Slashdot Mirror
Leaked Video Shows Google Executives' Candid Reaction To Trump Victory (theguardian.com)
A number of Slashdot users have shared a leaked Google video from Breitbart, revealing the candid reactions of company executives to Donald Trump's unexpected victory in 2016. The Guardian summarizes: In an hour-long conversation, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, chief executive Sundar Pichai, and executives Kent Walker, Ruth Porat and Eileen Noughton offered their reflections on the election, sought to reassure employees about issues such as immigration status and benefits for same-sex partners, and answered questions on topics ranging from filter bubbles and political polarization to encryption and net neutrality. The executives' reactions ranged from the emotional to the philosophical to the purely pragmatic. Porat appeared near tears in discussing her open support for Hillary Clinton and her father, who was a refugee. Walker discussed global political trends toward nationalism, populism and xenophobia. Pichai noted that the company was already "thoughtfully engaging" with Trump's transition team. While Breitbart argues the video shows evidence of Google's inherent bias against Republicans, Google says the executives are simply sharing their "personal views" and that it has no political bias. It does beg the question, should politics be discussed in the workplace? Longtime Slashdot reader emil writes in response to the video: [...] Disregarding the completely inappropriate expression of partisan views in the workplace, the video claims that "history is our side." These executives appear to have forgotten the incredible tumult in the distant past of the U.S. The last election was not an electoral tie that was thrown into the house of representatives (as was the election of 1800). The last election did not open a civil war as happened in 1861 when Lincoln took office. The last election did not open war with Great Britain, and will likely not precipitate a new set of proposed constitutional amendments to curb presidential power as did either of James Madison's terms in office (War of 1812, Hartford Convention). There may be a time for tears, and a time for hugs, but that time cannot be in the workplace. Most Fortune 500 employees took the news of the latest president elect with quiet perseverance in their professional settings regardless of their leanings, and it is time for Google to encourage the same. "At a regularly scheduled all-hands meeting, some Google employees and executives expressed their own personal views in the aftermath of a long and divisive election season," Google said in a statement. "For over 20 years, everyone at Google has been able to freely express their opinions at these meetings. Nothing was said at that meeting, or any other meeting, to suggest that any political bias ever influences the way we build or operate our products. To the contrary, our products are built for everyone, and we design them with extraordinary care to be a trustworthy source of information for everyone, without regard to political viewpoint."
Political views are part of life. I don't need Emil to tell me what is appropriate to discuss and what is not. In fact, it is inappropriate for /. to push this stupid silencing agenda. As long as a discussion is respectful, it is appropriate everywhere.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
The last election did not open a civil war as happened in 1861 when Lincoln took office.
"And Google showed anti-Republican bias then, as well." -- Abraham Lincoln
Don't worry, it's not. They push these out once in a while so that they know whom to mod down and whose slashdot karma to lower.
Trump's campaign rhetoric really scared the crap out of many people. And not in a "OMG, Republicans nonsense!" way. In a "Are we going to start having to hide Muslim families in our basements?" way.
At this point, I think the main thing protecting everyone is the sheer incompetence and disorganization of his entire administration. Its clear now that he's far more interested Tweeting and continuing to hold those campaign rallies than in actually doing the job of President.
So what?
A large group of youngish, diverse, highly educated, intelligent technologists were dismayed at Trump's election.
I fail to see anything surprising.
I'd be equally unsurprised by the (likely) positive mood at a morning sales meeting at a southern Indiana John Deere dealership.
Where can one go for true information these days? On the war in Syria, most media reports don't capture the real truth.
They do not "force" government to tell the truth.
In fact, this administration, fearing the loss of leverage in Syria, now says it knows Assad will use chemical weapons.
They do not mention that what Assad will be doing is what the American government did in Mosul, Iraq, or that Aleppo is now in relative peace after Assad established sanity there.
Besides, Damore's piece wasn't "conservative" by any rational definition of that word.
Would you argue it was liberal? What wasn't conservative about it? I guess it wasn't advocating for a pre 21st century outcome. He actually expressed the desire to increase female participation so it could be interpreted as progressive / liberal but it expressed the opinion that differences in outcomes among genders was due to fundamental differences between genders which is the traditional 20th century since beginning of time view.
