Who else is a company headquartered in the US that is willfully ignoring serious human rights concerns accountable to? This is exactly what government is for. And they certainly cared in 2007 when Yahoo was behaving similarly [0]. Hopefully Google doesn't want to become "moral pygmies".
All American companies operating in China, including all telecom companies, Apple, etc. are handing over all Chinese user info to the Chinese government.
As much as I think that's horrible, there are no laws in the US objecting to any of that.
There is a moral difference between providing information requested by government that already exists in the systems, and creating tools to assist in censoring information.
I would feel the same way if Google were to develop an additional surveillance tools in their products, such as e.g. recording all audio calls and/or giving government ability to remotely listen to smartphone's microphone.
> There is a moral difference between providing information requested by government that already exists in the systems, and creating tools to assist in censoring information.
Morals are personal values, so you should say "there is a moral difference for me between..."
> I would feel the same way if Google were to develop an additional surveillance tools in their products, such as e.g. recording all audio calls and/or giving government ability to remotely listen to smartphone's microphone.
What if the government mandated Google to do so, would you feel the same way?
The Chinese government mandated that Apple handed over all user data to it, and built all the backdoors to give the government access to it (stored by a government-controlled company). Is that different?
That was 11 years ago. All other big tech firms are doing business in China, by China's rules. Google used to be better than that. It's very sad that that's changing, but again it doesn't seem like something that's relevant for the House.
That's nice. Why bother questioning Google about an unreleased product when they can question any of the other big tech companies that _already_ do this?
Not really a comment on the topic, but I feel like name pollution is becoming a bigger and bigger deal recently. With Dropbox's Naultilus and DragonflyBSD and Google's Dragonfly, and like a hundred other examples, things can only get more and more confusing. Imagine talking to a Mathematician about a meager function, the word has two senses(common and mathematical). Things cannot improve the way we are heading.
Convening a hearing on a specific subject (silly as it as in this case) then making it an open season for all other grievances is another despicable aspect of these hearings.
We've banned this account, as we've banned many of your accounts before, for pushing propaganda for Google. Most recently https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17974966, and it goes back a long time before that. It's time you stopped abusing HN like this.
I hope it's obvious to everyone that it doesn't matter whether it's Google, $BigTechCo, or anything else being pushed this way. We have nothing against Google, this has nothing to do with what's in the press or making the rounds this week, and I'm sure that the many Googlers here are as put off by this behavior as the rest of HN. Plus they have an additional reason to be angry at you, for tarnishing their reputation.
Given that we spend our days asking HN users not to accuse each other of astroturfing without evidence—because doing that is such internet poison—few things make more steam come out my ears than finding actual evidence of this abuse. You couldn't do anything worse to wreck the cohesion of this community (edit: or put Google's standing in it more at risk—users here really care about this).
I don't see a unique human rights angel here, there are many companies doing business with China and a number of other "iffy" governments, if congress was truly alarmed by that they could sanction these companies.
This thing became about political retribution after google dropped maven.
To be clear, this isn't about doing business in China. It is about responding to 14 human rights organizations having serious concerns [0] about proactive censorship and support for surveillance. And I agree that Google is far from alone in crossing such ethical lines in Silicon Valley.
I'm not talking about Silicon Valley, I'm talking about all other industries in all countries, most Silicon Valley companies are banned in China, stop vilifying Silicon Valley.
I'm sure these organizations are great and are doing wonderful work but they are not government entities and Google has no obligation to respond to them, further more these are non profits, attaching themselves to a high profile subject like Google gives them more exposure and potentially more donations.
All your comments have at least two things in common.
1. A seemingly willful disreguard for the facts. 2. Another striking commonality that I can't aledge but a trip through your comments will bear out. The topic always seems to be common. The timing of the account creation is of course purely circumstantial. Draw your own conclusions, but to say that you are constructively adding to discussion would be a reach.
