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Senior Google Scientist Resigns Over 'Forfeiture of Our Values' in China (theintercept.com)
A senior Google research scientist has quit the company in protest over its plan to launch a censored version of its search engine in China. The Intercept: Jack Poulson worked for Google's research and machine intelligence department, where he was focused on improving the accuracy of the company's search systems. In early August, Poulson raised concerns with his managers at Google after The Intercept revealed that the internet giant was secretly developing a Chinese search app for Android devices. The search system, code-named Dragonfly, was designed to remove content that China's authoritarian government views as sensitive, such as information about political dissidents, free speech, democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest. After entering into discussions with his bosses, Poulson decided in mid-August that he could no longer work for Google. He tendered his resignation and his last day at the company was August 31. He told The Intercept in an interview that he believes he is one of about five of the company's employees to resign over Dragonfly. He felt it was his "ethical responsibility to resign in protest of the forfeiture of our public human rights commitments," he said.
I have quit jobs that I felt has turned me into a bad person, and I would look in the mirror and realized I wasn't happy with what I had became.
Sure we all have jobs that we may not like or disagree with, but if you have a moral objection to it, you should quit your job. If you are Senior Data scientist, Google may have a harder time replacing your job. But I am sure they will find someone to fill the gap. But the thing is, we can't always change the world, but at least we can feel good about our current place in it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You people can imagine something like this in the Steve Jobs company? And in Microsoft or IBM? How this companies would handle this?
...James Damore would have quit because of this.
Google works with the NSA to spy on everyone in the US and most of the rest of the world too.
Google is not your friend.
It is a monster.
For some of us this is already apparent.
of course details would matter, but if you're sure that your resignation would not stop the project, would it be more ethical to sabotage it from within?
to say some blathery corpspeak, complete with hand-waving and other distractions.
The tech world are not all that into free speech anymore, specially not those coming out of Silicon Valley. ;)
L'Idiot
The IEEE has a code of ethics. I think it applies to Google's actions.
This is a shocking turnaround for Google. They were so benevolent before this whole China thing.
The significant majority of Google employees are happy to censor information detrimental to their preferred politics.
It does make me wonder, why did Jack Poulson not notice similar behavior in the general search engine?
Unfortunately, many people will be willing to take his place.
Wait until Google starts censoring what can be seen and said in the West to satisfy their capitalist greed for the next dollar. Maybe it is happening right now. If their Communist masters are not turning the screws on Google now, they will. Don't doubt it.
E Proelio Veritas.
the issue of mass political censorship, population-wide surveillance, and social control, is not JUST due to Google, or Facebook, or the others. It's systemic, from the loss of control over the core mechanisms of personal computing which has been happening drip by drop since the 1980's or early 90's.
How was that control lost? People just... gave it away. One drip at a time. Without a care in the world because they got to think just a little bit less.
There was a war over personal computing and it has been lost by the good guys. Now people around the world are starting to pay for it.
Good job, Facebook and Google customers. Nicely done "cloud computing" supporters. Slow clap.
...was jack poulson ...his name was jack poulson...
Do not be evil.... unless it makes lots of money. So, be evil almost always.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
bet he had no problem taking all that sweet spying money for Google before he thought he could get all righteous.
What will they do when Google has to implement similar European requirements of pre-filtering and removing "content inciting violence"? Or is that only when countries we don't like do stuff like that?
Everybody working internationally faces this dilemma: Lets go design and build some luxury bomb shelters for Saddam. US says its fine since Saddam is the savior of the Gulf and the opposing force to the evil student upraisers of Iran, which we don't think are really evil. Oh and the Saudis need telecommunication monitoring devices. Lets put those in the cargo bay as we go.
And that's being unprofitable in a huge country like China.
If I were to take a contrarian view of this, I would ask: "What is the difference between Google censoring search results based on the public security laws of China, versus Google censoring search results based on the copyright laws of the USA and EU?"
Why didn't this researcher resign over the 2nd instance?
It seems pretty ripe to claim Google is forfeiting values in China, when it's applying the very same values of control over the populace in the U.S. by removing many kinds of YouTube videos it does not like, either for content or ideology.