I'm sure this will be a reasoned, nuanced discussion because people who work in tech are above name calling, hasty generalizations, and stereotyping.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
I watched pretty much the whole thing rather than reading excerpts. I thought it was an interesting window into the tech world and Google world specifically right after the election...
The video is meant to show bias, and it does - but it also shows at that point at least some expressed that there should be a willingness to listen to opposing views, a feel that now seems to be utterly gone from the left and also for Google internally where it is safe to identify you gender as Dragon, but not safe to identify as a conservative.
One thought that occurred to me as the Google employees and execs were having Q&A was - there was talk about inequality and low information voters. But both of those notions are way too simplistic.
One of the Google employees even brought to light the contradiction of the supposed "low information voter" by saying they consumed a lot of "fake news". Well that is MORE information, not low. And the reality is that a lot of what was considered fake news by some, was not really fake at all. In fact the reason Trump won was because we live in a high-information world now, where all of the people can understand the political class as a whole are scum rather than believing the truly Fake News that has been pushed on us for decades about all Washington politicians.
On the subject of inequality, it strikes me that people always refer to this in the financial sense. But most people do not care if someone makes more than them - otherwise why would we idolize music and movie stars? The inequality that is dangerous, is more the inequality of power not money - that is, the power over your own life. So many times we see people at high levels of government or business or really anything, get away with stuff where we know we would be in jail or worse. At the same time rules from those same people control more and more of what we are allowed to do personally. THAT is the kind of thing that leads to true resentment, a dangerous force.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm a conservative and I liked what I read. Do I have to turn in my card?
Given the tone of your post I think we can all be thankful for that.
The Citizens United ruling gave corporations the right to express political views. If you don't like it, you'll have to overturn that ruling with new legislation (and potentially an amendment).
I feel like the current administration only likes it when the laws work for them, and want to ignore laws that are inconvenient for them. It's the sort of crap that dictators of a banana republic try to pull.
(not AC because clearly non-partisan. i.e. hopefully I pissed off everyone)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Right, should rephrase that to "you're free to express your views as long as your views don't challenge our prevailing far-left orthodoxy".
I bet the Chinese citizens could ask Google if they are biased in favor of their authoritarian government and Google would reassure them that they are not.
Yeah republicans whine about anti-conservative bias, but aren't you trying to dictate what private individuals can say in a private business's private meetings??
Kind of like how Donald Trump chanted "lock her up" while he committed high treason, colluding with Russia's attack on America. And how he's now working to protect Russia from consequence while laying down our country's defenses against continued Russian attacks on America....
Nobody has silenced Republicans, save Trump himself. He is the only censor you need to consider.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Google seems to waste a non trivial amount of resources kvetching about politics and SJW dogma. Maybe that's a good thing. Otherwise they'd be even more evil with their privacy slurping products.
In any event, I've finally done away with google search. duckduckgo is my primary with bing as a backup. Now I just have to move away from my gmail accounts - easier said than done.
While Breitbart argues the video shows evidence of Google's inherent bias against Republicans, ...
Breitbart arguing about inherent bias.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Google is a private business. There are certain things they can't do (racial discrimination, age or gender discrimination) but overall, they can do whatever they want and they can be as biased as they want. Just as Fox News is extremely biased and constantly bashes Democrats.
And that's the way it should be. Private businesses have the right to be biased assholes, regardless of whether that bias is liberal or conservative. And that's why James Damore deserved to be fired. Not because he expressed a conservative opinion, but because he isn't smart enough to understand that the First Amendment applies to government, not private business.
They look and act like they are nine years old.
They need to grow up!
there's nothing candid about it. This would have been a carefully prepared statement. It would be far more interesting to have a video of them talking about Trump in a boardroom meeting.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
If Google is claiming that this video merely expresses the employee's "personal view", why are they using company assets to make a company video, during company time, during a company review seminar?
Why do they need to make a company video to "reflect" on the political outcome?
I'm sorry google, you're full of shit. This isn't a personal view, this is a company view.
Then they probably just changed their underwear and went on with life just like the rest of us.
Honestly I went to bed that night not caring because I knew she had a lock in and I voted for whom I wanted (which was neither of the popular options). When I woke the next morning and saw the news, I though it was a joke until I confirmed the results on several new sites. Then I thought, well at least the next four years will be entertaining to watch. So far I haven't been disappointed as I like to watch the pain of others.
Well, they did so realizing what a gold mine a Trump presidency means for the comedy industry.
