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The Android Administration: Google's Relationship With the Obama White House (theintercept.com)
theodp writes: The Intercept takes a look at Google's remarkably close relationship with the Obama White House, driving home its point with charts of When Google Visited the White House and how individuals have moved Back and Forth Between Google and Government. "Much of this collaboration could be considered public-minded," writes David Dayen. "It's hard to argue with the idea that the government should seek outside technical help when it requires it. And there's no evidence of a quid pro quo. But this arrangement doesn't have to result in outright corruption to be troubling. The obvious question that arises is: Can government do its job with respect to regulating Google in the public interest if it owes the company such a debt of gratitude?"
One interesting meeting The Intercept missed was a 2014 sit-down of Google and Microsoft execs with the head of the National Science Foundation and educators following a White House Hour of Code event, at which President Obama was 'taught to code' by Google-backed Code.org with Google-exec-turned-US-CTO Megan Smith looking on. Asked about the event in an interview, the President suggested the school system was to blame for his daughters not taking to coding the way he'd like. "I think they got started a little bit late," the President explained. "Part of what you want to do is introduce this with the ABCs and the colors." Less than a year later, the President sought to redress things with his Computer Science for All K-12 Initiative, citing Google-provided factoids ("Nine out of ten parents want it taught at their children's schools") to explain the need for the $4B budget request for the program.
One interesting meeting The Intercept missed was a 2014 sit-down of Google and Microsoft execs with the head of the National Science Foundation and educators following a White House Hour of Code event, at which President Obama was 'taught to code' by Google-backed Code.org with Google-exec-turned-US-CTO Megan Smith looking on. Asked about the event in an interview, the President suggested the school system was to blame for his daughters not taking to coding the way he'd like. "I think they got started a little bit late," the President explained. "Part of what you want to do is introduce this with the ABCs and the colors." Less than a year later, the President sought to redress things with his Computer Science for All K-12 Initiative, citing Google-provided factoids ("Nine out of ten parents want it taught at their children's schools") to explain the need for the $4B budget request for the program.
Government will never be completely free of corporate influence or corruption, so our expectations have to be realistic.
Keep the graft to the minimum necessary so that personal freedoms are not compromised. Accept that a government of the people will be flawed, like the people.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
It is a vocation, like mechanics, or plumbing, or typing.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Google has been highly influential in at least one area -- patents. The head of the USPTO and various high level patent judges are from Google. Google doesn't like software patents, and by some coincidence, software patents are being rejected right and left. So I think that they are getting their money's worth.
I'm going to be something bad here: I'm going to mention Gamergate. Setting aside the vitriol and the conspiracy theories, Gamergate was about the complicated relationship between journalists and the people who they report on. There was a game developer who befriended some journalists and eventually started to date one and who, independent of that, got some favorable press for her game. The question raised was: just how independent of that relationship was the press that she received? The individual who she dated stayed away from writing anything about her himself, but even if we give maximum credit to the integrity of his coworkers, a friendship, even a casual friendship, will influence a person's perspective on the subject and people who they write about.
::sigh:: No, of course not.
Journalistic integrity on this matter is blurry. A journalist is expected to maintain relationships with sources, but to somehow keep those relationships from perverting their perspective.
So... this was my thought immediately upon reading the summary here. We want industry representatives to stay out of Washington, but we need our legislators to act from an informed position. There needs to be some kind of relationship there, but exactly what that should look like is blurry. We've recently had a very public and very nasty "debate" over something very similar (though much less influential) and that's what immediately sprung to mind when I read this. Is there any chance that the debate here will be more civil?