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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."
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.
Now that's funny.
This would be the same Google that plans to closely track users of it's search services for the Chinese government and silenced people talking about it ?
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...
Really it's still on the damn front page as I type this.
Because their bosses said "LOL No" to their suggestion. Like, it's almost as meaningful if you emailed them a suggestion to do it.
I mean, it sounds like they're pretty low level employees from the story, but then again there are almost no details.
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STARTPAGE is good. Also duckduckgo
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall