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Google CEO Sundar Pichai Is Headed To Washington This Week To Discuss Censorship, China (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Google CEO Sundar Pichai will be present at a private meeting with top Republican lawmakers this Friday to discuss the company's controversial plans to relaunch a search product in China and perceived liberal bias of search results, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. According to the WSJ, Attorney General Jeff Sessions plans to meet with state attorneys general on Tuesday to discuss Google's alleged censorship of conservatives. Tech firms have denied the existence of liberal bias in products, and Google has pushed back against key Trump inaccuracies, but it sounds as if Pichai will be forced to answer questions nonetheless. The meeting is being organized by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Late last week, Pichai sent an email to employees, which was obtained by The New York Times, in which he stated outright that Google has never influenced search results for political purposes and has no plans to do so in the future.
Pichai also plans to attend a public hearing later this year held by the House Judiciary Committee following the November midterm elections, after Google co-founder and Alphabet CEO Larry Page notably declined to show up to a Senate Intel Committee hearing on election interference earlier this month. In addition to mending relationships over Page's absence, Pichai will also be addressing Google's plans to relaunch a search product for the Chinese market, a move that has resulted in widespread criticism given the likelihood such a product would be heavily censored and would aid in China's use of information control to maintain social and political order.
Pichai also plans to attend a public hearing later this year held by the House Judiciary Committee following the November midterm elections, after Google co-founder and Alphabet CEO Larry Page notably declined to show up to a Senate Intel Committee hearing on election interference earlier this month. In addition to mending relationships over Page's absence, Pichai will also be addressing Google's plans to relaunch a search product for the Chinese market, a move that has resulted in widespread criticism given the likelihood such a product would be heavily censored and would aid in China's use of information control to maintain social and political order.
Well, maybe nut-job conspiracy theories show up a little further down in the search results, but the leap from that to censorship of conservatives is a pretty large one.
Tech firms have denied the existence of liberal bias in products
A liberal bias might be a good thing; at least it would err on the side of free speech. It's the far leftist bias that's a problem. If you don't know the difference . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
There is a notice or left wing boast to google and all google products especially YouTube.
Slashdot is subject to an absurd amount of anti-APK bias. Anything he posts is almost instantly modded to -1 and that's absurd. Nobody has actually proposed a better solution than his hosts file engine, despite him repeatedly challenging them on the issue. The censorship of APK is absurd and needs to stop. All of you should be ashamed of yourselves for participating in the censorship. Almost all of you are scumbuckets.
... let them get in?
Dude, Trump started a trade war in China. Regardless of what Trump consider this to be, the other side consider this as a clear attempt to stop China's development, especially in the high tech arena.
Now, under this context, how foolish would China be to let Google, the world's biggest spymaster, data collector, and AI developer, also with strong ties to the American government and military, to come into China to collect data and send it back to America so it could be used against China?
It needs to stop.
Split these left wing mofos.
Corporatism != Free Market
It's amazing how everything that doesn't agree with conservative political opinions somehow equals liberal bias. Never mind the fact that most people in the country are demonstrably not conservatives and should reasonably be expected to see things a different way. Not to mention that being conservative (or liberal) has no inherent relationship to objective reality or factual accuracy. $diety forbid that search results accurately provide results that reflect this fact.
...they support censorship now as it helps their perceived tribe. Later it will be used against them. It has always happened that way and will always happen - they are 'useful idiots' for some to support the removal of free speech.
Google is pretty much spitting in the face of the Left,
On the one hand they champion Leftists Causes.
On the other, they are enabling a government that would see most Leftists sent to work camps and the causes they champion extinguished.
Are you a support of the LBGTBQWERTY agenda? In China, those people are sent to work camps.
A big Environmental supporter? Don't try protesting Chinese pollution or it's the work camps for you.
Free Speech? Forget about it. Google will see to it that the Government knows what you said, who you said it to, and where to find you and they will punish you.
Good bet that Google helped them with their Social Score thing they have going now.
Make no mistake, the SJW side of Google is a sham meant to keep you morons happy.
Never mind the fact that most people in the country are demonstrably not conservatives
They're demonstrably not liberal either - remember that the difference in the number of voters between Trump and HRC is such a small percentage it's almost a rounding error (roughly 1/4 of the country voted for HRC, and roughly 1/4 of the country voted for Trump).