I doubt they laughed THAT hard.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
This is an advertising driven web site. Whipping up the masses to fight each other is how you make money in the new economy.
"For over 20 years, everyone at Google has been able to freely express their opinions at these meetings"
Right!! What a laugh. I'm sure if someone walked up there and said "I'm so happy, Donald Trump will be our President" they might not have walked out of there alive.
No way in that meeting could you freely express your opinions.
The far right argues that a non-living businesses has religion and therefore are not subject to various regs.
Now, they are arguing that a business should not have the rest of first amendment, even when it is just inside of the business.
I hope that SCOTUS gets a case out of this. It should be interesting to see what will happen.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"They're just a bunch of pansies." - Madagascar
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Yeah. If they were in shock after the elections they weren't alone. Most of the world, in fact most of the USA as well, felt the same.
It doesn't "beg the question." It raises the question. Begging the question is a logical fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it. It is a type of circular reasoning and an informal fallacy.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Embrace the power of AND
You both can be right.
Governments havenâ(TM)t been significant gatekeepers on the flow of information in most western countries for decades, if not centuries. So if free speech legislation only applies to governments and not at all to massive private entities that today hold significantly more weight in that area, then the legislation is as good as useless and needs to be reformed.
Ok. Please point out which of my 16 words referenced the First Amendment.
I'll give you a hint. None of them did.
You are right, nobody is silencing Republicans. They first have to slap them with a "Neo-Nazi", "Alt-Right" or "Sexist" label, and then they censor them.
Say, this reminds me of an old Soviet joke... It is about a Soviet and an American arguing, which country has better Freedom of Speech protections.
The American says: "I can openly shout: 'Reagan is an asshole!' — and I will not be prosecuted".
To this the Soviet answers: "Big deal, I can call Reagan an asshole too — and I'll even be praised for it!".
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You got me to look at the troll. No congrats.
I think the insight question in this story is whether or not the google is supposed to help seek the truth or just tell people what they want to hear, even when they are seeking evidence to support false beliefs. Do YOU think there IS such a thing as the truth? If so, then you might even see the question as a struggle between good and evil--and it looks like evil is winning. Not just in American society, but within the google itself.
I actually described and predicted this problem about 15 years ago, though my terminology was "pandering to the users" rather than "personalizing the search results". If the goal is to maximize profits, then the causal chain is quite clear: Profits come from advertising and advertisers always want more eyeballs, but the google would lose eyeballs by offending them with truths that they would prefer not to see. Ergo the google had to give up the truth when it annoyed proudly ignorant fools or faith-based fanatics, which describes two YUGE chunks of Trump voters.
I think there are constructive solution approaches. Even more strangely, I think that Slashdot used to be a place where such solutions could be discussed. Hain't seen no evidence lately.
Go ahead. Ask me about MEPR or guest voting. I dare ya!
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Don't be evil was too hard? ... I don't think that means what they think it means. Their values don't always align with my values, though many times we do agree.
They kept talking about "their values"
When upper management talks one-sided-politics at an all-hands meeting, there is an issue. If the meeting was after work, 100% voluntary, and multiple political points of view were displayed ON THE STAGE, then I'd have less complaint.
So google ... get back to working on the mainland China google stuff, since "don't be evil" is too hard. Be certain you have your values in mind while doing that.
Too powerful and too joined at the hip with Democrats.
Corporatism != Free Market
I'm sure that every one of these people will demand that Brietbart allow Jezebel writers to publish their articles on their site for "equality and free speech".
There are far more middle class people (who ultimately pay most taxes) than 'poors'. Which is why Bernie and the like don't get elected. Thank dog.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Oh. Some people don't share our "values." How awful.
Best part: we'll use our AI tech to "reach" those knuckle-draggers and educate them. LOL. At what point does such vast ignorance measure intellect?
Someone leaked this; a secret soul that has to exhibit the necessary group-think but actually despises these weird freaks and their intolerance.
Imagine the witch hunt that must be under way right now.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
I mean, not for nothing, but the Google executives turned out to be exactly right about Trump.
https://theconcourse.deadspin....
And further, so fucking what if every Google executive later dropped their pants and took a giant shit into a MAGA hat? What's it to you? Go use fucking Bing and stop whining like little bitches just because the people running the most powerful corporations in the world were smart enough to realize that 304 racist electors had just installed the most corrupt president in modern history who would go on to bring shame on our nation and weaken us in the eyes of the entire world.
