Google As Alphabet Subsidiary Drops "Don't Be Evil"

CNet, The Verge, and many other outlets are reporting that with the official transition of Google (as overarching company) to Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google's made another change that's caught a lot of people's attention: the company has swapped out their famous motto "Don't be evil" for one with a slightly different ring: "Do the right thing." Doing the right thing sounds like a nice thing to aspire to, but doesn't seem quite as exciting.

Comments

Paved with good intentions...

[Mr Z]

Which road was that again?

Re:Paved with good intentions...

[Sabriel]

Odds the 13-year-old has been told where the bomb has been planted: low.
Odds the 13-year-old will make up something even remotely believable just to make the torturing stop: not low.
Odds the 13-year-old has been told, if at all, where the enemy wants you to believe the bomb has been planted: not low.
Odds the parents and neighbours of the 13-year-old didn't notice "large quantities" of bomb-making material being delivered: not insignificant.

Odds you will fuck up by torturing a 13-year-old to no avail and create a perception that the US government finds torturing children acceptable in the eyes of its citizens, its allies and its enemies: high.

Odds that even if the torture "works", you have created a perception that the US government finds torturing children acceptable in the eyes of its citizens, its allies and its enemies: high.

If I was your CO and you did this, even if you succeeded: arrest you and throw the entire damn book at you, because you just made that kid a martyr. AQ is not an existential threat to the nation, but agents of the state endorsing or carrying out the torture of minors? Are.

Until someone decides

[Stonent1]

That being evil is the right thing to do. You know, ends justify the means and all that jazz...

What if the right thing to do is evil?

[ZipK]

I guess if you've dropped "don't be evil" and adopted "do the right thing," the answer is pretty clear.

Re:What if the right thing to do is evil?

[aaron4801]

The Right Thing for civilization isn't usually evil. The Right Thing for shareholders often is.

"Do the right thing...."

[Gaygirlie]

"....for the stockholders' wallets."

I know I won't be holding my breath here!

Re:"Do the right thing...."

[NewtonsLaw]

You've nailed it. "Do the right thing" is highly ambiguous when compared to their previous motto.

Clearly they want the wiggle-room because doing "evil" can sometimes be highly profitable.

Re:"Do the right thing...."

[geekmux]

You've nailed it. "Do the right thing" is highly ambiguous when compared to their previous motto.

Clearly they want the wiggle-room because doing "evil" can sometimes be highly profitable.

Wiggle room? That's a laugh.

Tell me, who exactly are the ignorant fools on this planet who believe that Google to date has lived up to any motto as they thrive very well in the unethical and immoral world of capitalism?

Point here is I see no reason to bullshit customers with pointless mottos or trying to claim they need "wiggle room" when their revenue-generating priorities will guarantee they won't care enough to follow them, especially when answering to shareholders who care about one fucking thing, and that one thing sure as hell ain't being right.

Well, come on

[93 Escort Wagon]

It's been obvious for several years they haven't been using "don't be evil" as any sort of guiding principle anyway. Then and now, it's just a motto - useful for PR purposes but not much else.

Do the right thing...

[Ecuador]

Do the right thing... for whom? Without a specifier it does not tell us anything. It is definitely not the same as "don't be evil", although we've figured out that Google has not followed that mantra for a while now (not at Apple levels yet!).

Google is keeping "don't be evil"

[loosescrews]

From TFA:

Even though Google is underneath Alphabet, its own, more specific code of conduct remains largely the same, and it retains the "don't be evil" motto. And since most of Alphabet's employees work at Google, that means "don't be evil" is still very much alive and well in Mountain View.

It is just Alphabet that is dropping it.

Re:Google is keeping "don't be evil"

[Anonymous Coward]

What part of the alphabet? The letters N, S, and A? Or C, I, and A? Or is that F, B, I, D, E, A?

Re:Googlers generally apply those words ..

[Opportunist]

What now, do the right thing or follow the law? C'mon, make a decision, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Millennials and "codes of conduct".

