Google, continuing to distance itself from "Don't be evil.", has produced an internal document that endorses political censorship to influence elections and more. The argument is that free speech (an "American tradition") is not viable on the internet due to various factors such as the 2016 election of President Donald J. Trump.
The document admits that big tech companies "control the majority of online conversations" and have made a "shift towards censorship" over the popularity of political choices that they are unwilling to accept. This directly contradicts the repeated assertions that the political bias of big tech company executives doesn't end up affecting the products.
Fortunately for free speech, that document has leaked and now you can see the thinking of those who deem themselves your masters.
According to the briefing itself, it was the product of an extensive process involving "several layers of research," including expert interviews with MIT Tech Review editor-in-chief Jason Pontin, Atlantic staff writer Franklin Foer, and academic Kalev Leetaru. 35 cultural observers and 7 cultural leaders from seven countries on five continents were also consulted to produce it.
The Breitbart report is divided into several parts:
- Leaked Google Briefing Admits Abandonment of Free Speech For "Safety and Civility" - explains the desire of Google, Twitter, and Facebook to "create well-ordered spaces for safety and civility" on the grounds that the "European tradition" "favors dignity over liberty and civility over freedom."
- Leaked Briefing Says Google Must Move Away from 'American Tradition' of Free Speech to Expand Globally, Attract Advertiser $$$s - explains that Google's grounds is simply to make more money.
- Google Briefing Accused Trump of Spreading 'Conspiracy Theory' - for saying that Google suppressed negative news about Hillary Clinton.
- Google Document Suggests Web Must Be Controlled Because 'Users Are Behaving Badly' - which focuses on "cyber harassment", "cyber racism" including nationalism, and venting about frustrating experiences. It must be noted that Google invited several notorious online harassers to speak as "anti-harassment" experts.
- Google Growth Strategy: 'Shift Towards Censorship' to Appease Authoritarian Governments - explains that Google's motivation is to appease foreign governments and advertisers.
- Google Briefing Admits Censorship Makes It Akin to a 'Publisher' - suggests that Google may now be legally liable in the United States for the content it carries.
The Good Censor [alt link (Dropbox download)]
The "leaked" presentation was quickly framed by some as a roadmap to censorship and that it demonstrated the company was examining how to suppress certain viewpoints or crack down on internet freedoms. Yet, a closer read of the presentation would suggest precisely the opposite: a company at the center of many of our debates about the future of the online world grappling with the existential question of the modern web: how to absolutely preserve freedom of speech, while at the same time preventing terrorists, criminals, repressive governments and trolls from turning this incredible force for good into a toxic and dangerous place that undermines democracy, advances terrorism, assists fraudsters and empowers hatred? How do we elevate the voices of the disenfranchised and give them a place at the table of global discourse, while not also awakening the trolls that seek to repress them? How do we empower the free expression of ideas and bring an incredibly diverse and divided world together, while embracing the differences that make us who we are? How do we reach across countries and cultures, across languages and landscapes, to have meaningful conversations about the future of our shared planet? Most importantly, how can technology play a positive role in helping facilitate the good, empowering civil discourse, while discouraging the bad, from terrorist recruiting to fraud to toxic speech and trolling?
[...] Reading the final report today for the first time alongside the rest of the web, my own take on it is very different than the framing that seems to have emerged in certain quarters. I see not a company charting a future of web censorship, but rather a company in its 20th year reaching out to experts across the world trying to make sense of what the web has become and what its own place should be in that future. To me it is extraordinary to see Silicon Valley actually listening, absorbing and reflecting on what the world is saying about the state of the web. This is the Valley as it should be – listening to its users and understanding the web from their vantage, rather than dictating its own vision for the future of our online world.
Stepping back and looking at the themes of the Google presentation, what one sees is essentially a summary of the state of the web today and the pragmatic reality that in the anarchy of the anything-goes free-for-all of the early web, the darkness began to eclipse the light.
