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Days after the Trump administration instituted a controversial travel ban in January 2017, Google employees discussed ways they might be able to tweak the company's search-related functions 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."
wsj.com/articles/google-workers-discussed-tweaking-search-function-to-counter-travel-ban-1537488472
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @08:38PM (1 child)
They are not fullof of shit. The "market" is made up people. Market forces are putting pressure on companies, said companies modify their behavior to maximize market value.
Previous bad behavior has always been excused by saying companies can do what they want and it is their job to maximize profits. Same thing here, just now instead of hurting employees or the environment "the market" is hurting the conservative nutjobs.
I am not surprised that conservatives are now crying, i guess with them it is Freedom of Speech for me but not for thee.
I am totally fine with anti monopoly actions for tech, the future will soon have search engines of all sorts, like the various business directories, real estate magazines, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @05:32AM
Yeah so that makes the lefties actually from the right-wing, right? It is like right-wing lunatics are now claiming to be leftists. Is it not??
Pick a fucking side of an argument. But it is simply better to jump on the side of power, isn't it?