If you are removing content based on ideology, you have no reason to claim any moral high ground over China.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
These are the people you're hiring.
The type of people who don't simply quit, but quit then tell anyone who'll listen about it (and likely making a little cash off it, too).
Sort of weird you have people protesting inside your company, right?
Maybe you should develop an algorithm to detect the pattern here.
So you're implicitly saying violence-inciting content should be legally permissible even though in almost all countries it isn't, including ours. Kind of moronic pseudo-victimstance so far, until you're actually censored inappropriately.
Google's always had a cozy relationship with the Deep State, and has been helping the Pentagon develop software for drones used to blow up people that have never done a thing to the United States, in countries where war has not been declared. But the straw the breaks the camel's back for this guy, is giving the Chinese government a fraction of the capability enjoyed by the CIA/NSA/FBI?
And please, nobody come in with the line that Google's code is to make drones more accurate so they kill fewer innocent bystanders, only the targets of the strike (who are almost always innocent themselves). The U.S. military couldn't give the tiniest, greenest little shit about civilian deaths - like when it spent hours bombing a MSF hospital that it knew was a hospital, and went on bombing it as doctors were furiously calling to say they were bombing a hospital. That terror attack was carried out with a gunship, but drones have been used to carry out "double tap" strikes against survivors or first responders to the first drone strike, which is also terrorism.
A company known to snoops on people around the world via browsing, devices (phone, computers, browsing habits, email communication), having backdoors in their email clients for government was not enough for this guy to quit.
It took censorship for a country that he doesn't live in for him to decide it didn't met moral standards, before deciding to quit.
Strange logic.
Nobody would want to work at Google if 'moral' is the thing
oh wait.... that doesn't apply anymore.
Do the right thing. There... way more open to interpretation.
Carry on.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
He will be replaced in an hour or two
Google dropped "Do No Evil" from code of conduct in 2015, so who gives a F about values there?
It's not hard to understand why they removed that from the company's values...
Google's jews funded by CIA InQTel and main funder of slashdot. Isn't that right whipslash? They hold your purse strings traitor from BizX DUBAI control. JEWgle is for seeing how a goyim cattle herd moves to control it via spin/damage control FAKE NEWS (from fake jews).
"* conservatives and trump supporters claim they have been targeted by google through censorship, blocking, shadow banning , etc,. some have indeed been subjected to all that" = Bullshit. Violate TOS and your ass is gone.
President Xi dictator & his DAVOS fake jew allies said they would crush Trump & the US @ Davos (look it up). President Xi dictator & his DAVOS fake jew allies said they would crush Trump & the US @ Davos (look it up). Khazar Talmudic Jews believe this of all they call goyim/gentiles (any non-jew): Jews = biggest racists of all for which they "jew guilt" you for no less! They're hypocrites known as thieves all thru history or were Argentines in the 1940 under Peron, Spanish inquistion, France (1306), Egypt (despoiled/robbed by jews), Arabs (pre & post 1948), England (1330 Edward longshanks), Romans under titus, Russia pogroms and Germany who got rid of them from their nations nazi german's too? No. Driven into DESERTS ages ago! Don't wonder why after all those exilings above.
Should anyone doubt any of this see Jacob Javits' crony Rosenthal spill the beans on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4zMVZ8HnFI/ where he called all Christianity fools for helping Israel and the biggest scam of all time per their beliefs below from their Talmud.
This is the province of the synagogue of Satan (Pharisees whom Jesus Christ himself kicked to the curb out of the temple & they killed him for it. Jeremiah did the same to them also + the Essenes could not stand them either breaking away from the pharisee corruption):
Jew Talmud excerpts (the book that calls Christ's mother a whore & a bastard of a roman soldier):
1. Sanhedrin 59a: "Murdering Goyim is like killing a wild animal."
2. Abodah Zara 26b: "Even the best of the Gentiles should be killed."
3. Sanhedrin 59a: "A goy (Gentile) who pries into The Law (Talmud) is guilty of death."
4. Yebhamoth 11b: "Sexual intercourse with a little girl is permitted if she is three years of age."
5. Schabouth Hag. 6d: "Jews may swear falsely by use of subterfuge wording."
6. Hilkkoth Akum X1: "Do not save Goyim in danger of death."
7. Hilkkoth Akum X1: "Show no mercy to the Goyim."
8. Choschen Hamm 388, 15: "If it can be proven that someone has given the money of Israelites to the Goyim, a way must be found after prudent consideration to wipe him off the face of the earth."