Also at The Verge, Digital Journal, The Hill, Dexerto.
Related Stories
Lawsuit: Google employees were fired for upholding “Don’t be evil” code:
Three former Google software engineers who sued the company yesterday claim they were fired for following Google's famous "Don't be evil" mantra.
"Google terminated each plaintiffs' employment with it for adhering to the directive 'Don't be evil' and calling out activity by Google that they each believed betrayed that directive," according to the complaint filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court by Rebecca Rivers, Sophie Waldman, and Paul Duke. The ex-employees say Google falsely blamed them for a data leak after they circulated an internal petition.
The lawsuit notes that the Google Code of Conduct "that each full-time Google employee is required to sign as a condition of employment" specifically instructs them not to be evil. The ex-employees say they tried to uphold the "Don't be evil" policy in August 2019 by circulating a petition "requesting that Google affirm that it would not collaborate with CBP [US Customs and Border Protection] or ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] with respect to enforcement of the Trump border control policies."
"[E]ach plaintiff protested Google's engagement in supporting BCP policies that resulted in separation of families and 'caging' of immigrants who were seeking asylum in the United States," the complaint said.
Google's firings of Rivers, Waldman, and Duke are also part of an ongoing case in which the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against Google.
Previously:
(2018-10-13) Google Leak: The Good Censor
(2018-09-14) "Senior Google Scientist" Resigns over Chinese Search Engine Censorship Project
(2018-05-19) "Don't be Evil" Disappearing From Google's Code of Conduct
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday October 14 2018, @05:24AM (4 children)
Would they be ethical when they censor posts by Jews and Blacks?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @08:16AM
It's about the same as a Muslim web site censoring posts by Jews, or a Cherokee web site censoring posts by blacks. You might find these things to be OK or not, but the significance is low due to a lack of market control.
The rules are different when you control the market.
Given the above hypothetical Muslim and Cherokee web sites, it is OK for all the internet giants to conspire against them? Would it be OK to have a coordinated campaign that yanks their DNS, their Twitter account, their facebook account, their payment processor, their Visa/Mastercard/whatever merchant accounts, their ability to place things in the Apple app store, and more?
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Sunday October 14 2018, @10:14AM (1 child)
I think they have the right to exist, but I'm tempted to kick the shit out of anyone who actually reads them.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @06:25PM
Umm check the op? Sure you got that right?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @08:19PM
If Stormfront were censoring posts by Jews and Blacks on other websites at the behest of foreign governments, and hired harassers to target their business competitors online and IRL, and was one of the largest federal contractors so that the public was paying for all of this, then it might be worth comparing Google to Stormfront.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday October 14 2018, @05:50AM (13 children)
Why, that's surprising... Breitbart have much to loose from censorship of fake news and political manipulation bullshitting [wikipedia.org]. Free speech is the singlemost important value that allows these nutcases to exist.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Captival on Sunday October 14 2018, @05:53AM (4 children)
Imagine how scathing that comment would be if you could actually speak English well enough to write it correctly.
PS: strawmanning the source doesn't make the leak any less true. Google already admitted it.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday October 14 2018, @10:02AM
No, I believe that Rosco is correct,
Both in grammar and spelling. Brietbarf has much to loose, and looses it on a regular basis. Andrew loosed it years ago.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @10:32AM (2 children)
When your only argument is "Whaa! Typos! Grammar! You don't speak English well!" then you're surrendering. Rocco is correct. And you are correct too ... correct to surrender.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @10:53PM (1 child)
What was OP's argument? Cause he is just strawmaning Breitbart with no evidence other than some retarded Wikipedia link. EWith quotes from this articles like "and some of its content has been called misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist by liberals" just read like badge of honor to me.
I find Breitbart to be the sanest online news outlet of all the ones I have read over the years, and there have been plenty. The often report things the "mainstream" media bury. And they have plenty of actual scoops, like this Google leaks story, which are actual scoops, unlike when Vox has a scoop about an "oppressed" obscure drug sub-culture of some third-world shithole.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @08:05AM
One does not simply "strawman" Brietbart! Brietbart was created as an alt-right propaganda outlet, no one needs to accuse it of being such, this is established fact.
