Mr Pichai goes to Washington: The Google CEO testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee

During a grueling 3.5 hour congressional committee hearing today, Google CEO Sundar Pichai faced some tough questions around his company’s controversial project to build a censored search product in China.

Pichai could have used the opportunity to publicly scrap plans to build a version of his company’s core tool, code-named Dragonfly, that would block terms such as “human rights,” “Nobel Prize” and “student protest” from search results in China.

Republican lawmakers still believe tech companies are biased against conservatives — and it doesn’t look as though that’s going to change anytime soon.

A number of politicians accused Google of bias in its search results during a hearing with CEO Sundar Pichai on Tuesday. The main argument from some members of the House Judiciary Committee focused on the fact that a lot of Google employees are liberal, which is common among Silicon Valley tech companies.

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai will answer questions before the House Judiciary Committee today in what has become a critical moment for the company as it deals with a growing list of prickly ethical debates and controversies.

Tuesday’s public testimony will be Pichai’s first before Congress in a year in which many of his tech peers have also traveled to Washington. He notoriously declined an invitation to attend a hearing in September that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey attended. The Senate committee that held that hearing left an empty chair and nameplate in his place.

On Tuesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai will face a roomful of members of Congress demanding answers. One of the topics he’ll have to address is a growing area of concern from both the political left and right: His company’s previously secret plans to build a censored search engine in China.

Critics fear that the project, code-named Dragonfly, will enable the Chinese government to block its citizens from accessing information it doesn’t like and surveil its political opponents. A prototype of the product blacklisted specific search terms such as “human rights,” “Nobel Prize” and “student protest,” according to the Intercept.