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
>> that most people in the country are demonstrably not conservatives
No, the majority of the country don't think like you. That is your bias.
You are a hateful minority and your hatespeech should be banned. Later, you should be censored from society. How does it feel when you're the end of this? It turns back to you, it always does, as you're just a useful idiot to help push the removal of free speech.
I can't wait until Google moves wholesale to China, closes it's stupid little san fran company town, and all the coddled weirdos that work there end up homeless.
PragerU: creates videos on various political, economic and philosophical topics from a conservative or right-wing[1] perspective.
Riiight, I gonna watch a video by them and they are gonna tell me what liberal and leftist is.
You know what, I'm not interested in these labels anymore and I am skeptical of everyone who throws them around. Liberal and leftist and socialist are labels used to discount ideas the poeple don't like.
"Down with Socialism! It's Leftist! Keep government out of my Medicare!"
And conservative .... calling Trump conservative makes no sense. He just gave a huge bailout to the farmers. How is that NOT socialist but Obamacare is? The same goes for the calling the Christian Right conservative. They are anything but. They want to trample the Constitution to promote their religion and force it into government.
I have my own political views. I've skeptical and I do my best to inform myself - I use guidelines from people like Michael Shermer. And it pisses me off when people attribute labels to my views because many of my views aren't either.
And remember, most of these labels were created and distorted my media pundits who are all liars who get paid millions of dollars to misinform us.
And your post just adds fuel to the misinformation fire. You are part of the problem.
Things they have in common!
Predictably the small-souled bugmen are here to lick BigTech boots.
Never mind the fact that most people in the country are demonstrably not conservatives
Where are you getting this from? Hopefully not political polling, after seeing how accurate it was in 2016. Speaking of the election itself:
Trump + Johnson = 67,474,169 votes
Clinton + Stein = 67,310,732 votes
It's a wash.
and should reasonably be expected to see things a different way.
"Seeing things a different way" != Censoring all other ways
They're demonstrably not liberal either
Didn't claim they were. I just said the majority aren't conservative which is absolutely true. The remainder are crudely speaking a mix of liberals and moderates. The electorate seems to be approximately about 1/3 of each with moderates being the swing voters tipping the balance in any given election. That's overly simplifying things greatly of course but it's a reasonable mental picture. The exact proportions might be 40/40/20 or some other breakdown but the point is that conservatives are a minority viewpoint and it should not be surprising that our search engines and media reflect this fact. But despite controlling the executive and legislative branches of government, somehow the conservatives like to imagine themselves as some sort of oppressed minority. They've got the minority bit right but not the oppressed bit.
> search results accurately provide results that reflect this fact.
Newsflash: That's all Republicans want too.
Its no secret that Google as a company is VERY left-leaning. Its also no secret that Google got rich from prioritizing search results in a way that benefits Google. You do the math.
Enterprise based in the west seeking advertising revenue by collecting, collating, and correlating consumer profiles in foreign countries cannot assert its servers be without audit and oversight by sovereign nations-- Yahoo, some eighteen years ago submitted to conditions of oversight of servers physically located in China, as has Microsoft's Bing and Skype. Silicon Valley's "Social" media (and its means of hardware/software) is America's latest, greatest export of technological superiority and it is not inherently benign. Data to conclude who buys what and, most importantly, when (seasonal trends) is a significant market advantage impacting every aspect of finance.
What 'Muricans, left, right, or center, readily and casually qualify as repression is a difference of cultural and political actuality. The Chinese people are not innocents awaiting the savior of American sensibilities any more than Americans require a Communist party to remedy its razor-thin margins of two-party partisan politics.
Would were! Should is! Could be! And live a hundred times three.
It's amazing how everything that doesn't agree with conservative political opinions somehow equals liberal bias. ....
Strawman much?
And it's not a liberal bias, ti's a leftist, objectively pro-totalitarian bias.
Because Google would just love to implement totalitarian thought suppression for the USA and President Hillary! just like they're getting paid to do by the Chinese Communists.
After all, it's the LEFT that created the term "no-platforming"
Because when all you have is poverty-producing stale economic us-against-them bullshit stuck in the 19th century, you have to shut the other guys up.