Please don't insinuate astroturfing in comment threads. If you think you're seeing abuse, email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate. We ban accounts when we find evidence of abuse (I've banned that one), but just dropping a comment in the thread makes it unlikely that we'll ever see it. It also poisons discussion in the case where the insinuation wrong, which is far more common.
How come national policy of the host country is only relevant to specifically China, though?
It's one thing to say "I won't censor and that's that", one could argue about which approach does more good/harm for the Chinese citizens affected, but it's an argument.
But the argument I'm seeing go around is a lot more like "fuck China specifically". Which doesn't seem to square with the other views activists generally espouse about foreign countries/cultures.
What exactly would an international corporation like Google gain if they'd start being a tool of American external politics and propaganda? Besides being kicked out of their other markets (EU, India, Russia) Trump considers enemies right now?
Respecting Article 19 of the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights [0] and concerns from 14 human rights organizations [1] is not America specific. It is about not secretly sacrificing basic freedoms in exchange for access to markets.
Honestly, Google should have seen it coming. They are literally dangling themselves out in front of the GOP, not that they don't deserve it. Building a mass surveillance system as described sucks for civil liberties anywhere. However, if they go after Google, they better go after the NSA's mass surveillance setup as it's not much different.
None of those will happen anyway because having companies like Google and Facebook based in the US is way too much of an intelligence advantage.
As long as they willingly cooperate with US intelligence interests, which they do, that long they will be able to do whatever they want.
It's a win-win situation for the US government: Have Google, Facebook and co. do the dirty work and get the bad rep, while US government looks like the good guy for occasionally poking at them, never demanding any real change, but still getting all the data.
I wasn't the one that downvoted you because there's a common misunderstanding that appearing before Congress is an optional invitation and therefore the people choosing to do it must be mentally insane or stupid since there's nothing to gain from it.
The reason people testify before Congress is because they ultimately have no choice. Congress has this nuclear option called a "subpoena"[1] to force you to appear.
Now, with prominent people like CEOs and baseball celebrities, it never escalates to the point of issuing a formal subpoena and having Federal marshalls arrest and forcibly drag them into Congressional chambers.
Instead what happens is that Congress members "ask nicely" for somebody to testify (e.g. Sundar Pichai) and then the CEO gets with his lawyers and then coordinates with Congress on a reasonable date to appear. Of course, the CEO can try some stalling tactics (e.g. talk to some Congress members "off the record", etc) to buy some time... but ultimately, he's going to have to face Congress sooner or later. The more promptly the requested witness willingly appears before Congress, the better it is for public perception.
It's better if the CEO shows cooperation with Congress. The totally opposite tactic is for the CEO to show up and refuse to answer any questions by constantly pleading the 5th Amendment through the entire proceeding. That would look really really bad.
> Instead what happens is that Congress members "ask nicely" for somebody to testify (e.g. Sundar Pichai) and then the CEO gets with his lawyers and then coordinates with Congress on a reasonable date to appear.
If Congress subpoenas someone, can they also compel them to testify under oath, opening them up to charges of perjury?
Yes of course. Just dont lie and you wont be open to charges of perjury. You can still plead the 5th amendment right to remain silent though if they are asking you something that implicates you in a crime.
Not appearing to be giving the finger to congress, as it looked when he failed to show up to the last set of hearings? Pissing off congress is rarely a good idea.
It's been a long time since Congress, who works for you and me, has in my opinion elucidated anything I didn't already know from one of these panels.
I'm not sure why Congress thinks it can at the drop of a hat order a CEO to participate in their media theatrics, and then pitch a fit when the company says "he/she is busy, we're going to send our top legal expert, who should know about the stuff you're concerned with (law) anyway."
The difference, of course, is that it may be under oath, and you can purjure yourself before congress.
That means what you think you know from things you read in the media might actually not be as truthy as what is said when someone has to sit down before a body that has the power to criminalize dishonesty.