Oh, Brietbart reader, then? OK, you misogynist, xenomorphic, racist piece of human refuse that is deplorable, fuch off and no one cares what you think because your taste in media is obviously all of those thing. Scoops! Ha! Of human excrement, like yourself! Ha!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @12:48PM
So you'd restrict free speech in order to silence a pro Israeli web site, what are you a nazi or something?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Sunday October 14 2018, @02:26PM (5 children)
You may not like Breitbart, but it doesn't matter. Free speech requires that people you dislike also get to speak. If you disagree with that, even in the slightest, then you do not believe in free speech.
Of course, that's the world that the progressives and SJWs have been trying to create. Every cry about "fake news" is really a cry for censorship. What they fail to understand is that, at some point, the tables will turn. If they have established a precedent of squashing undesirable viewpoints, they will cry all the louder when theirs are the viewpoints being suppressed.
Even though I live in Europe, I object strenously to the European viewpoint that civility is more important than freedom. If someone wants to question the Holocaust, they should be able to do so. If someone wants to insult foreign leaders, why not? Otherwise, someone is determining what viewpoints are acceptable, and which ones are not - and that's not a power that anyone or any government should have.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nerdfest on Sunday October 14 2018, @04:01PM (3 children)
Sure, fake news is free speech, but it is also, fraud, if you're looking to punish people for things that are not true. Removing free speech to do it is the wrong approach. There are several other criminal charges that could apply as well, including inciting unrest, public nuisance, etc. Probably not worth the trouble in small cases, but Breitbart et al are pretty much begging for it, assuming they're located in countries with that sort of law.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @04:56PM
All reporting has an editorial bias, why do you think we call the items the media peddle "news stories"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @06:48PM
Nerdfest is a fake lawyer.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday October 15 2018, @04:32AM
Then what do you call this?
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2018/07/06/judicial-watch-files-ethics-complaint-against-waters-n2497959 [townhall.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @10:32AM
Whoosh! It's that smell of burning straw again.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @07:34PM
Wikipedia is definitely not a reliable source on anything regarding American politics, Hillary Clinton, or her opponents. [deepfreeze.it] They have administrators and foundation officers working directly under Donna Brazile, Wael Ghonim, Zack Exley, [archive.is] and the Obama campaign's San Francisco field office director [8ch.net] who are paid to slant the site, make their opponents look as bad as possible, and ban anyone who gets in their way. They also have people on the editorial board of the New York Times so when they need a "reliable source" they can whip one up.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @07:10AM (18 children)
Google has long been known to be picky about content - and manually, at that. They've admitted it, publically. Because their biggest, baddest AI is not as good as humans at picking out stuff that they don't like.
They've also long been known to be interested in money. Lots of money. And if they have to suck some dictatorial dick? Well, that's what kneepads and chapstick are for, right?
Google has long been known to value free speech about as much as used toilet paper, and to cheerfully assist in official doxxing of people saying inconvenient things.
The closest thing to a surprise here is that Breitbart did a detailed review. Forbes's craven attempt to redefine editorial bias and interference in apparently neutral content as a good thing is less surprising.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @08:15AM (14 children)
Breitbart has long been known to value truth about as much as used toilet paper, and to cheerfully assist in official trolling of people saying inconvenient things.
Google is not without sin, but Breitbart is well known to outright lie for political manipulation. Your craven attempt to give credence to a troll suggests that you enjoy sucking Trumps dick.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @08:22AM (13 children)
Breitbart is certainly on the right, choosing wording that is pleasant to conservatives, but they are far more truthful than most mainstream publications. You'll choke before admitting it, but Breitbart is more truthful than CNN and MSNBC. You know it's true.
Or do you still believe Trump was disrespectful during the Koi feeding?
