Google Critic Ousted From Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant (nytimes.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A researcher at a high-profile Washington, D.C.-think tank, which receives funding from Google, was pushed out after criticizing the company. In June, Barry Lynn, who was a scholar at New America, posted a statement praising the European Union's record $2.7 billion fine against the company. Lynn ran a team, Open Markets, that researched competition policy and was increasingly critical of giants like Google and Amazon. Google executive chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt, criticized Lynn's statement to the think tank's CEO, Anne-Marie Slaughter, according to The New York Times. Schmidt chaired New America until 2016. The think tank has received $21 million from Google and Schmidt's family's foundation since its founding in 1999. The statement reportedly disappeared from the think tank website but returned hours later. According to the Times, word of Schmidt's displeasure spread across the think tank. Slaughter fired Lynn days later, saying in an email obtained by the Times that "the time has come for Open Markets and New America to part ways." Slaughter told Lynn in an email that his firing was "in no way based on the content of your work," but said he was "imperiling the institution as a whole." Lynn told the Times he believed his dismissal was because he criticized Google.

Comments

New Slogan

[Anonymous Coward]

Google: let's be evil.

Re:New Slogan

[PoopJuggler]

How is firing people who aren't meeting expectations "evil"? You can't just take this guy's word -- every blowhard thinks he was fired for some nefarious reason, but usually it's because they're just horrible people to deal with and everybody in the office hates them.

Re:New Slogan

[ewibble]

Ok I don't know why he was fired, neither do you, but the appearance of bias is almost as bad as actual bias. It takes away legitimacy from the think tank. It is like google is above firing people they disagree with (https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/8/8/16106728/google-fired-engineer-anti-diversity-memo). A person should have the right to express their opinion weather or not you agree with it. If your think beliefs can't stand up to scrutiny then they can't be very sound beliefs.

If you are going to have a think tank, the need have opposing opinions, otherwise you come up with a predetermined solution. I you set up group to decide what color you should paint a wall, and your criteria for picking them is they want the wall to be pink, guess what you are going to get a pink wall.

If google has the power to push out people it disagrees with then you don't have a think tank, you have a lobbing tool for google. In reality that is what a "think tank" is, but it shouldn't be.

Re:New Slogan

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you are going to have a think tank, the need have opposing opinions, otherwise you come up with a predetermined solution."

I don't think you understand what think tanks are for. They are for exactly this. They are to provide a facade of credibility to a body that is pushing an agenda of one sort or another.

Re:New Slogan

[drinkypoo]

Snarkiness aside, this is not capitalism

Capitalism is defined as an economic system in which capital controls the means of production. How is this not capitalism?

nor is it free market.

Google wasn't getting what it was paying for, so they decided that he shouldn't get paid any more. How is this not the free market?

Understandable

[volodymyrbiryuk]

The so called think-tanks are institutions for lobbyism and public opinion manipulation in favor of the funding company. In other word a propaganda machines. Lynn didn't do what he iwas payed to do and got fired. Stop pretending like his job was to be objective in the first place.

Well, duh

[JohnFen]

He who pays the piper calls the tune.