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Google Employees Discussed Tweaking Search Results To Counter Trump's Travel Ban (wsj.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: Days after the Trump administration instituted a controversial travel ban in January 2017, Google employees discussed how they could tweak the company's search-related functions (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source) to show users how to contribute to pro-immigration organizations and contact lawmakers and government agencies, according to internal company emails. The email traffic, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, shows that employees proposed ways to "leverage" search functions and take steps to counter what they considered to be "islamophobic, algorithmically biased results from search terms 'Islam', 'Muslim', 'Iran', etc." and "prejudiced, algorithmically biased search results from search terms `Mexico', `Hispanic', `Latino', etc." The email chain, while sprinkled with cautionary notes about engaging in political activity, suggests employees considered ways to harness the company's vast influence on the internet in response to the travel ban. Google said none of the ideas discussed were implemented. "These emails were just a brainstorm of ideas, none of which were ever implemented," a company spokeswoman said in a statement. "Google has never manipulated its search results or modified any of its products to promote a particular political ideology -- not in the current campaign season, not during the 2016 election, and not in the aftermath of President Trump's executive order on immigration. Our processes and policies would not have allowed for any manipulation of search results to promote political ideologies."
I’m sure they’ll be tweaking results this upcoming election.
suck my DAMN balls
LOL.
Anyone who's ever had a job with a BigCo and isn't terminally naive knows this is a steaming crock of delusion.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Like the deep state resistance.
ImAgInE mY sHoCk
Who knows what else they have turned the knobs on?
So let me try to summarize this:
Somebody at Google said "hey, we could abuse our power for good!" and management came back saying "it's still abuse, so we're not doing it", and that was the end of it.
Folks did their jobs, nothing bad happened, and everything worked as it should. It's nice to have a story that isn't sky-is-falling panic, but there's literally nothing newsworthy to report here.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
At this point, I am expecting it to be revealed that Google deliberately engineered the downfall of Firefox by working behind the scenes to remove functionality and implement the current horrible UI.
At this point, it really would not surprise me if it was suddenly revealed that the core Firefox developers are in fact Google plants.
It would certainly explain the last 10 years...
Seriously, what the hell is Google going to get up to next ?
I thought it was Russia trying to influence public opinion..? So sick of tech companies like Google and Facebook using their muscle to suppress political opposition.
Google needs to realize that by moving away from a neutral platform to one that is politically biased that they have lost the public trust. Not all of the public yet, but enough that people are talking about, even those that are not political. Whether it's here on Slashdot, at work or at the dinner table people are talking about Google's bias, even in liberal states.
Google needs to damage control and it's going to take more than claims of not being biased to do it. Google needs to come clean about past bias, remove the SJW weighting and be honest with people about what they did. Nothing less than a full mea culpa is going to work at this point.
They can claim they aren't biased all day long, but people keep seeing (and not seeing) the same results. Nothing has changed. When Google declined congresses invitation it showed a lot of people a company that is that is arrogant and completely out of touch with the average American.
As it is right now, your starting to see a lot of people who are looking at Google and declaring that their monopoly is overdue for antitrust action. This is starting to become much more prevalent in conservative media which has traditionally stood against antitrust actions.
Wow.
Sounds like a contribution-in-kind to Democrats.
And therefore a violation of campaign finance laws!
Or maybe campaign finance laws really ARE restrictions on free speech?
Are you "'progressives" who want to "no-platform" those you disagree with willing to have the laws you clamor for applied to YOU?
Why'd I even ask...
Firefox/TorBrowser: Nasty MitM possibility with the blocklist service
- https://trac.torproject.org/pr...
(Proof of concept and Technical info within article's top post)
System already exists. Use of system denied.
from an ad company.
Time for a search engine that just presents search results without the leverage.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Picking sides is never good.
I guess you missed the story about Google abusing their power to suppress search results in China. Or Google management suppressing an internal memo discussing the details of their deal with the PRC to track users search request.
If you really think management said no because it was "abusive", you're naive. The only reason management said no was because there was no money in it (yet).
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/17/h-1b-foreign-citizens-make-up-nearly-three-quarters-of-silicon-valley-tech-workforce-report-says/
Silicon Valley is full of foreigners. It might be fair to consider Google a foreign company at this point. They don't care about the future of the USA, or the incessant wars against terror groups in places like Afghanistan. They'd take in ISIS member disguising themselves as 'refugees'.
You google clowns are really getting buttfucked these days. Guess you should have kept that whole "Don't be evil" thing huh? Karma's a bitch...
...as long as the Federal regulators now recognize that Google DOES exert editorial control over its content.