9. Choschen Hamm 266,1: "A Jew may keep anything he finds which belongs to the Akum (Gentile). For he who returns lost property (to Gentiles) sins against the Law by increasing the power of the transgressors of the Law. It is praiseworthy, however, to return lost property if it is done to honor the name of God, namely, if by so doing, Christians will praise the Jews and look upon them as honorable people."
10. Szaaloth-Utszabot, The Book of Jore Dia 17: "A Jew should and must make a false oath when the Goyim asks if our books contain anything against them."
11. Baba Necia 114, 6: "The Jews are human beings, but the nations of the world are not human beings but beasts."
12. Simeon Haddarsen, fol. 56-D: "When the Messiah comes every Jew will have 2800 slaves."
13. Nidrasch Talpioth, p. 225-L: "Jehovah created the non-Jew in human form so that the Jew would not have to be served by beasts. The non-Jew is consequently an animal in human form, and condemned to serve the Jew day and night."
14. Aboda Sarah 37a: "A Gentile girl who is three years old can be violated."
15. Gad. Shas. 2:2: "A Jew may violate but not marry a non-Jewish girl."
16. Tosefta. Aboda Zara B, 5: "If a goy kills a goy or a Jew, he is responsible; but if a Jew kills a goy, he is NOT responsible."
17. Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat 388: "It is permitted to kill a Jewish denunciator everywhere. It is permitted to kill him even before he denounces."
18. Schulchan Aruch, Choszen Hamiszpat 348: "All property of other nations belongs to the Jewish nation, which, consequently, is entitled to seize upon it without any scruples."
19. Tosefta, Abda Zara VIII, 5: "How to interpret the word 'robbery.' A goy is forbidden to steal, rob, or take women s
Is this deliberate disinformation? As someone who visited most countries you listed (some of which are indeed on the sadder side of democracy) I can assure you that none are so incredibly authoritarian as China. Not even Thailand... which is a monarchy governed by a military junta, by the way.
Social credit scores defining not only your life but also where your child is allowed to go to school/university? Government-sanctioned lists of celebrities that conform to party values? Activists of all kinds pre-emptively locked-up for no reason before sensitive dates come up? And even where there is some lip-service to the rule of law, such as in Hong Kong, its total boots-in-your-face disregard whenever party interests are involved.
Come on. This is supposed to be North Korea stuff. Unless you are one of the princelings taking advantage of the Chinese people wake up and stop defending this crap.
Google Search is already censored worldwide: torrents, EU's "right to be forgotten", DMCA, copyright filters, etc. It's a matter of degree, not of substance. I find much more concerning whether the Chinese Government will use Google Search for surveillance.
Who to root for?
On the one hand, China clearly does not derive from Europeans, so they must be good. OTOH, they clearly do some not so good things ...
And Google has to be good for being on the "right" side of so many issues and "nudging" people in the progressive direction, yet here they are willing to sell their souls for money in China, which is bad ...
Enough to make one's head hurt.
Or not (as a VERY small number of people have chosen to do) - everybody has their price, and he clearly wasn't offered enough.
Hasn't anyone noticed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCi_PIz5ekU
fight club !
read the word "real life"
That's fine but google continues on without those that served as its moral compass. What do the rest of us intend to do about it?
Nothing seems the most likely response.
I don't blame the guy at all for doing that. Google once had a motto of "don't be evil", but they left that behind a long time ago in favor of "profit over all".
Sometimes you have to lead by example and make damned sure that people know you're doing it. If enough key people leave Google then maybe they'll get the idea that the direction they're going is wrong and counterproductive in the long term.
