Google CEO set to testify in front of Congress on Dec. 5

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is headed to Washington to testify before Congress.

According to the Washington Post, Pichai’s hearing before the House Judiciary Committee is set for Dec. 5. The topic of the hearing will be Google’s alleged bias against conservatives.

In August, President Donald Trump hurled accusations of bias at Google in a series of tweets. Trump claimed that certain Google search queries like “Trump news” returned results from critical news organizations like CNN rather than conservative-leaning outfits. The issue at hand here -- as with other online platforms accused of political favoritism -- isn’t bias but rather misunderstanding of how the technology works.

Following Trump’s accusations of prejudice against the search engine, Pichai responded in defense of his company. In a memo, the Google CEO insisted that Google search is free of political bias.

While the accusations of political bias will surely be a focus, other recent Google controversies will likely come up during the hearing with Pichai. This past summer, Google announced they would not renew its contract with the Department of Defense for Project Maven. The project, which set out to improve military drone targeting through artificial intelligence, received considerable blowback internally from Google employees.

Another recent topic of contention at Google is its Chinese censorship-friendly search product Project Dragonfly. U.S. lawmakers have previously questioned Google’s intent to work with the Chinese government to make a search product that abides by the country’s strict censorship laws -- especially in light of the company’s decision to end its work with the U.S. Defense Department.

Pichai has met with members of Congress this year already to discuss Google’s latest moves to re-enter the market in China. However, unlike the upcoming public hearing, that previous meeting was held with GOP lawmakers in private.

Google was lambasted back in September for skipping a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. Pichai and Google founder Larry Page were invited to take part but were no-shows. Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey attended that congressional hearing which was on Russian influence and disinformation.