Once, big technology companies were held in awe in Washington. How that has changed. Most noteworthy about this week’s showdown between bosses of Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Facebook and the House antitrust subcommittee was how the chiefs found themselves bashed by both sides of the political spectrum. Unlike the clumsy show of 2018, when Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg appeared before Congress, lawmakers this time were well-prepared. Armed with 1.3m pages of documents unearthed in their 13-month probe of Big Tech, they landed some verbal blows. Since the investigation may shape future political efforts to curb the tech giants’ influence, the CEOs have reason to be nervous.
曾幾何時，大型科技公司在華盛頓受到敬畏。這種情況發生了多么巨大的變化。在本周蘋果(Apple)、亞馬遜(Amazon)、Alphabet和Facebook的老板們與眾議院反壟斷小組委員會的攤牌中，最值得注意的是，這些老總們發現自己受到政壇兩翼的猛烈抨擊。與Facebook的馬克?扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg) 2018年在國會作證時議員們的笨拙表現不同的是，這一次他們準備得很充分。憑借在對大型科技公司長達13個月的調查中收集的130萬頁文件，議員們對這些科技公司說出了一些犀利的話。由于這項調查可能會影響遏制科技巨頭影響力的未來政治行動，這些首席執行官們有理由感到緊張。