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by Pslytely Psycho on Sunday October 14 2018, @09:57AM (10 children)
Gawds, funniest thing I read all d.....oh, you were serious.
My bad.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @11:11AM (6 children)
Obama already made Nixon look saintly.
Nixon merely tried to cover up stuff related to petty crimes committed by some campaign workers.
Obama helped coordinate an operation involving $12 million paid to foreign agents, wiretapping warrants issued after the fact, wiretapping of a political opponent, granting special permission for a banned Russian (the female lawyer who met Trump Jr.) to enter the USA for influencing an election, feeding intelligence data about one candidate to the other candidate... WTF???
And that's just the largest election scandal. There are a dozen huge scandals that CNN and MSNBC thought you didn't need to know about. Some "were covered" by brief mention one day, despite being far more serious than much of the rest of the news. (Did you hear about running guns to Mexico? Etc.)
It was all covered on Breitbart.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @02:05PM (1 child)
St Obama of the Nobel Peace Prize who made it policy to drone US citizens.
I miss someone like Nixon.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Sunday October 14 2018, @06:12PM
Nixon was president during the Kent State Massacre.
Where American Military gunned down American students on American soil.
Nixon would of loved drones.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Pslytely Psycho on Sunday October 14 2018, @06:06PM (2 children)
"It was all covered on Breitbart."
If you like lies cut from whole cloth. Yea, Breibarts the place to go.
Conspiracy theories. A kernel of truth here and there compounded with fantasy on their best days.
Boo! Jade Helm's a gonna attack Texas and O'bummers a gonna make hissef dictator fo' life!!!
But an orange parasite is A-Ok!
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @07:40PM
For reference, Breitbart's reporting on Jade Helm:
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 15 2018, @01:59AM
I think you're conflating Breitbart with InfoWars. Jade Helm was an InfoWars conspiracy.
It didn't seem likely to me, but post-Snowden I don't sniff at accusations of government crimes, malfeasance, or ill-intent any more. As a publicly elected official now (albeit of the lowest possible rung) I say we should all as good citizens start with the presumption that government at all levels comprises evil incompetent fuckups and work backward from there. Bureaucrats cloak their activities behind mountains of boring data and technocratic minutiae and hope the public's eyes glaze over long before they ask any inconvenient questions, but we have to brave that and ask anyway.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Sunday October 14 2018, @10:40PM
Dude! You were supposed to at least put a plot reveal like that in spoiler tags. We are still arguing about whether Obama spied on Trump, the big reveal on handing the intel over to the Clinton campaign has apparently been postponed until the next season of The Trump Show. Or it will be the season cliffhanger, hard to say yet.
But even that isn't the biggest plot twist ahead. The upcoming episode that will cause heads to explode is...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by crafoo on Sunday October 14 2018, @12:45PM (2 children)
You have to admit, in this particular case, Breitbart has been far more truthful and honest in their reporting than any other news organization.
And still, we haven't hit peak insanity.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Pslytely Psycho on Sunday October 14 2018, @05:54PM (1 child)
Perhaps, but a single good deed doesn't erase a career of lies.
I don't trust anyone. But some have gone way out of the way to become disreputable.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @07:05PM
You're right that some have gone way out of the way to become disreputable. It's all relative, so you need to rank them.
You can put NBC near the bottom. Just yesterday:
https://i.redd.it/t037ar0b64s11.jpg [i.redd.it]
(NBC putting Trump's words out of context to make him seem to adore the confederacy or at least General Lee)
You also need to rank CNN near the bottom. A few weeks back somebody (with cell phone probably) caught Anderson Cooper kneeling in a large puddle while doing a show about flood waters. Feeding the koi is another great example, showing completely dishonest manipulation of the viewers. Trump and the Japanese PM do some sort of fish feeding ceremony. Both of them spoon food to the fish from little wooden boxes, then the PM dumps out crumbs, then Trump follows the PM's example and dumps out crumbs. CNN shows the PM carefully spooning out food, then Trump dumping out food. CNN was clearly trying to make Trump look like a rude and disrespectful ass. With this being so normal in American media today, your impressions of Trump have been warped. It's all on purpose. You're being fed lies.
