Tech glitch helps Bezos from intense grilling as he snacked

San Francisco, July 30 (IANS) Don’t just blame your internet service provider for the patchy network during video calls at home as even Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced technical glitches during the US Congress panel hearing into their companies’ anti-competition practices, along with Apple and Google.

Bezos appeared as a “tiny box on a large TV screen” before the Antitrust Subcommittee that grilled Zuckerberg, Bezos, Sundar Pichai of Google and Tim Cook of Apple for nearly five hours on Wednesday.

As Bezos began his opening remarks, his image was expanded to take up the whole TV screen, but it appeared that the Cisco Webex video conferencing service only showed a blank screen.

“He was put back into a gallery of more than a dozen small boxes as he continued to speak,” reports CNET.

The screen went blank as Bezos started his opening remarks.

The billionaire CEO escaped questioning for about an hour due to the technical glitch.

The world’s richest person was also caught snacking on camera during the hearing via videoconference.

At one point, Bezos forgot to take his microphone off mute. He also fumbled his way throughout the virtual hearing.

Later, when Zuckerberg spoke, his image was clear but choppy.

“As he told lawmakers about Facebook’s position in the advertising and video markets, the low frame rate made him look like he was in a stop-motion film. The issues persisted as he answered questions,” the report mentioned.

Amid intense grilling on issues that centred on market power derived from uninhibited collection and access to data, all four CEOs focused their attention on the value of their innovations and services to consumers.

They testified via video link to lawmakers in Washington DC.

–IANS

na/vd