You are welcome on my lawn.
T is a rude arrogant narcissist (among other things) to a degree that overwhelms his party affiliation. Why the hell should anyone expect people to be happy about such as a President?
Table-ized A.I.
Would you argue it was liberal?
I'm the AC you're responding to. I know I shouldn't be floored by this question, but I am.
It is a sad indictment on our modern political discourse that everyone's default assumption is that any political opinion must fall into one of these two categories.
I remember when everyone on Slashdot understood that "liberal" and "libertarian" were both kinds of "progressive". Today, extremism is apparently mainstream and "centrism" is apparently a synonym for "false equivalence".
It's a hard world out there for people who want to make up their own minds and, Eris forbid, maybe have different opinions on different issues rather than falling into a partisan clusters. I'm not a pro-lifer, but I feel bad for people who are, since there is no mainstream party that is consistently against abortion, capital punishment, gun violence, and war.
What wasn't conservative about it?
It did not advocate for protecting or preserving traditional values or traditional institutions.
MALA!
Table-ized A.I.
- Companies reflect the vision, and biases, of the leadership.. - Spending corporate assets to promote the agenda of the leadership is done by every company, big or small. - Agendas are always bias driven. - For the media: the stronger the claim of presenting the "unvarnished truth", the greater and more rigid the bias behind the words. - To dream of a nirvana where no bias exists is ludicrous, and a denial of the human condition. In the dim past, when I in high school, our English 12 teacher brought in copies of several different newspapers. We were tasked with comparing articles written about the same major event of the day in each. It was an eureka moment for me: the realization that the reported news is fact coloured by personal or corporate bias. Hardest to detect: those biases that reinforce your own personal biases.
I disagree on the direction people are being pushed - I follow a LOT of independently minded people on Twitter, who are not left or right wing, but actually have different views depending on the subject.
Almsot all of them are way more moved to the right, even to the point of sometimes defending Trump even though they might despise him.
The left has become the most puritan fascist force I have ever seen. Over my life I have voted for every party but there is no modern Democrat I can possibly hope to endorse, because they are just over the moon with violent rhetoric, and the desire to impose control over voters. Why would I want any of that? They claim to be on the side of love but all I see from the leftward forces these days are endless waves of hate, really turning off those of us in the middle happy to embrace the fact that everyone will have different viewpoints and that is OK.
It's also true the right has gotten crazier as well. Just not nearly AS crazy, and only in some aspects instead of a totality of wacky.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That the algorithm was developed with bias towards conservatives. I will keep an open mind. And yes, I am conservative. Now, as far as individual reviews. Yes, I do think the major social media is biased and bigoted towards conservatives.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
Showing disgust at the election of a faithless, bigoted womanizer who hasn't a shred of decency is not partisan.
I think they were just pissed that it ruined the plan they had for the season. Suddenly, a lot of plot threads or other things fell apart (the joke about Bill being the first gentleman and having a first gentleman's club with Bill Cosby lacked the punch it would have otherwise had) and couldn't go anywhere and you could tell that they hadn't planned for Trump to win. No one who wasn't an extreme Trump devotee really did.
Not in California.
Rob
Conservatives are working hastily and efficiently to fix that...and also to thwart and ultimately dismantle democracy so that it doesn't come back to bite them in the ass.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
"We want to encourage diversity of ideas."
JAMES DAMORE
"Whoopsie!"
Man they need an AWFUL big shovel for all that bullshit.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
He never went public.
Others whose feelings are that gender is entirely a social construct and there is no psychological gender felt he is a heretic for proposing changes that'd make employment at google more attractive to people with a female mindset is a better way to attract women to google than the approach then in place. They started a whisper campaign against him and escalated that into a public shaming for wrong think. Much of that criticism accused him of writing things not contained in his memo anywhere. That was a smear campaign meant to create mob justice, which worked.
Wow! Look at all the thoughtful discussion that ensured. Not.
Not even a query as to whether it is fair to categorize "search results" as the kernel of the google's "corporate soul", whatever that might be. By the way, I think the other Slashdot-front-page google story about the resignation is joined at the hip there...
However, even without Slashdot's help (or perhaps I should say with the help of an imaginary audience that no longer exists on Slashdot), I did realize one more aspect of this topic. Or should I reword that as "something that I knew but didn't say explicitly"? Perhaps ever?