"* conservatives and trump supporters claim they have been targeted by google through censorship, blocking, shadow banning , etc,. some have indeed been subjected to all that" = Bullshit. Violate TOS and your ass is gone.
Google doesn't "shadow ban" anybody, that's a Twitter invention.
Google does censor it's web results, they take money to do just this.
They also censor their search results, pruning out stuff that their software deems uninteresting to their clients.
That conservatives hold that Google has used these tools to shape public opinion contrary to their opinions follows from the above facts.
I believe that conservatives are correct, that their views do get "censored" by Google, but not necessarily intentionally. What happens is the conservative view gets trampled under the huge volume of internet information generated by liberal sources, news, media, entertainment and the like. It is a question of volume and at it's core Google was initially designed to rate its search results based on "relevance", looking for those pages with the highest volume, highest number of links to them. This really isn't Google doing this on purpose, it's about the technology and volumes of information flowing.
No problem stifling conservative speech here in the US.
See subject: Your MASSIVE FAIL in this life is you're nothing more than a chattering little do-nothing "ne'er-do-well" online & you know it...
* Is that the best your "phantasyland FAKE NAME" (for your fake lie of a so-called 'life') can manage?
When a FAKE NAME do nothing like YOU does better than I have? Then talk (you're all talk & no action)...
You can't help you're an immature little BUTTHURT no-mind, lol! I blew you away in TONS OF PLACES and easily dust your no-mind bullshit blatherings.
APK
P.S.=> The TRUE PRICE of your UNIDENTIFIABLE FAKE NAME do-nothing selves like you that I can ALWAYS CASH IN ON (lol) is that I can use FACT/TRUTH on them to SHATTER their all TOO fragile delusional egos that they actually know A DAMN THING in computing, lol... apk
The parent was posted by Alexander Peter Kowalski, a racist, Nazi, spammer, and creator of useless hosts file software.
He'll be butthurt about my post and probably demand to know what I did better. The answer is that I didn't post that racist spam to Slashdot and I don't spend my life spamming about crapware. It's addition by subtraction.
I approve of the guy, google doesn't need China to censor things though. (After he resigned) Google has decided to delete Syrian youtube channels as the US and some NATO pawns threaten to attack them.
Here are a couple articles. Fuck, I almost didn't post them because we somehow have to apologize for linking to content from RT.
https://www.rt.com/news/438328-destroyer-mediterranean-tomahawks-syria/
https://www.rt.com/usa/438324-nikki-haley-syria-idlib/
-----
Here we are again with APK posts on this story, and I was willing to say, can Slashdot do something about it? But no, I don't want Slashdot to do something, this get modded to -1 and even at 0 it is hidden by default. Google can do that in an even better way by deranking and shadow banning, but they've taken to deleting content. This mean they might delete google AMP news articles then, and eventually delete thousands of articles published over a decade at the flip of a switch.
For the vast majority of the human species. . . . Wealth will always trump Morals / Ethics
Early on, Google had delusions about doing the right thing, but money corrupts everything it touches and you see where Google is today.
Imagine where they will be tomorrow :|
Secret program gives NSA, FBI backdoor access to Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft data
That article came out five years ago - and was about a five year old program. Google has been in bed with these guys for a loooong time.
Your fascist butthurt in response to facts is noted.
The linked article - and the sections you quoted - literally has absolutely nothing to do with the steam of nonsense you originally posted. But your kneejerk desire to call everyone "fascist" certainly reinforces the accuracy of my original assessment ...