And its an important tool for government. There are very public scandals that the people want answers for. You may say it fits nicely with the expectations of office that elected officials might get to the bottom of things that may effect large groups of their constituents.
Maybe he's paying one forward for favorable outcome regarding antitrust investigations. Cases like this don't appear overnight, and they take just as long to adjudicate.
I hope there is an "Snowden" inside Google that one day (soon) will expose how much Google knows about us. I hope he has a cousin working at Facebook too.
Im just going to say that the phrase: " biased against conservatives" sounds oxymoron. The "conservatives" that I keep hearing about on the "conservative" news sources, are IMO organizations that try to hinder and destroy any effort at evolving as humans. So, at what point can a company like google say: "Fuck those people" officially?
I'm so glad an accused rapist will join the supreme court without an FBI investigation, while republicans are trying to bully google out of censoring the horrible shit said by the right.
It's also a sign of of a "bad faith" argument typical with conservative trolling. None of these trolls will point to actual news reporting, they simply highlight editorial CNN/MSNBC content, completely ignoring actual, real news like convictions and guilty pleas.
The news to conservatives seems biased, but only because conservatives are breaking so many laws, and conventions.
While they both push BS, if you compare them to the rest of the worlds news sources you will see that most news align with CNN/MSNBC. Or let me put this way: The rest of the (educated) world laugh at the people that watch Fox News.
It's sad that the 'educated' laugh. You'd think with all their wisdom they would be able to reach out and save the feable minded. Instead they just laugh from the ivory tower. It's a sad world we live in. Even sadder that it's widely accepted as okay, even lauded.
The problem is that you can't save those that don't want to be saved, especially when there's an entire business and market pandering specifically to them.
If you've ever had family or friends that delve deep into conspiracies, there's no amount of rational argument, logic, data or facts you can bring up that help them.
Have you read CNN in the past 2 years? They are blatantly anti-trump and frequently push their 'analysis'(ie opinion) section as the top-billed story on their homepage.
The actual news and journalism that fox news and CNN puts out is fine. The opinion/analysis sections of both sites are heavily partisan in one way or the other though.
Both of those entities are news stations that own a website, not websites that run a TV station. The website is 10% of the picture.
More importantly.. check the results. A majority of Fox News viewers believe things like Obama was born in Kenya, or Saddam Hussein really had WMD, despite these being obviously false. Multiple studies by different organizations have indicated that Fox News viewers are less informed than no news viewers on any political topic involving 'alternative facts'.
Are the 'fox news viewers' there for the journalists, or there for O'Reilly, Hannity, etc - which is exactly what I was talking about. And you're taking a correlation and trying to say there is causation, which is invalid.
You're right, I was making a hard assumption that people's news sources inform their views on facts that are in the news.
I suppose it's also possible that the viewers have already decided they'd prefer to believe lies, and choose their news source accordingly. Doesn't exactly acquit the news station.
The assumption was that 'fox news' viewers view fox news for the news, and not for the opinion section, which is what I referenced in my first post in this thread. If Fox News news and CNN news are equally as informative, and Fox News opinion and CNN opinion are equally as un or anti-informative, it is still possible for Fox News viewers to be less informed than CNN viewers, if say 80% of Fox News audience tunes in for opinion section, vs only 50% of CNN audience tuning in for the opinion section.
Maybe they're just anti-criminal, anti-corruption or anti-treason? I read news from Reuters and the AP and stay away from Opinions. Let me share with you (in case you're just watching Fox News) - it isn't good for the GOP - criminals, traitors and corruption everywhere.
Nope. They are not all the same in how they handle the press.
Obama, for instance, once said some things indicating he was 'irritated' with Fox News. Trump thinks the press - the one mentioned in the 1st amendment of the US constitution - is an "enemy of the people" and has said so loudly.
So no, they're not all the same. I mean, I'm sure they'd all love it if the press fawned over them 24/7, but there are big differences between a Trump, Erdogan or Maduro, and, say, an Obama or McCain.
