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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.
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.
I'm sure this will be a reasoned, nuanced discussion because people who work in tech are above name calling, hasty generalizations, and stereotyping.
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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
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
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....
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
MALA!
Table-ized A.I.
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.
Feel free to express a liberal view to the Trump White House.
See what you get.
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.
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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.
anti-truth perspective
At risk of defending Trump I think the entire US media and absolutely the social media companies have an anti-truth perspective.
Trust me, the truth may not be shared via Trump's twitter account but it sure as fuck isn't coming from his loudest opponents either.