You could analyze it as two cases:
Case (1): There is a truth related to the search query. In that case it seems clear to me that the results should favor that truth even when the google believes the searcher won't like it. Actually, especially when the searcher hates the truth. In general most queries about "established" scientific topics do have a clear consensus about the truth. For example, it is a harmful disservice to help a smoker find the last guy who still claims cigarettes are good for you. (And NO, it is NOT evidence against science that the doctors had to be forced to change their minds on that topic. One of the essential features of science is to learn over time.)
Case (2): There is no single result that addresses the search query with "high truth". In that case the results should reflect the range of results. If anything, the results the searcher seeks should be contextualized in some meaningful way, but you can bet today's google will never do it so rationally because it would offend the losers. Imagine something like "Here are the five primary answers that seem most relevant to your query. Group 1 answers are estimated to have a 37% probability of being most accurate, Group 2 is at 21%, Group 3 has 9%, Group 4 is 7%, and Group 5 is at 5%. All of the other answer categories are below 5%." If the google did something like that, then the only happy campers would be the people who like Group 1, eh?
From this perspective, the dismay at the googlers over the triumph of the Anti-truth Trump is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. The only surprising aspect is that the dismay was concealed for so long.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Per my second comment on this topic, I realized that "dismay" is a key word, but it was only mentioned in a handful of comments on the story, and yours was one of the two moderated as insightful. If I ever got a mod point...
I do think you raise an interesting new point about the google's dependence on international recruiting. To rise to the level of insight I think you'd need to go at least a step farther on the aspect of physical presence versus Internet-moderated tele-presence.
However, as I already wrote, I think the key was Trump's anti-truth perspective. That had already become abundantly clear by the time of the election. Of course pro-truth people felt dismay--but I would say the corporate google has become much more evil since then and probably doesn't even feel so sad. The soulless machine is just finding new ways to seek larger profits in a smaller-truth environment.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Feel free to express a liberal view to the Trump White House.
See what you get.
How do I know when someone is an idiot? When they think Trump has been influenced by Russia, when Trump has done many things against Russian interests (just ask 300 dead Russian mercs).
What everyone should be looking at, but seemingly no-one is - the Trump-China connection.
Oh well, maybe someday you'll be smart enough to get it!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I must admit that given what i'm watching and listening to now on the session, it seemed to be more of an issue in extreme disappointment in who was chosen as president, not the party or political lines.
... not over a political party. It expressed concerns over the candidate who won and his generally rash and almost random trial and error approach to everything. Trump has shown throughout the past two years of office that other than manipulating people to build one of the world's largest monuments in history with his name on it, his approach to politics is to just wing it and then just throw some duct tape on. I'm not 100% sure this is the wrong way to handle politics, but he's not nice to people he should be working with but disagrees with. He's actually really mean and he alienates people who he should be embracing. There's nothing wrong with saying "Dude, I love you... you're great! Now, understand, I'm going to make this change and if I'm wrong, you can say I told you so, but I have to try this". Instead, he simply lashes out and attacks.
I am absolutely disgusted by the state of both major political parties today. Consider that there were dozens of candidates that made it quite far down the road in this election. And yet, when it came time to go to the polls, the American people were left with only two candidates because of the failed system.
You asked an excellent question. "Would you argue it as liberal?". I think that it's not an issue of whether it's conservative or liberal. I think that the issue is that we attempt to demonize one or the other. It is no longer socially acceptable to be a little bit of both. For example, what about a if you're a wealthy white Christian male who goes to church every Sunday, prays, but also believes it's not his right to have a say on abortion whether he approves of the action or not and also drives an electric car because he believes in global warming. This is a person who is clearly by today's standards someone who no longer has a home in America. See, that person is required to be either conservative or liberal though the liberals are probably against his economic and family policies. And saying you're Christian in Silicon Valley is such a big thing that there are TV shows about how big a thing this is. Yet, that same person could never express their more liberal beliefs out loud in a place like Texas.
American has polarized and things like Turducken is considered not only something fun to say... a lot, it's also entirely normal and acceptable. Yet, the human turducken which is a little bit of a mix of everything is no longer allowed because it's not within lines with the American way which is "Please stand in box A or box B... pick a side... you're either part of the solution or part of the problem... etc..."