Your software is just fine - well written, functional... I'm going to continue using the Host File Engine by mmell February 17, 2017
Your premise that hostfiles are a good way to deal with advertising and malvertising is quite valid - by JazzLad April 20, 2016
his hosts program is actually pretty good by xenotransplant August 10 2015
his hosts tool is actually useful for those cases in which one does indeed want to locally block stuff outright while consuming minimum system resources by alexgieg September 25 2015
I like your host file system by Karmashock September 09 2015
I personally use a HOSTS file blocker produced from a genius called APK by 110010001000 October 27 2017
* Want more? 30 reviews by registered /.ers on quality/efficacy of my work (not yours that doesn't exist) https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12478398&cid=57130680/ https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12478398&cid=57137806/ https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12478398&cid=57137868/ https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12478398&cid=57137916/ https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12478398&cid=57137944/
P.S.=> SEE SUBJECT: c6gunner - Show me YOU have done better BEFORE you call ME "wannabe" you DO-NOTHING "ne'er-do-well" FAKE NAME fuck - ok?? I'd like to see that (never will happen)
See subject "APK" (fake name do-nothing nobody): You're a "ne'er-do-well" chatterbox (all talk & no work BETTER than mine) & you proved it.
APK
P.S.=> Don't take "potshots" @ your BETTERS like me you CHUMP (& I can say that since you ARE obviously a NOBODY chump do-nothing vs. me)... apk
WoW c6gunner. Impersonating apk again because you're inferior crap hiding behind a fake name 'soulja boy' (probably a lie). See much combat pussy? Hell no punk. You're shit, you know it and continue proving it. This will continue and here's the themesong fucker https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
APK you're a hypocrite. You ran from a challenge c6gunner put to you after you mocked him https://linux.slashdot.org/com... worse you had to alter the words of others that like, use and praise HIS work https://linux.slashdot.org/com... like a childish moron would. You with nothing to show for yourself but a fake name online no less. You're disgusting.
Being a white male, possibly even straight (gasp), his career at google would have been limited anyways.
IMO, Google would have higher moral by censoring in China than it does by censoring in America.
In China, censorship is the law. The Chinese people chose their leaders and they approved censorship law. People's representatives also decide what should be censored and they have voluntary armies of people working on censorship. They also have the legislative means (although difficult) to change that (censorship or what should be censored). That's not to say it is democratic, as the representation of minorities and of opposing views is part of true democracy, but censoring in China would mean abiding by the rules and the prevailing morals of the people (over there), pushing the interests of their representatives (not the people's interests IMO).
In the US, when google censors or apply "the very same values of control over the populace", they are doing so to favor the interests of a very small minority, in opposition to the country's claimed values. They hide behind the flag of freedom (freedom to not make business) to effectively censor opposing views ("censorship is not illegal if it's not the government") and control the population to push policies and world views they want. I don't know how people in the US could have any say on what they will censor or stop private censorship.
I not only agree that they are not forfeiting any values in China, but also think that the shit they are pulling in the US should be cause for much more alarm, concern and response.
IMO, Google would have higher moral by censoring in China than it does by censoring in America.
In China, censorship is the law. The Chinese people chose their leaders and they approved censorship law. People's representatives also decide what should be censored and they have voluntary armies of people working on censorship. They also have the legislative means (although difficult) to change that (censorship or what should be censored). That's not to say it is democratic, as the representation of minorities and of opposing views is part of true democracy, but censoring in China would mean abiding by the rules and the prevailing morals of the people (over there), pushing the interests of their representatives (not the people's interests IMO).
In the US, when google censors or apply "the very same values of control over the populace", they are doing so to favor the interests of a very small minority, in opposition to the country's claimed values. They hide behind the flag of freedom (freedom to not make business) to effectively censor opposing views ("censorship is not illegal if it's not the government") and control the population to push policies and world views they want. I don't know how people in the US could have any say on what they will censor or stop private censorship.
I not only agree that they are not forfeiting any values in China, but also think that the shit they are pulling in the US should be cause for much more alarm, concern and response.
Decided to log in cause my previous AC comments have disappeared.
Canada, The UK, France, Germany, and even CUBA have universal healthcare but it's just TOO HARD for the pussies of Amerikuka? So great, so brave! Bigly free!!!
And the world is disinvesting your currency. Enjoy living in a thirdworld shithole, oh wait you already dooooo....
So, let me put this into perspective:
> waaaaaaaah I'm quitting because CHINA
> waaaaaaaaah I'm not quitting because Google deletes and demonetizes shit over YouTube
Cognitive dissonance much?
