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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.
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?...
Except of course for the hundreds of demonstrable examples, sure.
Their CEO literally said at an all-hands meeting that they would, "do everything in their power to stop conservatives."
You are purposefully ignorant because it suits your politics, but one day the worm will turn and you'll find yourself oppressed by the same monopolistic evil.
...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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Their CEO literally said at an all-hands meeting that they would, "do everything in their power to stop conservatives."
Source? I haven't been able to find any quotes anything like this.
As far as I can tell, the supposed tech megacorp censorship against conservatives is some mix of categorizing far-right hate speech and outright harassment as "conservative" speech, and inflamed conservative persecution complexes leaping at shadows.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Won't work, he's a leftist, they'll not only pillory him, but also say that he's an example of leftist hypocrisy on sexual predators if a Democrat doesn't initiate a flying jumpkick to stop the harassment within 3 seconds.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
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.
You are purposefully ignorant because it suits your politics, but one day the worm will turn and you'll find yourself oppressed by the same monopolistic evil.
He doesn't believe Google will ever censor him because he only thinks the correct progressive thoughts, and Google loves progressive thought.
But here's another scenario for him to think about: demographic change engineered by liberals will lead to death of conservatism and the Republican party. They actually brag about this, and they're working hard to bring this about, and real life data shows they're succeeding. Trump is just a tiny speed bump, history is on their side. So the Republican party will very likely fold and disappear in the near future, and the remaining party (Dem) will split into two. This is a pattern that's happened over and over again in the past, so there's no reason to think why it won't happen again. Probably it will be the Socialist Democrats (Ocasio Sanders et. al) versus the Big Business Democrats (Feinstein Clinton et. al).
To the grandparent: are you absolutely sure Google will side with you when the Dem party splits into two?
As far as I can tell, the supposed tech megacorp censorship against conservatives is some mix of categorizing far-right hate speech and outright harassment as "conservative" speech,
again who does the "categorizing" here?
who decided which is "conservative speech"? are there universally valid definitions of words like "far-right", "hate speech" etc? did a court convict everyone censored for "outright harassment"?
instead, wasn't it "tech megacorps" with leaders steeped in liberal ideology that categorize, convict, and censor, speech?
personally as private corps it is their right to censor whatever speech they want, and being liberals, they do censor conservatives.
but all this pretending they are unbiased is idiotic and dishonest.
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also if they are effective monopolies, or oligopolies acting in concert,
or if public services use their platforms (for example used for disaster data gathering and alerts) ,
or if public funds and tax breaks are involved, or if gov agencies like education department is in partnership with them on some projects,
or if there are violations of discrimination laws and privacy laws, etc, etc
their freedom to act and censor as they wish, because they are private corps, is no longer a valid justification.
Top post is a lie.
"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.
I think it's reasonable and honest to call their web services unbiased. They only censor "conservatives" for sufficiently broad, goose-steppey definitions of "conservative." They'll never censor you for calling for limited government, supply-side economics, strict abortion laws or loose gun laws.
Hate speech has a reasonably specific definition. If you post holocaust denial, calls for genocide, calls for violence against people by sexual orientation, etc, then you'll get banned. If you use the platforms for harassment you'll also get banned, and courts need not be involved.
You'll never find a case of "conservative speech" being censored by Facebook/Twitter/Google unless the person making the claim defines "conservative" as including viewpoints that conservatives actively avoided public association with just 3-4 years ago. So are open white nationalists of various kinds to be explicitly and publicly welcomed under the "conservative" tent? Choose.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
See? Perfect example. If one Democratic politician isn't dropped like a hot potato on the first allegation of abuse, they're exactly as bad as the Republicans who unflinchingly support their rogues' gallery of wife-beaters and rapists.
With binary thinking and false equivalence, all morally imperfect beings and organizations can be equally terrible, so that the most terrible need not feel ashamed.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
That's called Google bombing, but feel free to let Reddit drive you deeper into the looney bin:
http://fortune.com/2018/07/19/...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I'm modded down, no source given, currently the GP appears to have a fabricated quote at +5.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I agree. And given that the only speech which is "censored" is bigoted tirades and laughably-faked news, saying "conservatives are censored" is the same as saying "all conservatives are bigots and gullible idiots", which is clearly false but should probably annoy conservatives.