Compared to the likes of NBC and CNN, Breitbart actually comes out looking like an honest source of news.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @10:36AM
Breitbart isn't even more truthful than you, and you lie with purpose and intent.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 14 2018, @11:17AM
Actually - Breitbart isn't any more honest than most of MSM. Your first two phrases of your first sentence is an accurate, and truthful statement, which should have been left to stand alone.
And, even if Breitbart were ten times more truthful than CNN - well - this short video makes it clear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdUD-jcr104 [youtube.com]
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 5, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 14 2018, @03:26PM (2 children)
Forbes took the typical SJW approach to that argument. Step one, disallow trolls. Step two, call anyone you don't want to hear from a troll.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @10:34AM (1 child)
Er, I think what really happened is that Forbes doesn't want people pissing all over its property like it's a public urinal.
Nasty private corporation Forbes may be, but that is their right - just like it's Breitbart's right to publish whatever they feel they want to publish in their own paid-for space.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 15 2018, @03:02PM
Okay... Except that publishing whatever articles you want or not is not remotely what I was talking about or what Forbes was talking about...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Sunday October 14 2018, @09:33AM (7 children)
The Forbes writer must think that it's goog's job to look over your shoulder while you're watching a movie and cover your eyes when someone is about to be stabbed.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by SunTzuWarmaster on Sunday October 14 2018, @12:15PM (6 children)
This is the real problem. 4chan has freedom of speech. Nearly completely uncensored speech (except child pornography... for which it is... not completely censored...). 4chan is rated X. Someone posting an image of someone being anally raped in response to your favorite lemonade is 100% possible.
That said, everyone knows that 4chan is rated X. That behavior on other parts of the internet is not acceptable.
If you good "lemon party", you don't particularly expect or want the results... That's where Google comes in - to cover your eyes from the content you (seem to) want to see.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @12:29PM
Says who? Google?
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by crafoo on Sunday October 14 2018, @12:48PM (4 children)
No. Bullshit. I want uncensored search results.
YOU might want a security blanket and a carefully curated, manufactured reality. I want every relevant search result.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @03:09PM (3 children)
Who decides what "relevant" means? Spambots? Freedom for spambots!
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 14 2018, @03:27PM (2 children)
The user making the request.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday October 15 2018, @08:13AM (1 child)
But what if the user making the request is bat-shit crazy, along the lines of MDC when he knows it or TMB when he does not? Should we not have mercy on the temporarily or permanently deranged by not giving them the madness that will feed their madness? And how does a crazy person know what it is they expect as unbiased results of a search, since they will characterize anything that does not meet the criteria of their insanity as "fake news"? So they are hardly a reliable standard.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 15 2018, @03:03PM
What if they are? There's no law against being bat-shit crazy or desiring bat-shit crazy results.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @10:51AM (2 children)
I thought America was partly founded to break away from European traditions. At least this is what history books have said.
ANEu
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday October 14 2018, @11:44AM
Tolerance [smithsonianmag.com] and religious freedom [crosswalk.com]
Hmmmm.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1) by Tokolosh on Monday October 15 2018, @02:57AM
The European tradition used to be "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it", as attributed to Voltaire's philosophy.
(Score: 2) by noneof_theabove on Sunday October 14 2018, @12:19PM
the electrons of the intanetz to read anything by DimFart.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @02:16PM (3 children)
What, the truckloads from the NSA are not enough anymore? Have we finally reached peak Internet bubble?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday October 14 2018, @04:34PM (2 children)
Yeah, Trump cut off their spy monies, hence the pivot to China. What is really hilarious about this is how demoralized all those totally righteous millennial weenies working for them, the ones who drank the Kool-Aid and drank it hard, must be. It's like having your parents tell you that yes they are poisoning your brother and sister and no you're not gonna do a goddamn thing about it.