It's amazing how everything that doesn't agree with conservative political opinions somehow equals liberal bias. Never mind the fact that most people in the country are demonstrably not conservatives and should reasonably be expected to see things a different way. Not to mention that being conservative (or liberal) has no inherent relationship to objective reality or factual accuracy. $diety forbid that search results accurately provide results that reflect this fact.
As a conservative, I can assure you that the search results from Google ARE slanted left... BUT... I fully get why and I don't think it's necessarily because Google is trying to make it that way overtly.
You are correct. The issue is the preponderance of liberal bias in the volume of source material as liberal bias dominates the industry responsible for generating such destinations, who will rapidly produce 100 stories about the same set of reported facts that support the "narrative of the day" and nearly totally ignore things that are contrary to that narrative.
So, for instance, Trump's complaint that 90% of links provided by Google are unfavorable to him, is actually true, they are. But if you look at the substance behind those links, you will find that there is generally the same percentage of filed news stories. Google is simply returning the most often clicked links, which are often reporting the same general "bombshell" anti-Trump biased story 100 different ways.
So, the issue really isn't Google, in as much as they fairly report the prevalence of readers of these links, with the only exception being when they accept advertising dollars to "boost" specific sites in the rankings. As a conservative, I recognize Google's right to make money legally so I'm not going to complain about that kind of thing, nor am I on board with this censorship charge, at least as it relates to Google's search results.
That's not to say I don't harbor some animosity towards the media and their propensity to dog pile Trump with unflattering reporting using unreliable sources and ignoring serious reporting of his accomplishments, only that Google, in general, isn't purposefully rigging their search results, at least overtly. They may be ignoring conservative news outlets in their indexing process, or scanning them less frequently, but it's not like Google is actively modifying their search results and applying overt liberal bias to them.
So the question becomes, should Google *correct* the bias in their results, even if they didn't put it there? I'd argue that question is up to Google. Let their business drive their choices. I'd suggest they make every effort to NOT alter the natural results of their searches, while continuing to clearly show when a links prominence in their search results is due to advertising dollars, but they should be able to do what ever they choose. After all, That's a basic conservative principle here, personal choice and responsibility.
It's amazing how everything that doesn't agree with conservative political opinions somehow equals liberal bias.
It cuts both ways.
Progressives: This woman is a survivor of sexual assault! She must be allowed to speak! All women must be believed!
Republicans: OK. Let her come testify. How is next week? Her place or ours?
Progressives: How dare you demand that she speak!
Republicans: ??
Progressives: See?!?!? They don't believe her?
Republicans: What about the supposed witnesses that can't back up the claims (even though the accuser said they would back up the claim) and what about the dozens of women who support the accused?
Progressives: Ignore them! All women must be believed! What we meant to say was that all women must believed so long as what they say brings harm to men; women who say things that don't harm men or who even suggest that men should be allowed to defend themselves when accused are not to be believed because they are really just tools of the patriarchy! (but we didn't say that the first time because it doesn't have the same ring to it and protesters would have a hard time fitting all onto a sign.)
Republicans and even some Democrats: ??
Never mind the fact that most people in the country are demonstrably not conservatives and should reasonably be expected to see things a different way.
The country is about evenly split. It stands to reason then that progressives should see stuff they "disagree" with about half the time and conservatives should see stuff they "disagree" with half the time. That is demonstrably not the case. There is way more pro gun control and pro abortion content on Youtube, just for instance. In fact, if you try to put pro gun or pro life content up on YouTube, it is likely to be removed as hate speech. That is the sort of thing that causes rational people to conclude that there is a clear bias.
Not to mention that being conservative (or liberal) has no inherent relationship to objective reality or factual accuracy.
That is so true that it is scary.
$diety forbid that search results accurately provide results that reflect this fact.
They don't. Hence why some people are frustrated.
If anything Google results tend to lean conservative more so than not.
Should Juanita Broaddrick be believed?
According to the Clintons, no. According to the DNC, no.
Should Mary Jo Kopechne be believed?
According to the DNC, no.
So what is it? Are women to be believed or not. They appear to be in a quagmire of saying all abuse of women should be believed but having besmirched a number of women who were abused by their friends.
they already have search engines that are literally perfected for the country. Having Google in China wouldn't aid the Chinese government, or Chinese people, or China in any way at all, it would only help Google to some more information on internet users.
sundar, if you sexually harass the committee, they'll let you go. works for other people like trump, kavanaugh...
