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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."
The employees that even suggested such actions should have been terminated on the spot.
there's literally nothing newsworthy to report here.
If only I had mod point! +1
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
Modded troll. Funny.
The point is valid. Employees suggested abusing search results to manipulate and get around federal mandates and issuances. They should at the very least be terminated for suggesting abusing company power like that.
"For good"? How is undermining the political process "good"? How is a company with a huge foreign population of employees manipulating public opinion into letting even more foreigners into the country "good"? How is having Google millionaires and billionaires substituting their preferences for those of voters "good"?
No panic, just confirmation what we already knew: Google is untrustworthy and highly politically biased.
> management came back saying "it's still abuse, so we're not doing it"
which is, of course, objectively untrue. In fact, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is expected to meet with statesâ(TM) attorneys general next week to discuss possible criminal action against tech firms that bias their products against conservatives. Because who could ever forgot how Trumpâ(TM)s electoral victory caused such âoepanic and dismayâ among top Google executive
- Also one can't help but be skeptical considering that just before the 2016 presidential election, among the many leaks published by Wikileaks as part of its Podesta email campaign, was Google's "strategic plan" to help democrats win the election and track voters.
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/...
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
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To be fair, being dismayed at the presence of a senile idiot in the White House doesn't exactly have leftism as a prerequisite.
Ezekiel 23:20
And yet CEOs from so many companies will donate company profits to political compaigns, on the left and the right, and they get away with it. Why should politics be ok for CEOs but banned for employees?