This video expressed concerns
This is a man who came into the presidential office with such thin skin that he can't handle the attacks made against him by American corporations who exist only by the ability to churn and spew controversy... meaning the press. The news papers are in the business of selling news papers and because Trump is so incredibly outlandish, they can sell A LOT of them. Because of systems he himself strongly embraces and exploited extensively to become the president in the first place by using those systems against his opponents, the entire news world has transitioned from reporting facts and news, to publishing a great deal of supposition as well as opinions. News outlets have always shared their opinions. Walter Cronkite was an excellent example of an altruistic man who would break down and cry when something moved him and his voice and sincerity would move the entire world. But today, we don't publish this. We publish articles that take pot shots. They perform hit and run journalism with a focus on writing the headline that will sell today's paper.
Consider a news source like "The Register" who has a policy of writing absolutely nonsensical headlines as click bait. I've been reading them
said he would. He gutted unions, which today any credible economist will tell you is why wages are in decline (they call it "collective bargaining" because Union's a dirty word these days). He was the one responsible for stock buy backs. That was a crime before him. Companies weren't supposed to manipulate their own stock price. That lead to CEOs paid in stock which created the distorted market we see today where companies do mass layoffs and unnecessary outsourcing to get short term bumps to stock that translate into money in the CEO's pocket. He also created our homeless problem by shutting down the insane asylums. And then there's how he got elected. He made deals with terrorists to keep Americans hostage to make the Dems look weak. That's not me being a Nut Job, that's a matter of fact. I don't understand why that's not a bigger deal...
Romney ran Bane capital and presided over them while they picked successful companies clean. During the election a bunch of folks working in a pharmaceuticals factory came to him to see if he'd save their jobs. He called the cops on them and had them escorted off the premise. That's how little regard the guy had for workers.
Bush Sr could have been a lot worse. So I'll give you that. But he gave us Bush Jr, and dear lord was his presidency a disaster. There are kids who have never known an America at peace getting ready for college thanks to him. And the 2008 market crash. To be fair it was Regan's deregulation and Clinton continuing it that caused that. But Bush Jr (and Sr) knew it would happen and both could have stopped it.
My point is the left has been right. Over and over again we've been right. Fat lot of good it's done us. Being right doesn't feel good. And it doesn't make anyone else feel good.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Nope, nobody censors any of them. They're quite capable of speaking and they do get published. More than almost any other group. I can't think of a single such claim that has been backed by meaningful evidence and hard data. Probably because there isn't any.
Sorry, you need to come up with something better than unfounded claims, repeated allegations and baseless rumour.
The Guardian in Britain is hardly a bastion of right-wing thought but I've seen almost as many (uncensored) right-wing op-eds as left-wing. The BBC was recently censured for giving far more time to right-wing views than left, creating an unbalanced picture.
The fact is, the right censors the left far, far more than the other way around, and calls it good business. No. If it's censorship, it's always censorship, even when it's your side. If it's fine, it's always fine, even when you don't like it.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Right and Left politics is obsolete. Whilst people might be complaining that CEO X said that or no-one likes politician Y the real issue is that we pay attention to these people at all instead of the office they hold. This is a major sign that Capitalism is breaking down.
Let's look at the real political systems that exist as there is only two Capitalism and Feudalism. What MrKaos where is Communism in this? Well the reality is Communism is a means to convert Capitalism into Feudalism and whilst I know what I am saying is really controversial and will probably get me modded down, Western culture has to adapt to survive because it is valuable and important. The other systems suck.
The only way to do that is to look at things, where we are, realistically instead of with the traditional Left and Right Idealism.
What is called "the Right" has been lapooning Liberals which, ironically, is a key component of driving Capitalism with creative thinking and entrepreneurial activities, like starting businesses, establishing them. Right wingers run those companies which is why they are conservative.
Cult of personality, static wage growth, low inflation, lack of social mobility, lack of immigration mobility, these are all signs of Feudalism and the collapse of Capitalism - this is not something I think is good at all and I'm only pointing it out because I hope people will pay attention.
Capitalism is optimized for the few based on the assumption that the capital they earn will be redistributed throughout the economy. However when that capital is hoarded the market gets vicious because less capital is available, people are terrified and switch to survival mode and Feudalism with its misery, is optimized for everyone and looks more inviting. Welcome back to the middle ages.
