1. Before Ms. Sandberg’s Senate testimony, Facebook lobbyists pushed lawmakers to refrain from questioning her about privacy, censorship and other issues, and to stick to election interference. The committee’s chairman, Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, was swayed and warned members to stick to the hearing’s planned topic, The Times reported Wednesday.
2. Facebook had also lobbied for the hearing to include a Google emissary of similar rank to Ms. Sandberg. Mr. Burr invited Larry Page, a Google co-founder, but he did not show up.
3. In an email days before the hearing, a Definers employee pressed a Times reporter to write that Facebook was taking the senators’ concerns seriously while Google was irresponsible for skipping the hearing.
4. The day before the hearing, NTK Network reported that Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, had suggested that Google was possibly a monopoly.
5. Those pieces were just two of at least 11 negative items NTK has posted about Google since late March.
Facebook really seems butthurt about Google. Instead of learning from Google about being transpernt on how they use user data, they basically dragged Google in the controversy, and I would say they have been pretty successful.