Amazon CEO opines on 'cancel culture'; calls social media a 'nuance-destruction machine'

World's richest man and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Wednesday said social media is a "nuance-destruction machine" during a congressional antitrust hearing. The Amazon chief was responding to an inquiry from U.S. Rep Jim Jordan about whether the tech executives were concerned about the “cancel culture mob.”

“You are four individuals who have so much influence,” Jordan said. “It would sure help if you are out there criticizing what the cancel culture mob is doing to this country.”

'Social media is a nuance destruction machine'

In response, Bezos said, “What I find a little discouraging is that it appears to me that social media is a nuance destruction machine, and I don’t think that’s helpful for democracy.” A leading American newspaper had described “cancel culture” as “an attack on someone’s reputation and employment by a group of critics, based on opinion or action that can be termed "disgraceful and disqualifying".

Bezos was joined by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Apple's Tim Cook and Google's Sundar Pichai, who all appeared before the Judiciary subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law for a hearing that extended beyond five hours. It was the first time the richest man in the world appeared at a hearing before Congress.

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'But I can't guarantee you'

Among the toughest questions for Google and Amazon involved accusations that they used their dominant platforms to scoop up data about competitors in a way that gave them an unfair advantage. Bezos said that he couldn't guarantee that the company had not accessed seller data to make competing products, an allegation that the company and its executives have previously denied.

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Regulators in the US and Europe have scrutinized Amazon's relationship with the businesses that sell on its site and whether the online shopping giant has been using data from the sellers to create its own private-label products. "We have a policy against using seller specific data to aid our private label business," Bezos said in a response to a question from US Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat. "But I can't guarantee to you that that policy hasn't been violated," he added.

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The companies face legal and political offensives on multiplying fronts, from Congress, the Trump administration, federal and state regulators and European watchdogs. The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have been investigating the four companies' practices.

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(With inputs from AP)