I pray to Jesus Christ that people start harassing Google fifth-columnists in the streets. And I mean beatings, not just shovings. They need to be bopped upside their fat heads with leaky urine-filled bottles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @06:11PM
FTFY
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @06:31PM
So you are a fan of Antifa and "punch a nazi" then? Go figure
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday October 14 2018, @04:58PM (8 children)
Well, I suppose even a stopped clock is right a couple times a day. They're right for the wrong reasons (i.e., the ONLY care about this NOW and ONLY because they want more exposure) but they are still correct. We're heading into one of those cyberpunk dystopias we all cut our literary teeth on reading, except without any actual way to fight back. As Mussolini said, fascism is the merger of state and corporate power.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @07:51PM
What you can do is tell everyone you know of to vote for the Trump / Brexit / AfD types that the media calls "nazis" when they have photo-ops with Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, and then agitate for the enforcement of anti-trust law. And share [voat.co] history [hirhome.com] when you find it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @08:21PM (3 children)
What if they are more right than you think? They do make good points. Google and Facebook are straight up conducting censorship for views they do not like. I just personally do not like their editorial style.
We are being wholesale manipulated. We have been for years. The people conducting it have been studying it for years. http://www.americantable.org/2012/07/how-bacon-and-eggs-became-the-american-breakfast/ [americantable.org] If they can do that with something as simple as bacon what else can they achieve? Perhaps things like 'brietbart is bad'? I realized it in 1999. The realization was that most of what we consider news is little more than thinly veiled advertisements. Companies can send in whatever they want. News orginzations will pick it up wholesale and run with it. Once you realize that the 'news' is a rather low bar you realize you can say whatever. It will get echoed around as fact. Self referencing itself.
News is basically re-read items from about 5 different companies. They might put a small about spin on it. But that is about it.
Think I am 'full of it'? Here is a fun example of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM8L7bdwVaA [youtube.com]
They can literally pick 'winners and losers'. Censorship is dead easy once you control that small handful of orgs.
the ONLY care about this NOW and ONLY because they want more exposure
You are trying to read their minds. This is your brain trying to put straight that brietbart is bad. Your brain is trying to protect you and make things 'right again'. It is OK. Once you let go of what you have been trained to look at you will see the base manipulation. It is quite breathtaking in its scale and cost. It is quite the sight to behold.
Google and Facebook were the 'cool kids' fighting the establishment. They were going to make the world a better place. Instead now that they are in charge they have decided against that. They want to make sure they cement their power structure in. But you do not have to take my word for it. Look at who they are donating to around the world for 'campaign contributions'. Look who is ghost writing the bills. It sure is not 'we the people'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHhrZgojY1Q [youtube.com]
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday October 14 2018, @08:39PM (1 child)
Brietbart *is* bad, they're just a different kind of bad than Facebook and Google. Where's "Option 3, to the abyss with all of them" in your list? You underestimate me severely; it is entirely possible not to trust anyone on the right and also not to be an easily-manipulated, useful idiot for the neolib raiders who have hollowed out what remains of the left wing in this country for their own greedy ends. There is a reason i have not owned a TV in nearly a decade and a half (and even then I only used it to run my SNES).
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by jmorris on Sunday October 14 2018, @10:53PM
You mistake is assuming the sort of unbiased media you crave has ever existed or ever will. It is only by allowing everybody to speak freely that we have any chance of getting to the Truth. Even when towns had two newspapers, one rabidly Republican and the other equally Democrat you could subscribe to both and at least have a chance of figuring out where the Truth was between those extremes. Now there is only one and they are leading the bad rush of the Left off the cliff into madness.
There was only one brief moment where unbiased journalism almost existed, when the early wire services cost so much that carrying a left and right biased version of every event was too expensive so they only sent one to all papers, but even then they could be tweaked locally before publication.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 15 2018, @01:49AM
This is so.