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone explain to me why Millennials are so gung-ho about "codes of conduct", and why they're so hypocritical about them?

To see what I'm talking about, read these comments about the creation of an open source code of conduct template.

It's unbelievable. A number of the participants in that discussion claim to be against discrimination, yet they're actively pushing for it to be deemed completely acceptable to discriminate against people who happened to have been born with white skin and a penis!

To many Millennials, a "code of conduct" isn't something to help keep social interaction civil. It's actually a weapon that they use against those whom they dislike.

Re:Millennials and "codes of conduct".

[fyngyrz]

To many Millennials, a "code of conduct" isn't something to help keep social interaction civil. It's actually a weapon that they use against those whom they dislike.

Power corrupts. It's always been true, and it's still true. That's why a focus on personal and consensual choice, "your right to swing stops at my face", and liberty in general is needed to keep the error rate down to a dull roar -- just about every committee or action of a legislature is an act of exerting power. Far too often, that power is inappropriately construed, far too often that power is inappropriately applied. Classing is another wielding of power that consistently proves to be used as a means of harm and revenge. I can think of numerous examples in the technical realm, from ridiculous and irrelevant "certifications" to college degree requirements regardless of your knowledge and experience, to portions of the GPL.

As for millennials, this didn't start with them, not even close. As a 60-year old fellow, I could go on for pages with accurate stories about social codes of conduct that were (and in many cases still are) used as attempts to bludgeon people into compliance with everything from superstition (by which I primarily mean various aspects of religion), to the red scare, to the 'Murica mindset, to the ridiculously exaggerated "sex trafficking" nonsense, to drug use and the drug war, slut shaming, gangsterism, terrorism, and so on. Seems to me that you're probably just finding the millennials more annoying because for whatever reason, their behavior has clashed with your outlook -- which is not to say anyone is right or wrong, just that there's an up-front conflict.

Re:Millennials and "codes of conduct".

[mrbester]

Jesus fucking Christ that thread was painful to read.

That so many are so hell bent on pushing their agenda of having the right to be offended and the power to decry / denounce / ban anyone they don't like for whatever reason (usually based on their own flawed perception of a utopia where everybody thinks exactly like they do) is pitiful.

Has a name been attributed (a la Godwin) to the death of a thread when someone writes "Check your privilege"? Because apart from "Go fuck yourself" there isn't any response to it.

Re:Millennials and "codes of conduct".

[Intrepid imaginaut]

You can change your behaviour. You can change your opinion. You can even change your religion. You can't change the colour of your skin or whether or not you were born with nuts, drastic surgery excluded. That's why making racism and sexism of any sort acceptable, in particular under the flag of some warped version of "justice" is particularly dangerous. Because once it becomes acceptable to hate there is no final destination, it keeps on rolling until someone rolls it back, and no matter which direction the pendulum swings the situation is usually worse than it was to begin with. That's the difference.

There's a good reason collective punishment is usually viewed as a war crime. If you go down that road you end up asking why people with white skin, English, Irish, French, American, Polish, Russian, all of them aren't generally being punished for the crimes of the Nazis generations later, or even just Germans. Or why stop there, maybe Mongolia owes Iran reparations for the actions of Genghis Khan. Islamic states should pay for the conquest of Spain perhaps?

Some peoples' attitudes do need to change but what the "millennials", which is to say that subset of American youth who've been fed various offcolour sociological activist theories - not an entire generation by a long shot - need to understand is that if you rope in everyone as guilty you end up creating a reaction and creating problems which never needed to exist in the first place.

Re:Millennials and "codes of conduct".

[DoofusOfDeath]

Can anyone explain to me why Millennials are so gung-ho about "codes of conduct", and why they're so hypocritical about them?