Don't believe me? Right now we hear discussions about Trump this or Brin that we ignore that this very discussion is a sign of Feudalism and how engaging in a such a polarized political debate with zero emphasis on economics is a sign that Capitalism is in its death throws.
This is not a good thing.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Uhhh yeah about that, Google was given start up funding by the NSA, so sorry but horseshit. In fact if you look at most of the now "too big to fail" corps like GOOG,FB,APPL, etc you'll find government funding or sweetheart deals during their early phases so..."private" business my ass, unless crony capitalism is a free market I call horseshit.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
As if the banks, corporate polluters and every other human-killing group wasn't shouting to the rafters when Dotard was "elected" with Putin's help. I want to see some of *those* videos; I;m sure they're out there. And frankly, even though Google probably doesn't the tripe that comes from the far right, I think they. Speech may be "free", but the truth is expensive, especially when it is subverted by the lairs, cheats, and scum in officialdom who are supporting Dotard.
You still seem to not know the meaning of the word "ironic".
Google postures and presents itself as a purely neutral force on the internet - a place where anybody can go to seek unbiased search results.
Breitbart is an openly-partisan political site that positions itself on the right, in opposition to left wing sites like Daily Kos. Breitbart does NOT offer itself to the public as a neutral force where anybody can go to get unbiased search results for the entire internet.
My "uneducated political hack" detector's indicator needle just pegged.
It does beg the question, should politics be discussed in the workplace?
Definitely yes. Whilst an employer is not obliged to promote "free speech" in their workspace, their suppressing it would be a bad sign and should make anyone (left wing, liberal or right wing) reconsider doing business with them,.
This is not, for example, the same as allowing insulting speech, bullying or calculated disruption. That is not the same as free speech.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Losing elections isn't losing democracy. It's democracy working. Or do you think your set of arbitrary political opinions deserve to win every election, until the end of time? I can't think of anything less democratic.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Of course a private company can express whatever view they like. The real danger here is the echo chamber effect at play. Most of tech is heavily biased towards the left/authoritarian side of the field lately which is a shame. The early days had places such as alt.sex.hamster.and.duct.tape with a voracious defense of freedom of speech. Now I see hate speech clauses showing up in all sorts of places. In the end, if you only allow admittance of similar views and like thought you will create a mono culture. Mono cultures tend to fail.
Google is forgetting that nearly half of our nation voted for the president. I wonder how many contracts for google's cloud services will be renewed by the federal government? This sort of obvious bias will likely have a measurable effect on the bottom line. Maybe they'll learn from this or fail and someone else will learn from the mistake. Likely not though, I suspect more collusion to ban "bad" actors such as Alex Jones.
They don't particularly care about Democrat vs Republican. What shocks people on that level is the possibility that the ties their lawyers and lobbyists have with Washington would be endangered by election of an outsider candidate.
Fortunately for them, Trump's flailing around is not affecting these relationships as much as they feared. It's as though an approaching hurricane had turned back out to sea.
I remember when everyone on Slashdot understood that "liberal" and "libertarian" were both kinds of "progressive".
If you don't like reductive approaches to political labelling, why would you try to bucket "liberal" and "libertarian" as "progressive"? Liberalism is a broad set of political concepts, and encompasses, for example, laissez faire economics, which would not reasonably be described as progressive. Libertarianism has some aspects that progressives like (bodily autonomy) but is often strongly anti-state intervention, and that is not something that would reasonably be described as progressive. I am using all these terms in their dispassionate descriptor sense, not a moral sense, ie I am not expressing a view about whether liberalism, libertarianism or progressive politics are good things.
So I agree with you on the importance of nuance, and I think you could go a lot further to be nuanced.
It did not advocate for protecting or preserving traditional values or traditional institutions.
It advocated for several traditional standpoints: that men are better at thinking than women, that positive discrimination is illegitimate, etc. What's wrong with accepting that these are conservative views?
So NOW you're concerned about companies using their political influence? Where were you when conservative companies like Koch Industries were literally threatening to fire employees if they didn't vote Republican (which is somehow legal now due to the Citizens United). Google's reaction is fairly mild by comparison. It's entirely appropriate for a company to be concerned about how a new administration will affect their business and discuss it with their employees.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Damore's paper insinuated no such thing. It recognized that there are differences in how the sexes think, and cited papers saying women were more emotional on average. These are not things anyone who has read any scientific literature would dispute. Its isn't just correlative studies either. We understand the mechanisms well.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
Sure.Talking about politics in the workplace will stop about the same time business stops demanding it be the center of all political discourse.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
Before the actual election, my sig read:
The Pantsuit Enabler vs. the Creamsicle Charlatan. This should be on WWE, not our ballots.
