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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday September 25 2018, @06:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the subtle-influences dept.

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


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  • (Score: 2, Disagree) by hemocyanin on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:11AM (4 children)

    by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:11AM (#739972) Journal

    The parties are basically indistinguishable -- both are war like, both are spendthrifts, neither really cares about civil liberties or average people, etc. etc. The venn diagram of Republicans vs. Democrats is so close to being a circle, you need lab quality instruments to see where they diverge.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:33AM (3 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:33AM (#739987)

    I used to let those slide, but I'm pretty sure paying attention for the last 4 years would show some significant differences in many places which matter, starting with Net Neutrality and business-worship stance, on top of the expected social issues.
    Or maybe you need your lab instruments to find your evidently shrunk capacity to observe to drift of both parties to the right, especially the one that started pretty far right.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:54AM (2 children)

      by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:54AM (#740015) Journal

      Nobody seemed to be able to compare the GWB to Obama terms, you know where Obama expanded all the wars, catfood commission (thank goodness the GOP wouldn't work with him), making 82% of the Bush tax cuts permanent, opposing a ban on cluster bombs, due process free execution based on secret legal memos to one-up Bush's Gitmo, cutting safety requirements for offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico just before one blew up, bailing out banksters .... yeah, Democrats rock. /sarc

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:12PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @01:12PM (#740147)

        It's called *politics* and *compromise* and why *ELECTIONS FUCKING MATTER*.

        Since for most of the time Democrats were arguing how to best have Obamacare implemented, they really did fuck-all next, assuming that Republicans are going to remain sane. That assumption was incorrect. What happens is an example of why compromise with Republicans is a one way street these days.

        • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:21PM

          by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:21PM (#740193) Journal

          The fact that Democrats' major sense of pride comes from implementing Nixon's healthcare plan says a lot.