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Google vs. Evil
wideangle writes "'The world's biggest, best-loved search engine owes its success to supreme technology and a simple rule: Don't be evil. Now the geek icon is finding that moral compromise is just the cost of doing big business. Take Brin's decision to refuse all alcohol and tobacco advertising. The fact that Google accepts advertising for adult content sites is an intriguing commentary on Brin's morality: Cigarettes and booze are evil; porn is not. It's a policy that would become progressively harder to defend were Google to go public.'"
Alcohol and cigarettes kill people.
Pornography does not.
Cigarettes and booze are evil; porn is not.
It is pretty hard fact that cigarettes and booze are evil as far as health is concerned. However, porn is evil only as much as ideology / morality flags it as evil.
Personally, I would legalise all kinds of drugs, however the advertising should remain limited.
And yes, call me funny, but I just love to pull my stick and can't possibly see how porn could be evil.
Not everyone sees porn as "Evil".. that's largely a puritanical American ideal.
I am still amazed by the north american values that sex and nudity are BAD, and should be kept away from children at any cost, whereas violence is not...
Interesting article nonetheless, and fairly balanced. Seems Brin is using something that's in short supply nowadays - common sense. And there is (surprise surprise) a reference to Slashdot as well. To all those who generally just read the article summary and start posting, do read the article this time - it's fairly long, but it's worth it.
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Last time I checked(it's been a few months), Excite would not have advertisements on their site having to do with alcohol and tobacco but gladly had porn adverts on search results(those search results had something to do with porn). So how is what Google doing any different than Excite? Or TV for that matter. You rarely see alcohol ads and never tobacco ads anymore. But go on late night TV and you'll see ads for all sorts of Adult Phone Services and for different Adult Videos. Personally, I think Google is just following the mainstream.
Google isn't successful because it's Google. It's successful because lots and lots of people like what it's doing now, the way it's doing it now. If you change too much of that in the search for profits you'll change the reason people prefer to use it, and they'll go somewhere else that does do what they prefer. And there goes the very source of your success and revenue: the users you attract.
If you want to invest in a successful company but think it needs to be changed significantly, ask yourself why you aren't investing in a successful company that already works the way you think it should. If that's because all the companies that work the way you think they should aren't successful, maybe it's what you think that should change, not what the successful company is.
I don't really care what advertising they choose to accept, because ads on Google are clearly identified as such. If they choose to lose income by not accepting advertising for certain products, that's their business. I'm much more concerned about the search results started being tainted by either paid placements or Scientology-style censorship.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
The only thing I disagree with you there is having to be raised "with religion" to be a good person. I don't buy it. As long as your parents taught you decent morals, you don *have* to have to religion to be a good person.
It'd be in their perogative (again, it's their world, we just play in it), but I don't think it'd have any useful effect -- what, is the Dome of the Rock going to suddenly go secular because they can't advertise on Google?
Look, I take great pleasure in going to the shooting range and exercising my second-amendment rights. I also don't kid myself about what I'm doing, what the purpose of the tools really is and why I enjoy it so much. Guns are like cigarettes and booze in that way -- they're a real viceral thrill, and they're not a really good thing in the long haul.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
There are two groups of people in this world when it comes to morals.
One group "gets" their morality from "God". They say all morals are determined by a supreme omnipotent being, and without him, there is no morality. In other words, you cannot be a moral person without God.
A second group of people (the group that the Google guys likely belong to) believe that morals are simply unwritten rules that govern interactions between people. If there was only one person on the planet, there would be no need for morality. Their morality is usually determined by reason and logic. For instance, it's wrong to kill people (most of the time) because a society with rampant murder has less ability to advance than a society with no murder.
Many morals overlap with laws, but that does not mean that all morals should be made into laws. Murder is both usually immoral and illegal, but cutting in a line is immoral and not illegal.
The reason not all morals should be laws is simple. Those people who belong to group #1 have morals that have no basis in logic or reason, and their sole support is a being for which they have no evidence exists, and have no support that the "moral" indeed came from this being. In other words, the 1st Amendment protects us from this... Thanks Founding Fathers!