I am APK the great "LORD of HOSTS", a.k.a. AlecStaar from ArsTechnica or Alexander Peter Kowalski.
See subject & APK Hosts File Engine 2.0++ 64-bit for Linux h t t p : / / I . a m . a . f u c k i n g / a s s h o l e . r e t a r d . z i p (remove spaces between characters & download).
I am the godlike creator of various GUI front-ends for other people's configuration files.
When presented with facts I rebut them with wild speculations, false support, and out of context quotes
When people state the truth about me I get really mad and accuse them of projecting which is something I do all the time.
Don't call me out on anything unless you are willing to prove you too can write some strings to a file programmatically
See me lash out at one person for 2 weeks straight and claim everyone who mocks my retarded ass is actually them.
Bask in my debilitating mental illness
I just don't understand why every site I post on everyone always makes fun of me, it can't be because I am a shit stick but instead because they are all Ne'er-do-well SOYboy Jealous JOWIEs.
Witness my descent into madness
APK
Things they have in common!
Keith Ellison was busy being a good Muzzie and beating on women.
Meanwhile, Corey Booker was off stealing second:
Senator Cory Booker's column titled 'stealing second' that he wrote in the Stanford student newspaper in 1992 about fumbling a girl's breast at a party resurfaces
You were saying?
Google uses what it knows about you to feed you the results that it thinks are most likely to interest you. It is called the Semantic Web. This creates an echo chamber where liberal people see more liberal content and conservative people see more conservative content. Everyone is becoming brainwashed into thinking that their view of the world prevails.
Facebook and other companies do the same thing to maximize clicks and revenue. A side effect is to cause a fissure which polarizes society. To combat this effect, legislators must limit the amount and type of information that these companies collect. The future of democracies worldwide hangs in the balance.
Not that Google is a corporate saint, but the Republicans have a different problem. Since the rise of Fox News and the far right, fact-averse version of the GOP now being inflicted on America, objective truth has a liberal bias.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
There, FTFY
It's amazing how everything that doesn't agree with conservative political opinions somehow equals liberal bias. Never mind the fact that most people in the country are demonstrably not conservatives and should reasonably be expected to see things a different way. Not to mention that being conservative (or liberal) has no inherent relationship to objective reality or factual accuracy. $diety forbid that search results accurately provide results that reflect this fact.
I see some snowflake conservatives are busy downmodding anything that seems negative about conservatives.
Government and google work together to help people not be so confused by all the stuff that hasn't been vetted by them or that they might disagree with.
Right now google is helping censor political speech in China so all these wonderful leaders who might not be able to stand on their own or persuade anyone of anything can continue helping. China is also helping make sure people know what religion should be like by only allowing state approved churches and temples and that those places put their political goals over their message and deities. Isn't that so helpful?
Google's censorship of China is helpful just like the way they censor conservatives. People might trust google a little less or make frowny faces at them, or whatever, but that is okay. The US government has learned a lot about censorship over the last administration. Probably Google wants to learn more about how to make rules against being int the tea party and furthering their political goals (which users who are searching the web probably want anyway. I mean, why would you want to search the internet unless you wanted to help Democrats? It's like the same thing, right?).
So I see this as more of the same thing. Everyone is helping everyone else learn how to take censorship into new, public/private domains and learning about how much they can get away with it and how to disguise things. Let's make sure these helpers get all the credit they deserve!
Mary Jo Kopechne didn't speak-out, so your comment doesn't make any sense. Ted Kennedy killed her, so she can't speak.
Whats that?
Ted Kennedy fucking KILLED a woman and not only wasn't jailed but stayed an honored member of the DNC in the Senate for life?!?!?!
WTF? Do liberals EVER hold their own accountable? What is Kavanaugh accused of that is so bad that his life should be destroyed while Kennedy killing a woman was honored? Kavanaugh must have done some pretty harsh stuff to women that was way worse than killing them or the DNC would have to be complete idiot hypocrites.
I see racist liberals are upset people don't agree with their opinions.
