congress next year. The European Union's tough online-privacy restrictions adopted earlier this year was followed by a new California privacy law in June.

Many tech companies are running to Washington for help, actively lobbying for a uniform, less-onerous federal approach to privacy regulation that would substitute for what they fear will become overregulation by the states. Big tech is arguing this is crucial for the U.S. to retain its technological edge in the world.

Congress could also go after the legal immunity social-media firms now enjoy for harms committed by users on their platforms. Congress granted the immunity in the 1990s to promote the internet's expansion, but many lawmakers question whether immunity has gone too far, shielding such wrongdoing as online drug sales.

Congress curbed the immunity to crack down online sex trafficking earlier this year, setting a precedent for a further limitations on the scope of immunity, which big tech will resist.

Write to John McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 03, 2018 14:42 ET (18:42 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.