If you belong to group #2, it's hard to come up with a reason that porn is immoral. For porn to be immoral there must be something immoral with sex... I suppose one could argue that rampant sex could spread disease and hurt a society in the long run... but I don't really see how that applies to porn.
The Reagan administration told the NSF to do a study on how porn hurts kids. After 4 years of research, the panel told the administration that it is not porn that hurts children, it is our societies illogical, irrational, and puritanical views on sex that hurts kids. Just as there is little alcoholism in countries where wine is served to children and it becomes a normal part of life, there would be no harm to children if sex was not so taboo. Oh, by the way, Reagan threw the study out and commissioned a PRIEST to redo it. Not surprisingly, the Priest said porn hurts kids... and his "study" took less than a month.
In summary, it is quite easy to defend group #2's "scientific morality"... while it is certainly not as absolute as group #1's, as it needs to change as new evidence appears, it is far more likely to be the right thing to do.
That is the nice thing about freedom.
Goodgles CEO can decide what they want to do and not do, and you get to decide if you aggree or not and use them or someone else.
The KKK websites are most likely run in a way that would favour linking to sites about similar topics and refuse to link to pages not about the topics they want and deem 'right'.
That is their choice.
Just like its my choice to not go to their website ever.
Take away googles freedom to make this choice, and you have also taken away your freedom to choose _not_ to view sites such as the KKK's or anyone elses.
That isnt something I want.
Isn't it time for us to come down our moral high horse and take refreshed look at what/who we are demonizing in our 'modern' culture? Things are so topsy-turfy especially in the U.S. media landscape one can't help but be bewildered sometimes. Violence is mostly okay - how many times there are guns being fired at people during PG-13 rated TV shows? Some blood may flow, but if some bimbo reveals one of her private parts, then we file it under 'dirty' and it'll get cut. What's the big deal about exposing the human body in its original form? Obviously sex is a daily routine on our planet which has allowed us to grow our population to over 6 billion (despite countless wars and numerous forms of genocite). Little kids grow up among many negative influences including but not limited to: beatings, lying cheating, verbal abuse, agression, road rage, Duke Nukem, Super Mario Bros. etc.. Why in the world is sex and nudity labelled as 'dirty'? It's time to relinquish those antiquated religious artifacts and enter the 21st century.
It's not hard to figure out his reasoning here. Cigs and Booze are choices that people make at the ages of 18 and 21 respectively. Both can hurt you immensely (cancer anyone?).
Now, porn on the other hand, isn't a choice made at a certain age. Sex is a part of life. And while it can hurt you (STDs, Early Age Pregnancy, Child Support, etc.), it's not likely going to kill you. Sex is part of human instinct. Every species on the planet is born with the intuition to further itself through breeding. The only reason sex is considered "evil" in the mainstream is because of Religious Zealots who want you to think it's a sin.
It looks like it's just a case of choosing the lesser of two evils. If Google were to go public, I'd buy, porn or no porn. It'd just be a sound investment. I'm a big user of Google, as many other people are, I'm sure (well, those who change their default search from MSN to Google, anyway).
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
I have depended quite a bit on google for a while. They have succeeded so far in not being evil for the most part.
But a good search engine is such a fundamental part of the infrastructure of the internet- is it really wise to continue to depend on a company that makes no promises that tomorrow they won't start charging $100/month subscription to their service and patent-attack any competitors who get too successful?
Clearly my example, although possible, is far fetched. But I feel good using Gnu-Linux because RMS, Linus and others have promised, via the GPL, not to take it away. Can/should google or one of its competitors make a similar promise?
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Seems this is the first serious reply to your post so far.. So hope it is taken with more seriousness than the previous ones.
While i aggree in part with your post, there are things that just seem wrong from the way you projected your opinions.
Porn can be bad if it is used as a teacher.
Porn itself is not bad.