Therefore, they are no longer simply a 'blind carrier' of information but in fact are showing that they are functionally liable for whatever they link, right?
-Styopa
I loved google when they delivered search results relevant to my query. But increasingly they've been tweaking results. You can do the same search in google and then in other search results and there are certain things that should be in the google search that aren't.
Lots of things are still good about google... their translate service is pretty cool, their maps service is great, their image list thing is pretty good for finding random images that are similar to search results.
Lots of positive things. But... the company has abandoned their "don't be evil" motto.
Time to recognize that and pop over to DuckDuckGo or something.
Whatever your politics, if you put any stock in classical Western Liberalism, then you can't be okay with the search engine trying to bias your political opinions by biasing the search. They've been doing it. Everyone knows. Time to acknowledge it and move on.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
But they're supporting the right side. /s
It's pretty much impossible to determine what was actually being said in those emails from reading the unpaid article. How serious was the discussion?
One phrase worries me, though:
Google is publishing paper after paper about "fixing" machine learning models that were "algorithmically biased" by training data. So they're pursuing this kind of stuff as a matter of course. It sounds nice when you frame it within the context of fighting against discrimination. It sounds less nice when you realize that the same techniques could be used to manipulate models based on any criteria you want.
The fact that this hasnâ(TM)t sparked huge spasms of outrage amongst googlers speaks volumes about what is acceptable there.
I like and use Google products...but they're testing my patience
You're not a global company. You're a US company. Like or dislike the results of the countrywide election... you're part of the system and should lose elections gracefully
This kind of childish antic didn't happen when Obama won, ppl need to grow up
What happens when a Democrat is elected next election? Should ppl expect the Republicans to turn into babies and try their hardest to tear the country apart?
Sounds like a contribution-in-kind to Democrats. And therefore a violation of campaign finance laws!
Thank you for admitting that the Republican platform is one of bigotry and racism (since you seem to be insinuating that no Republican could possible oppose such shenanigans).
Ezekiel 23:20
E x t e r m i n a t e
. .
l . . lnazina
l . . l . .
l . . l . .
lnazinazinazi
. . . l . . l
. . . l . . l
nazinal . . l
It doesn't go far enough. They should set up an automatic fact checker, to counter all the Rethuglican lies.
Drumpf's treason MUST be stopped. Rethuglicans are a threat to freedom in America and the entire world.
Google MUST be broken up.
Corporatism != Free Market
they've been doing that for ages on their Youtube platform. As for search results they maintain they use a proprietary algorithm that focuses on putting the most desirable search results first (minus things removed due to legal constraints like DMCA or European privacy laws) and based on the article that is correct. Specifically somebody said "Let's modify our algorithm to fight Trump) and Google management said "No, because our algorithm is supposed to generated correct search results based on ranking, no politics".
This would be a non-story if there wasn't a media engine pushing a narrative that there is some kind of anti-right wing bias in the world. Given that virtually all media outlets are owned by people who are themselves right wing, that all branches of government are in the hands in the right wing and that our fundamental political system has safeguards in it to discourage left wing activism (e.g. the Senate, the Electoral college and lifetime SCOTUS appointments ) nothing could be further than the truth.
America's institutions have a severe pro-corporate, right wing bent to them. This is just a fact. One that those institutions spend billions trying (successfully I think) to deny....
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Go there and search for
American inventors
White couples
Black pride
White pride
Neat, right?
It's suprising how many young engineers, especially in the USA, are deferrent to the powerful and rich monopolies like Google. This level of veneration of the power is indicative of totalitarian societies. Instead of going their own ways (remember, youth is supposd to be rebelous) - and in every business environment it is possible to make choices - they cherish the monoculture.
This is the root cause of the problem. With so many dedicated acolytes, it's easy for Google to maintain the dominant position. The mere fact that these sycophants think that a corporation gives a flying duck for stated PR values says a lot about the depth of this indoctrination.
It doesn't really matter whether Google is 'good' or 'bad'. What matters is why so many techies cannot find another ideology in their lives.
Trump is the State! #MAGA
Our processes and policies would not have allowed for any manipulation of search results to promote political ideologies.
Pull the other one! *cough* China...
they were funded by cia incubator venture funds
More people voted against Hilary than voted for Trump.
WRONG !
Hillary is THE QUEEN, and she can't do no wrong !
It's THE STUPID VOTERS WHO ARE WRONG !!
than any other time Google has manipulayed search results? They were never the 'good' guys, and still aren't. In fact, they're worse now, having been infected by millennials.