Google should and almost certainly will continue to do what they've always done: censor hate speech and harassment without political bias. If any new party deals in those, let them be butthurt.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Addendum: If any new political party shelters people who deal in those and feels wronged by proxy, let them be butthurt too.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Google should and almost certainly will continue to do what they've always done: censor hate speech
Okay but what about books? Shouldn't books containing hateful material be burned?
running from questions as usual. typical.
again who does the "categorizing" of speech here? be specific, don't run!
why do you think, you, and those who do the categorizing, are more qualified to categorize which speech is "conservative" or not, than those who say what has been censored is conservative speech?
those who say that include not just racists, but republicans( in office, including the president and those in congress, and party outside), trump voters of many kinds, traditionalists, isolationists and others who oppose intervention in global wars, both free traders and anti free traders, libertarians, religious, nationalists, gun right activists, pro life activists, anti immigrant activists, anti sjws of all sorts, etc etc, and others, who were and are publicly referred to as conservatives.
what give you the power define what is "conservative" over all those others i mentioned?
iow, why do you think those "conservatives" cannot define what "conservative speech" is, but censorious "liberal" leaders of tech megacops can?
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also to repeat other questions you ran from,,
did a court convict everyone censored, of "hate speech?
did a court convict everyone censored for "outright harassment"?
are there universally valid definitions of words like "far-right", "hate speech" etc?
sorry that you are ignorant that wikipedia is not universally valid source for anything. wikipedia which recently categorized california republican party as nazi(with google repeating that in search). wikipedia which only acknowledge "genocides", "apartheid regimes", etc, according to "liberal" ideology and political alliances of the current globalist establishment, which for instance, makes anyone speaking about grievances of palestinians guilty of "hate speech" by its own definition.
why do you think wikipedia has the right to define speech for universe? and why do you think anyone should abide by wikipedia definitions? ideological bubble mentality can lead to unspoken irrational consolations like yours about wikipedia its seems.
*conclusions
I don't run from these questions, I simply prefer to ignore them because they're silly post-truth questions.
In short, words have meanings and we share an objective reality. We can track their meanings through history and scrutinize attempted interpretations with logic in a politically impartial way. That way when someone tries to spin their meanings around on a dime to suit their own political purposes like the people complaining about "conservative" speech being censored are doing today, we can call them on their bullshit.
It's the same with the definitions of hate speech and harassment, they're not being used as legal terms, legal convictions are absolutely not necessary as it's a private company choosing what they wish to host on their platforms. There isn't nearly as much wiggle room for these terms as you'd like to think.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
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.
> Strange that it doesn't infect their algorithms.
Says who?
It is. They haven't fixed this new form of Google bombing in general. If it appears to have a far-left bias, it's because the planet is far-left compared to the US.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
you are running from questions, like a dog from a stick.
here are the main questions you run from in short form, details are in my earlier comments.
1/ who does the "categorizing" of speech here? be specific,
2/ why do you think "conservatives", including ones in office, in known "conservative" parties, and in organizations serving "conservative" causes for along time, cannot define what "conservative speech" is, but censorious "liberal" leaders of tech megacops can?
3/ did a court convict everyone censored, of "hate speech? did a court convict everyone censored for "outright harassment"?
4/ are there universally valid definitions of words like "far-right", "hate speech" etc? also wikipedia is not universal truth or definitions, why do you think it is?
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now for your irrational ignorant non answers.
you are the one living a "post truth" bubble and can't deal with facts and reason; based on your comment, you basically think, "what we in bubble say about others have more validity than what same others say about themselves and things that affect them, damn the facts and reason"!
only such a bubble mentality will let anyone think leaders of "mega tech corps" "track word meanings through history and scrutinize attempted interpretations with logic in a politically impartial way" . you realize are talking of people like those in the tgif video right?
in reality, it is you and censorious "liberal" leaders of "mega tech corps", "who spin their meanings around on a dime to suit their own political purposes."
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as you admit, law and legal definitions don't matter to them, only what they say matters.
if what they say and do affect their own ordinary private companies and those who use them, that is true, as i said from start.
but as i also said from start,
if they are effective monopolies, or oligopolies acting in concert,
or if public services use their platforms (for example used for disaster data gathering and alerts) ,
or if public funds and tax breaks are involved, or if gov agencies like education department is in partnership with them on some projects,
or if there are violations of discrimination laws and privacy laws,
or if they engage in anti competitive practices, etc, etc,
their, "we are private companies with liberty to do as we wish in our property" claim is no longer valid.