For example, porn as a teacher is bad for, among other reasons:
* It teaches that women arnt beautiful unless they have D +breast and/or implants, and that they need to shave their public hair to be attractive.
Both of those are quailitys i personally hate, and feel a woman should do to her body what SHE wants, not what she feels everyone else wants.
* It teaches that sex is over once the man has an oragasm, and that female oragams isnt importaint at all.
* It teaches that foreplay is only used as preperation for intercourse, not as a source of pleasure or as a equal part of love making.
* It teaches that you must be limited in the sexual acts you can do, namley only the things done in porn, and nothing else is OK.
So if a person learns about sex from porn, and nothing else, of _course_ they will be a horible lover.
Being a good lover requires learning about your partner, what they like, what they dont like, and responding to their needs while at the same time they are doing the same to you.
My question to you is, did you try to teach your wife yourself how to be a good lover as well?
If not, then its no wonder she is how she is, and you have no room to complain about it. TEACH HER!
If so, then I would question your teaching methods, your communication with her, or possibly her love (Read: concern) about you.
I have met women who were horible lovers, but I did my best to teach them otherwise, and in most cases did so very well.
But dont blame porn for teaching poor love making anymore than you should blame the internet or TV for being a poor babysitter.
That isnt what they are for at all. But that doesnt mean they dont have good uses and still have a place in the world.
Not much. It says more about you and your reasoning.
This is about ads and making choices about who to sell them to.
I don't see google actually blocking searches for booze,guns and tobacco, they just choose not to sell adspace to those industries.
They also index sites concerning rape, murder, war, hate crimes and a lot of other generally considered evils. But they don't sell ads for them.
Your argument is a logical fallacy and detrimental to the discussion. You are the weakest link, goodbye =)
But keep in mind that your wife is a tiny, tiny minority. People also get addicted to shopping, video games, you name it. You can't just start censoring everything that a few people get unhealthily addicted to. Just because your wife has a problem (or maybe you just don't do it for her?), doesn't mean that millions of sexually healthy people should also be deprived of porn. Most sex therapists say that porn in completely healthy and normal for most relationships.
Guns were useful agaisnt the Nazis, but think about it. Could the SS and the gas ovens been stopped by brave French equipped with hunting rifles?
Nope. It took diplomats. Generals. Bombs, planes, tanks, ships, codebreakers, balloons, radar, submarines, atomic bombs.
Guns were an expression of resistance, but they would not have won WWII against a German or Japanese empire. It took the intelligent cooperation of tens of millions of soldiers with all the resources of dozens of nations to stomp out a few determinted, self-righteous, God-appointed we're-doing-it-for-self-defense looney bin countries that convinced themselves they were only doing the right thing by attacking everyone else preemptively.
No gun in the hands of a citizen, or a million citizens, can "defend freedom". They can fire a few rounds off before the tanks and armored soldiers roll over their families and houses, or before they see a cruise missle go down their chimney, or a tailored virus is released into their water supplies. The era of the brave lone warriors never existed. It doesn't exist now. It's a fantasy.
If the U.S. government goes rogue under some pretext (such as the terrorist one), and they start doing things like, oh, detaining people in the dark of night, or executing citizens without trial, and everyone goes "Yay! We are safe!", no pile of Uzis under our beds will buy us freedom.
Oh, um. If everyone carries a gun, or has one in the house, the first order of business for any robber or attacker is to kill the victim on sight. The attacker almost always wins if they have the gun out and hit you by surprise. I've heard in many cases that muggers, for instance, in highly armed neighborhoods will shoot the victim first off, because it's almost a certainty the victim is carrying blade or gun.
Do *I* want guns banned? I don't think they can be banned. It'd be worse than Prohibition, and at least booze drinkers weren't drinking a killing machine when the police broke in.
But I don't think the guns are going to save us from the bad man, or a government gone insane. Only careful monitoring of our guvmint can save us from the latter -- and we're not monitoring -- and as for the bad men, they will always be with us.
Accepting ads for Scientology seems like helping Evil.