The prev admin prosecuted more leakers than any prev admin, current admin believes “ fake news” rather than “the press” are the enemy of the people. Now, I know they have their biased method to classify unbiased press from biased, but your assertion just reinforces their claim because you’re conflating one with the other, as most news are wont to do. Doing themselves little favor.
A fair question is to ask whether biased news or a biased press are preferable over a more neutral (non partisan) press.
If a biased press is not an issue, then “interference” from foreing interests are less of a problem, unless they are for reasons, categorized differently —-however, they would seem to be overarchingly about bias, except one is domestic and one is foreign.
Yes, that’s pretty much true and of course it’s regrettable. But on the other hand even news that like to think themselves as neutral, say NPR, will, when interviewing a partisan follow the pattern thus:
When interviewing liberals, don’t follow forcefully up on omissions or questinsble assertions.
When interviewing a conservative (regular, not Trumpist) will bring up omissions or will follow up on questionable assettions more forcefully.
Regarding campaiging, they will embed more with liberal candidates and follow progress more than with conservative candidates.
I’d be happy to know I’m wrong, but this is my take listening to NPR regularly.
I can't say I can agree with that in the slightest, especially regarding NPR. I would say that they refuse to follow up on those assertions with conservatives quite often.
As far as embedding, I believe that is at the discretion of the campaign.
Which is clearly an incorrect definition of the term. Fox News was only negative on Obama, yet I never heard him say they were the enemy of the people.
China has "disappeared" more than a million people recently as part of what is fundamentally an ethnic cleansing program. So, yeah, fuck China specifically.
Sure, but fairness would require a call for Google boycotting the US market in this case. Or maybe some moderation on the "boycott China because fuck them" stuff after sober reflection.
Although being equitable can be a form a fairness, not all fair things are equitable. In any event, I couldn't care less if it's unfair to China and I don't think anyone else should, either. These are separate problems you're deliberately conflating.
A lot of people in the US are unfairly locked up no doubt, and there is likely racial disparity in locking people up.
But it's not accurate to imply 2.2 African Americans are locked up simply for being African American. A certain number (somewhere between 1 and however many people are locked up) of all races, are rightfully locked up because they have committed actual crimes. Like violent crimes, not dealing weed.
TLDR: locking people up for theft or violence is not the same as locking people up for wearing beards or praying.
No, it's not. God I wish John Oliver never did that episode.
If you're singling out an entity as uniquely bad, and saying they should be treated in a unique way because of it, you have to justify that they're uniquely bad.
The problem is that hand wavy arguments that appear to be equivalent are are upon deeper inspection, not. But, by the time you dig and invest into clarifying the differences and nullifying the equivalence, you’ve already diverted from the original topic.
This is why it is used by Politicians and shitty news channels, and this is why whataboutism needs to stop. Let’s focus objectively on the topic at hand.
Furthermore, justification should be based on moral underpinnings, idealistic values, rule of law and societal norms.
By pointing fingers at (what may not be true equivalence), is a massive distraction. Stop it please.
The topic at hand is "fuck China specifically" in this subthread.
I point out similar behavior among other world powers, raise the question of what's so specific, and you call it whataboutism. You stop it. I was arguing to the topic in good faith.
It's fundamentally whataboutism. How does Google or any big tech company relate to the majority of police abuses against black people. The abuses in the US are fundamentally unaccountable police and police departments out in the field committing crimes against people without a voice. They are not demanding data from tech companies to arrest and disappear them for thought crimes. Google and Facebook operating in the US has actually helped shed light on these crimes.
They are two completely separate atrocities that are only discussed together to distract from one or the other depending on who is whatabouting.
You sure you're not bringing in a little nationalist bias there?
Even if you want to constrain the subject to specifically "dealing with central asian muslim separatists over the last couple decades".. seems a little tough for an American to argue with a straight face.
I appreciate the candor, though, so thanks. Nice to know the mental place this is coming from.
I know a lot of conservatives who were also dismayed at Trump's election.