You had me for the last time
We can't be so sure, and it's generally unwise to consider only the company's word for this. But you have to read more news beyond this story to understand the debate over the issue. Ironically, you'd have to read stories that we're told aren't so easy to find if you depend on Google to bring them to your attention.
According to RT, one of the adversely affected parties:
Google later wrote "a letter to Russia's media watchdog saying despite Eric Schmidt's recent comments about "de-ranking" RT and Sputnik, he referred only to "efforts to improve search quality." The company claimed it doesn't "re-rank" individual websites."
But RT isn't alone in this claim. RT also reports that other sites have experienced similar de-ranking.
Black Agenda Report has also raised this as an issue. This simply isn't as clear-cut as your summary would claim.
Digital Citizen
So what? Even given its enormous size, Google is still a private company with no obligation to be neutral. Furious? Get your beloved Koch Brothers to fund some Right-wing-conservative-biased search engine startup and go bathe in your comfy bubble of anti-whatever results.
95% of the American racists I've met in recent years were Democrat partisans. Dems think it's cool & trendy to be racist. Now the Euro racists - I met way more racist Euros than racist Americans - that's a whole different story.
Shit, bro - I was at a bar downtown last week and I met this old geezer German tourist. Dude claimed to be a real, live, formal member of the Nazi party! I was like, holy fuck - for realz??
But dude was kinduva failure as a Nazi. He seemed to enjoy drinking and talking with my decidedly multi-ethnic group of friends. He didn't try to oppress us or anything. Shit, he bought a shot of tequila for a Jew!
So maybe he wasn't really a Nazi after all. Hang out in NYC bars long enough and you'll hear some real tall tales. Most of which are 16 tons of bullshit. YYMV.
So you're saying it's popular with Democrat party leaders?
Google, as a corporaiton, has a full right to free speech and to present what IT WANTS TO SAY. Just like Fox News. And, no, Google has LESS need to be fair and honest and not lie than a NEWS PROGRAM.
Or the cable companies. Nor the telecoms. No, they must be left alone, because they help push right wing ideologies, which are put forward as CAPITALISM, not rightwing ideology, therefore by fiat and redefinition, "not political".
If that is the case, how do you know that the suggestion even happened? Were you there?
No, it looks like if you WANT the story to be true, you won't take the word of someone saying it isn't. And, like ith Kavenah, if you don't like the story, you won't take the word of someone saying it is.
Your link links to your submission which links to Breitbart. The very first line that you wrote was
Here's a story you'll never see on the front page of Slashdot
You already knew that it would not be accepted because Breitbart is not news. Breitbart is propoganda - the word that we used before alternative facts.
So their attempt to fight back against Trump was that if someone who disliked Muslims, etc, searched for them... they would find positive results? Not sure how this would affect the ban or someone who was already prejudiced. I doubt someone who hated Muslims would be like: "Oh look at this link telling me that immigration is good, time to read it and give it a good think and change my opinion!" They would instead just search more or look elsewhere.
Newspapers, Radio, TV have been doing this as long as they've existed and they are controlled by power capitalists continuously pushing their agenda.
e.g. It's The Sun Wot Won It (1992) a meme that predates even Eternal September (1993)
The idea that Google, FB, Twitter and the likes are really interested in pushing an agenda that doesn't also promotes their own self interest is deluding themselves.
Google was screwed from the moment the post-election video was released. Scott Adams on Periscope, who has worked in the upper management levels at both big banks and telecoms, pointed out that it would be unthinkable for the CEO of those to hold an 'all hand's on deck' meeting where the company's distaste for a specific election outcome would be announced and it would be openly stated that the company would make sure that a different outcome occurred next time. The speeches at that meeting showed that, while the company knew that they might have a few Trump supporters in their midst, their views were unwelcome. When Google dropped the 'Don't Be Evil' motto, who knew that they would take it so much to heart. We have a huge IT monopoly tweaking the information flows to the American public while in bed with the Chinese government to control their own population.
"Google has never manipulated its search results or modified any of its products to promote a particular political ideology"
Yea, bullshit.
We already know they're modifying results in China, they've admitted it. Isn't that the definition of evil? I have no doubt they're modifying everyone elses results. It's easy. I type something in on a co-workers machine and I get very different results.
Just give it to us straight. What we need is honesty. Not some leftist bullshit world that doesn't work anywhere in the world.
Google needs to do some serious soul searching. First step, get rid of all the leftists.
More people couldn't care less about either of them and didn't vote at all, than voted for either Hillary or Trump.
The revelation comes as U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is set to meet next week with state attorneys to discuss concerns about anticonservative bias. Earlier this month, Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg appeared before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce to address online election meddling ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, as well as perceived conservative censorship on social platforms.