Neither were clean enough for boxing, had to be WWE.
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
Which is weird, because I did. It's almost like you think you have some kind of privileged insight into Damore's arguments because you agree with them. You don't.
...I did not vote for Trump, and I have voted straight Democratic tickets at times, when we needed the checks and balances of divided government.
Corrections:
1. "is own agenda" should be "his own agenda".
2. "representatives of all the of the right" should be "representatives of all of the right".
I'd like to also point out GOP in general is in favor of illegal immigration because businesses want cheaper labor, and business donates campaign funds to the GOP in order to keep it flowing. GOP gives the issue lip service in front of its non-business base, but otherwise has demurred when it had a chance to change it multiple times. Reducing illegals correctly* would probably also require inspecting business payrolls, which businesses don't want. Most businesses want an "easy supply" of workers and lobby with deep pockets to get such.
You sound like a one-issue voter such that illegal immigration trumps Trump's many other downsides in your mind, including his rudeness to our long-time allies.
* A wall is not enough even if it worked (or was more cost effective than spending the money instead on more border guards, which Democrats have usually been in favor of.)
Table-ized A.I.
google is a public company subject to public ethics which call for fair balanced views - they should all be fired
nothing to see here - move along
Every employee KNOWS the political leanings of their boss. We don't need you to show up at a group meeting and rattle on about it. We already know if we disagree with you in public over your beliefs, you will win. You control the money.
Nobody needs anything other than company issues brought up at company meetings. Commenting on the presidential election was poor form by Google management, who like many upper executives begin believing their word is God's word.
So stop it. I don't care if you like Bernie, or Trump, or Hilary , or libertarians, or the new Whig party. It's irrelevant to our workplace and I already know your views anyway,
fabricated evidence and wishful thinking.
Oh, you're a post-truth nutjob. Have a nice day. If Trump ends up in jail, just tell yourself it's fake news.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Maybe so.
I ride a bicycle to work. The only statement I'm making is that It's an easy way to get exercise. If you want to assume I'm making a statement about AGW you'd be wrong. That's what happens when you make assumptions about what someone's actions mean.
I hate typos.
s/ensured/ensued/
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I hate typos some more.
s/dismay at/dismay of/
That's near the bottom, but I can even explain what happened. I changed "the google" as a corporate reference that called for "at" to the personal reference "googlers", which now calls for the preposition "of".
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Am I confused? Is this the same story getting recycled, some kind of dup, or was there some kind of "event" that resulted in the deletion of a bunch of comments? I can see where it might have triggered a troll attack of some kind, so perhaps it was cleaned up and reposted?
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
The link says in the very first line that you can't be fired simply due to having differing political views from your employer. In other words, if you wouldn't fire a liberal for it, you can't fire a conservative for it either. Which goes against the comment I was replying to. Incidentally, nowhere in the post is it said that political activity is only protected outside of work hours, just that political activity can't directly interfere with business. Since James Damore's memo was in direct response to a request for feedback concerning a topic that's already political, a memo that wasn't even meant to be spread outside of a forum that was explicitly intended to be a safe space for discussion, it would be pretty hard to argue that in his case.
Rob
Nope, nobody censors any of them. They're quite capable of speaking and they do get published.
I seem to recall at least one case of "deplatforming" where a website was forced off the internet by their ISP, actually several ISPs if I remember correctly. If that's not censorship, I don't know what is.
That's not a bad idea. I don't even think anybody would notice, just a different group would be outraged by the propaganda
Oh come off it. It argued that men are rational where women are emotional, and that is why men do better in the workplace.
Stop pussyfooting around and being cowardly, and own your fucking viewpoint. You people are such pathetic cowards.
It has long been held that things fell downwards, but it isn't conservative to expect things to fall when you release them. He was citing modern research as well, if not completely accepted research.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
For over 20 years, everyone at Google has been able to freely express their opinions at these meetings.
Is that like how everyone at Google is able to freely express their opinions privately about diversity?
One of us sure doesn't!