Well, I could be wrong but I suspect every generation has had problems with snobbish moralism and hypocrisy. I've heard that August Caesar claimed himself to be a first amongst equals. But I would have hated to be anyone who in his presence dared treat him as an equal. About 2000 years ago, the Jews had a group known as the Pharisees, whom Jesus is said to have excoriated for excelling at making sure everyone around them saw how well they followed Jewish ceremonial law, but ignoring God's moral laws. I.e., they were sanctimonious jerks. Etc.

But I think the bigger issue is that many of these organizations espouse code of ethics which are internally inconsistent, and yet they won't admit that. They won't admit that people might hold different moral viewpoints for reasons which are just as defensible as theirs.

For example, Google says (said) "don't be evil". But there are different groups which have very incompatible views on what's evil: Pro-lifers vs. Planned Parenthood; conservatives vs. liberals vs. libertarians vs. anarchists; Christians vs. Muslims vs. atheists; Taliban vs. the Boston Symphony, etc. It's pretty clear that Google doesn't limit its actions to only those which all of those groups consider to be not evil.

So which of those groups' definitions of "evil" does Google willingly transgress? That's how you know which religions they consider false, which ethnic groups' beliefs they consider outmoded, etc. But they will not admit this fundamental truth of moral logic. Making them, in addition to everything else, disingenuous hypocrites.

Another problem is that organizations try to side-step the issue of whose ethics are correct, but saying that the real problem is causing offense. But this means that the most-offended person in the room gets the power to suppress the speech or actions of anyone with whom he disagrees. Some of whom find that, well, offensive. It stinks of sophism inspired by the fear of lawsuits.

There's some big philosophical differences.

[RyanFenton]

Evil, outside of special pleading for a particular belief system, is usually framed in terms of actively choosing the harm of others (even if it is masked in deniability). There's some very important meaning in 'don't be evil' that I always liked. Even if some evil is deemed unavoidable by sheer weight of circumstances in life, the general policy should still be to avoid it if at all doable, by any philosophy I'd respect..

"Do the right thing", however, is utterly subjective. Genocide can be seen as the right thing, by a great many, many belief systems, as could complete elimination of all other belief systems. Complete stagnation lies down most 'pure' roads. Utter evil, the complete willingness to harm others at a whim, is constantly 'justified' in the name of most ideals taken in isolation.

I suppose that's a problem with business groups though - the more people involved, the more push to 'optimize' towards some ideal that gets so important, that 'evil' is no longer a limitation. All groups do evil, because there are people involved, but most businesses seem to become blind to their own evil as they grow, until they specialize in mostly doing that evil. Well, until those outside the group start reacting to their actions, then they seem to asymptotically bounce against, and push out the ethical line.

Fortunately, the end result isn't so horrible, by most standards, basically ever measurable aspect of culture has reliably improved over time, from freedom, to intelligence scales, to health and others - but it's just interesting how groups specialize and play such strange roles.

Ryan Fenton

We're google, we dn't care because we don't hve to

[Anonymous Coward]

They did the right thing...and decided to be honest.

We have been doing evil for a long time now and it is time we come clean. We are a corporation and as such are legally obliged to make our shareholders money. Sometimes it comes as collecting data on you to sell better ads. Other times it is making spying software for the government using your tax dollar.

The gloves are off

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Without the "Don't Be Evil" mandate, Google can now do all sorts of wonderful things like collecting data on every mouseclick and page visit, correlate it with your credit card spending data, insurance records, search history, phone records, mortgage info, geo-tracking data, and use it to flood you with tailored ads. Oh, wait, they already do that.

Re:They're the same..

[phantomfive]

Which is why Google has no problem collecting your information, and advertising to you based on that.
They don't consider that evil.

Re:Has a nice Machiavellian ring to it, don't you

[mrbester]

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive."

C. S. Lewis

Summery is Wrong

[Paxtez]

Google's code is still 'Don't be evil.'

https://investor.google.com/co...

Alphabet, the new company that Google is a part of, has it's own code that is the 'Do the right thing'.

But that's a much less interesting headline.