What about not quitting because the federal govt cries and moans to have content removed from quote "extremists"; which is effectively anyone that isn't a loyalist party member.
The Jews are very clearly God's chosen people.
I notice that they are despised by all the worst people, everywhere on Earth. People in parts of Asia and South America who have never even met a Jew can be found to be Jew-haters. The only explanation that makes sense to me at this point is that if evil people all over the world universally hate Jews, then Jews must be God's people and that's why the devil's people so universally hate them.
Thanks. You're post is the final piece of evidence I needed to push me over into that viewpoint, and I suspect that all your fellow evil snots will be re-enforcing this view for me for the rest of my life. I think I should look into reading that Torah thing...
And yet Canadians come across the US boarder for healthcare treatment, the US offered to take in the babies that the UK determined they wouldn't treat and allowed to die any many people still have private health care in UK.
It also seems you've bought into the propaganda of the Cuban healthcare system. They don't use the same metrics in counting infant mortality as the US, when there's troubling pregnancies they push abortions so they have one of the highest abortion rates. They have a two tiered system where the elites get the better care because of the tourist paid system and the poor have to bring their own bedsheets for hospital stays.
Germany's appears to be tilted toward the elites.
Regular salaried employees must have public health insurance. Only public officers, self-employed people and employees with a large income, above c. €50,000.00 per year (adjusted yearly), may join the private system.
Why would they allow public officials to have private insurance if they offer universal coverage?
France's system isn't a bad one, they seem to have found a good balance between cost and service. Even though it is provided by the government, 95% of French citizens do pay for a complimentary health insurance plan.
But keep in mind the following statistics when reviewing the various structures.
US Population: 326,766,748
Germany Population: 82,293,457
UK Population: 66,573,504
France Population: 65,233,271
Canada Population 36,953,765
Cuba Population: 11,489,082
The lowest populated nation in the list, Cuba, is actively encouraging foreigners to come for treatments as a way to earn money to keep they system going.
The second lowest population, Canada, regularly crosses into the US to get healthcare because of long waiting times.
France has the most balanced model however the UK and Germany show growing reliance on private healthcare offerings.
Then you hit the US which is 5x the size of the only nation, France, that seems to have the right balance.
So what might work for 65m population will not automatically scale to a 326m population.
However, the formation of the United States was supposed to be of independent sovereign States that could choose for their own citizens what was best. If the federal government would actually get out of the picture and let the State's run their own affairs as they're supposed to be allowed to do, then perhaps there could be a better healthcare system for the citizens, just one adapted to each State's needs.
Pay for your own healthcare. Dont point as lesser countries and assume we need to reduce ourselves due to their moral superiority. Man is free, that comes with risks. Go to a nanny state if thats what you want. Universal healthcare is government waste and anti freedom. Want goods and services, work.
6gunner your FAKEname's on a post impersonating me & worse was you altering /. user's words https://linux.slashdot.org/com... since I challenged you to show you do better work and you can't after you tried to mock me you hypocrite LYING loser https://linux.slashdot.org/com... .
* You're online FAKENAME trash c6gunner & a childish dishonest punk.
APK
P.S.=> Impossible to deny FACT of your FAKEname (for your FAKE wasted lie of a so-called life) on that 1st post link above you unbelievable pussy loser... apk
c6gunner your FAKEname's on a post impersonating me & worse is you altering /. user's words https://linux.slashdot.org/com... as I challenged you to show you do better work and you can't after you tried to mock me you hypocrite LYING loser https://linux.slashdot.org/com... .
* You're online FAKENAME trash c6gunner & a childish dishonest punk.
(PUTTING WORDS IN MY MOUTH TOO saying what I don't (on spectre/meltdown) https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... - bank on 1 thing fucker - THIS exposing YOUR DIRTY BULLSHIT is NOT going to stop...)
APK
P.S.=> To quote JOB from "The Lawnmower man" 'there's got to be 1. Let me in! Where is it?) *** Maintenance line, access granted *** - "A BACK DOOR - Hohohoho!" apk