By: The Guardian
March 25, 2021
The CEOs of America’s biggest technology companies faced a grilling on Thursday from Congress about the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol, as protesters outside the hearing denounced the platforms for playing a role in fueling the violence.
The marathon, six-hour hearing saw the three most powerful men in tech – Sundar Pichai of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter – testify before two committees of the House of Representatives on social media’s role in promoting extremism and misinformation.
The session took place against a backdrop of protests, with demonstrators gathering outside the Capitol building ahead of the hearing, portraying the tech executives as the violent insurrectionists whose images went viral in the days after the 6 January riots. One cutout erected on the grounds showed Zuckerberg as the “QAnon Shaman”, a part-time actor with a horned furry hat who participated in the riot.