The grilling of top tech CEOs by the US Congress and what it portends for Nigerian tech users

On July 9th, the CEOs of the four largest tech companies in America were grilled by members of the US Congress over the course of a six-hour virtual antitrust hearing. Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google’s parent Alphabet all appeared before members of the House judiciary antitrust committee and faced intense questioning from lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.

The allegations levied against these four tech giants were that they;

1. Wielded and exercised too much power, gaining an unfair advantage against lesser competition
2. Censored political speech and fostered fake news spread and
3. Stifled the engines of the American economy

The subcommittee had been investigating the four accused companies’ dominance of the online world for over a year, collating 1.3 million documents and conducting hundreds of hours of interviews.

Subcommittee chairman David Cicilline was abrasive in tone as he pointed out that the companies dominated their respective spheres, quashing rivals and overcharging the people and businesses reliant on their services. The Rhode Island Democrat even drew an analogy; “Our founders would not bow before a king, nor should we bow before the emperors of the online economy”.

It was one of those classic instances where both political parties in Congress tag-teamed to take on a common perceived threat. At different times during the hearing, Republican lawmakers also chimed in, albeit not with regards to the antitrust. They instead accused the Silicon Valley’s top bosses of anti-conservative bias. They alleged these four companies used their resources to try to silence conservative voices and also undo Donald Trump’s 2016 US Presidential victory.

While a myriad of antitrust-related issues were levied against the companies, the overarching criticism was relative dominance and cutthroat business practices.

Google and Facebook came under fire for appropriating content and listing on the pages of smaller businesses, threatening to blacklist them entirely from search listing if they tried to oppose. A behaviour the subcommittee Chairman, described as ‘economically catastrophic for other companies online’.

Zuckerberg’s Facebook was called out for purchasing Instagram in 2012 as an attempt to neutralize any competition it might’ve posed, but the Facebook top brass argued it was a collaborative attempt to help Instagram shore up its infrastructure and security as it grew rapidly.

Amazon and its founder, current world’s richest man George Bezos were questioned over whether the company uses data from third-party sellers in making sales decisions. In a previous hearing, an Amazon executive had denied this practice under oath but was later contradicted by a news report. Bezos was also asked whether his company favored its own products over others when prioritizing certain shipments during the pandemic.

Apple was grilled over favouring certain app store developers and its questionable app store reviews policy which seemed whimsical at best and unclear to app developers who were expected to churn out content for it. In essence Apple presented them with an ultimatum: fall in line with this policy or ship out!

The CEOs chose to tread the moral route in a manner of speaking. Bezos and Zuckerberg tried to stress the importance of competition as a necessity for businesses to thrive and improve quality of products and service. Cook stated Apple doesn’t even charge 84% of app hosting on its store and hence doesn’t constitute a monopoly. He also argued the company had not raised its rates since 2008 – when it opened the store.

What does this portend for Nigerian Tech Users?

Nigeria can best be described as an “emerging consumerism” when it comes to tech products and services. There has been an exponential increase in the number of tech savvy operators and afficionados since the very first iPhone dropped back in June 2007.

In 2020, Nigeria had 99.05 million internet users. This figure is projected to grow to 131.7 million internet users in 2023. The internet penetration amounted to 46.6 percent of the population in 2020 and is set to reach 65.2 percent in 2025. In the most recently measured period, there were almost 85 million mobile internet users in Nigeria, and mobile phone internet usage is particularly popular. With almost three quarters of Nigerian web traffic being generated via smartphones, Nigeria ranks at the top of the list of African countries based on the share of traffic via mobile.

In addition popular social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram and more recently TikTok have become the mainstay for file-sharing interaction among a disparate socio-economic class of Nigerians. Up until four years ago, naira debit cards were in predominance among middle to upper-middle class Nigerians for Amazon purchases.

Suffice it to say, if these four tech companies that are being grilled by US Congress are found culpable of any of the indiscretions levied against them, it means by extension, that the privacy, financial data and behavioral pattern of millions of Nigerians will have also been exploited for gain by these tech giants. It may not be at the same magnitude as US-based consumers where breach of privacy can have far-reaching ramifications for both the exploited (sale of their personal data, phishing targeting etc.) and exploiter (federal lawsuits from regulatory bodies and government agencies).

For now, all we can do is wait to see what materializes from this antitrust hearing. In the US, proposals to restore traditional antitrust regulation are expected to be afoot while also addressing the new challenges posed by tech giants. The limits, rules placed the ecosystem will most likely be reviewed. And in the likely breach of such limits, what responsibilities, repercussions should be borne by the offending party?

For now, Nigerians continue to rely heavily on the tech space for business or pleasure, and it’s safe to say a good number of them are even oblivious to these perceived indiscretions.