Trump doesn't stand for, or enjoy the support of, all conservatives. In fact quite a few of his policies and actions directly contravene long-held conservative principles, like free trade and staying out of internal business decisions.
Maybe not intentionally, but as much as SV companies like to talk about unconsious biases causing discrimination, it never gets applied to supposedly neutral companies like Google that are currently being sued for how they discriminate against conservatives and white males. If their internal culture is constantly promoting liberal political ideals, would it really suprise you if the developers subconsciously create their products in a way that suppresses ideas they don't agree with? The same thing happened with Twitter where they were preventing only Republican Congress people from showing up on the news feed. They claimed to be neutral, yet somehow managed to implement an algorithm that affected 0 Democratic Congress people and a couple dozen Republican Congress people. Hopefully "Oops, it was the algorithm discriminating, not us" goes away as an excuse people accept.
I wouldn't find it suprising if Google punished conservative fake news more than liberal fake news. That said, I trust them infinitely more than the government. That's a huge conflict of interest, and the government has never been good at remaining impartial about anything. Just look at gerrymandering.
The response inside Google was "I will keep hounding you until one of us is fired. Fuck you." And Damore was fired for the memo; the person who wrote those words stayed on.
The Damore piece was blatantly filled with dog whistles and bunk science claims (specifically drawing a bunch of correlations) while also ignoring the history of software development / computer science as a whole.
It should be telling that after the fact he chose to idolize the KKK and proceeded to dox a bunch of Google employees for incredibly tame remarks in his class action lawsuit (of which I saw many images make the rounds in the alt-right media centralizing said information for obvious reasons).
Regardless his memo which he chose to release internally caused a massive divide among employees a Google. If Damore was kept on I imagine you would've saw a lot of talent proceed to leave the company. Additionally it's funny that you bring that up, considering there are a lot of people on the left that work at Google and feel like their views are being stymied.
You’ve just made my point that all these examples of “anti-conservative bias” are really just bigoted or mysogynistic positions that are dressed up with junk science.
The politics of private citizens are their own business and explicitly not the government's.
Furthermore even if that had any bearing on their search results whatever google presents on their own damn website is also none of the government's business.
I don't like the idea that Google or any other entity can control how I think by presenting only one side of a story when the other side may have a reasonable objection, because it does not fit the politics of the operators of a platform. This is within the spirit of free speech.
I think it fair to say that if Google wants to be a publisher, they should be held accountable to the content they publish. If they want to be a neutral platform, they should not favor any particular viewpoint
What you want and what the law allows are different things, also just don't let any entity control how you think.
As for 'being held accountable' as publisher, I'm sure you're aware of many publishers that favor one side or one "viewpoint" in fact it's most of them, and they aren't being held accountable for that because we live in a free country.
They (publishers) actually are held accountable for the stuff they publish (e.g., publishing copyrighted material w/o permission will land you in the courtroom). This is why FB/Twitter/YouTube do not want to be publishers. However, because of their approach to moderation, they could wander in those waters.
It's funny to hear someone only ever make this argument when what is being censored is conservative. If it were the opposite way, and they were blocking results on, say, the travel ban, or competing startups, people would be up in arms.
I don't know about the prevalence of other opinions but what I'm suggesting (and there are many legal precedents to support this) is that the first amendment shields them from this nonsense as well as any antitrust allegations and complains about how some entitles think they should be featured in their results.
Assuming that the testimony would be to a bipartisan group and presuming the polling is correct and the House flips to Dem control, could this be pushed back to 2019 and the GOP’s larger focus on political bias by Google de-emphasized? Wondering if that’s part of the play here.
If the House flips, that won't take effect til January. So the hearing will probably continue as scheduled, just with a Lame Duck Congress. Whether that means they'll be more blustery or less would remain to be seen.
EDIT: Also, here is a slightly better stub article with an actual quote from Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte. https://thehill.com/policy/technology/408972-house-judiciary...