Guess what? Blacks getting out of poverty is seen as a GOOD THING by most people. Sorry they don't "know their place" anymore and block vote the way you want them to. Perhaps you can threaten to cut off their penis if they don't vote the way you like, similar to how your hero Kimmel thinks conservatives should be treated. Or perhaps you might want to try lynching them like they tried to do to Cruz the other day.
Your racism, hatred, and calling for violence against people who don't vote the way you want is unacceptable. It must be a difficult day for you to begin to realize this. Go back to your KKK meetings and your opinions won't be challenged.
"VERY left-leaning."
Strange that it doesn't infect their algorithms. I mean I'm a liberal, and my household appliances, computers, cars, etc. all now have a liberal bias, just like me.
Whoa. The "alleged censorship of conservatives" links to a story headlined "Google Employees Discussed Tweaking Search Results To Counter Trump's Travel Ban".
Serious question: is the travel ban now considered a conservative thing? (I thought it was just a Trump thing, that a bunch of liberals, centrists, and conservatives supported because "jobs", i.e. they hated that international competition was so fierce.)
And is the activity in question, now considered censorship?
Either the editor totally fucked up the linking (very believable) or I am falling way behind on newspeak. Worse, I want to blame the newspeak on liberals since they look and act like liberals, but they're calling themselves .. conservatives!?!
"I favor raising taxes on everyone through tariffs and using government policy to interfere with the free market which had been providing cheap labor, but I indentify as a conservative."
Please. Don't let "conservative" become another meaningless word like "hacker." Some of us still believe in free markets, states' rights, constitutional limits and low taxes. Can't you just call these "someone talked about running ads against me and that's censorship!" people Republicans, and leave the laughing masses to decide whether or not to go along with the "conservative" label vs finally call bullshit?
Trump supporters, it's ok to admit you're left of center. Lots of people do that. You can still support a planned economy and be distinguished from others who support a differently-planned economy. Remember the rivalry between Trotsky and Stalin? It was real. Your disagreements with Democrats can be just as real, without you having to lie about not being a leftist.
If it slants left do the republican thing and stop fucking using them. Stop crying on forums about it. Vote with your wallet.
Hypocrite.
This is republicans in a nut shell.
Feed them fake news, and they instantly want justice for their side. Even tho it's all fake.
I think your bot messed up. You forgot to do a search and replace on some of those words. No worries. We will wait while you fix it.
So all the accusers of Bill Clinton, who by the way had actual corroborating evidence, are fake news? The several women abused by Keith Ellison with actual proof are fake news? Mary Joe Kopeckhne is fake news? But totally unproven charges against Kavanaugh are real. Yep it's Republicans who are delusional.
Hmmm, seems like your mind was blown with truth: Left wing fascism, Democrat racism. your tiny mind just can't see it.
I guess you've already noticed that saying anything on Slashdot that doesn't back the conservative agenda is going to get you modded down in a big, big hurry.
I've been forced to conclude that there's a lot of conservatives here with multiple accounts. And a disproportionate share of the AC comments seem to come from hyper-conservative assholes.
I expect I'll join you at minus 1 shortly for simply speaking the truth about what's happening to Slashdot.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
[a] When James Damore wrote a memo indicating that Google could become more diverse if it acknowledged that men and women are, in fact, different (a scientific fact as solid as gravity and heliocentricity), Sundar cancelled his family vacation and dashed back to headquarters to fire Damore and reassure all the leftist snowflakes on his staff that no scientific facts would ever be welcome at Google again. Damore, of course, had not implemented ANY policy changes at all, he had simply discussed a matter in private, spitballing a way to attract more women to work in tech at Google.
[b] When a group of Googlers were caught talking about rigging search results to influence the public in ways Democrats would prefer, not only did Sundar not dash back to headquarters to fire anybody - but he actually came to their defense, and argues that no actions were actually taken and the employees were only discussing ideas. Sundar assures us all that all ideas may be freely discussed in the open environment of Google and if no actual actions are taken based on a discussed idea then nobody is in trouble and none of us outsiders should pay any attention.
Sundar: Please reconcile these two things in a way that proves you are not extremely dishonest and two-faced.
Bonus challenge: Since you also run YouTube, please explain the censorship of each of the Prager U videos that have been suppressed and then explain how on Earth anybody to the right of Chairman Mao should ever trust you.
> Strange that it doesn't infect their algorithms.
Says who?
** WOOSH **