Early in my career in technology I worked as a contractor for Crain's. They publish a number of specialty business papers like Advertising Age, Crain's Chicago Business, Crain's New York Business, Pensions & Investments, and others. I developed systems for them to statistically identify and analyze trends, so I had direct access to their feeds and the information their reporters used on a daily basis. The emails and faxes they got every day was an unbroken stream of press releases from companies that had been written in the form of articles.
You would not believe how often the reporters would make very minor changes to those press releases and pass them off as their own stories.
I remember it clearly to this day because I was deeply shocked at how lazy it was. I was shocked by how dishonest it was. They didn't do anything like any version of self-laudatory depictions of journalism in any Hollywood production on film or on TV. There were no reporters investigating, or interviewing. If the reporters there ever picked up the phone at all it was to ask for spellings of people's names and that kind of thing.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 15 2018, @01:38AM (1 child)
It is weird, but we're living in weird, weird times. When CNN started I watched the channel constantly. Now I can't bear to watch it for five seconds. I used to read the New York Times every day, then one day they decided to cheerlead the invasion of Iraq under the phony pretext of "Weapons of Mass Destruction." I was an NPR addict for 30 years, even having gone for 3 years in graduate school and afterward with no other form of mass media but that. Now I can't listen to them.
Breitbart now is the least weird, least hysterical. Every other outlet has no intention every day but "GET TRUMP!!! OMG, OMG, OMG WE GOTTA GET TRUMP!!!"
I suppose it should have been obvious that somebody was fucking with our time line when the National Enquirer started scooping the "real" media on stories, like when they took John Edwards down. It should have been obvious the MSM didn't care one whit about the journalistic mission when none of them went to bat for Wikileaks and Julian Assange. We should all now have no doubt where things stand that the New York Times refused to break the Weinstein story. We should none of us harbor any further illusions when NBC worked for years to cover up and excuse sexual harassment by Matt Lauer and others there.
Honestly, the relativistic effects of the black hole we're all spiraling into are enough to make a person's head spin.
Nevertheless, free speech is the right thing to stand for. It is an unalloyed good. The Founding Fathers didn't invent it out of thin air, but instead were channeling a thousand years of hard experience of not having it in Europe. It is a key plank of the Western Tradition and the Enlightenment. It ought to lead us to condemn what Google is doing, and what Facebook is doing, even though those have made protestations about being our friends, of doing it for our own good.
I would go even further and say what they are doing, and what others mean to do with enforcing standards of conversation for reasons of decorum, is incredibly dangerous. Coarse speech and harsh words, raw emotion and combative tone, signal that deeper things are going wrong. It warns of us against approaching catastrophe that will occur if we don't fix those deeper things immediately. If we censor all that out for a tailored, Pollyanna illusion we are effectively removing the fire alarms in the house of the public discourse because they keep going off.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday October 15 2018, @03:17AM
Agreed with all of that except the part about Breitbart being the least bad of the lot. Other than that you're spot on. I have not taken what any news outlet tells me at face value since 9/11, and was skeptical beforehand too. Money ruins everything, authoritarianism ruins everything, and it can be anyone doing it regardless of their stance on the economy.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @10:37AM
No they're not. Not even remotely.
I once knew someone who wasn't a very nice or honest guy. He also happened to be Jewish, which in the context means nothing at all.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by jmorris on Sunday October 14 2018, @11:44PM (2 children)
Seems everybody wants to argue about whether Breitbart is so guilty of wrongthink that actual document they released should be ignored. Typical.
The document itself, which nobody is disputing the authenticity of, is all that should be the topic of discussion. But of course that would not go well for the Prog team so distract, obfuscate, and lie is the only defense and that we see here in spades.
The bottom line is Google is an avowedly unAmerican corporation and it really isn't possible to argue another viewpoint on that statement without arguing in bad faith. If they want to be a European Corporation and uphold European values that is their right I suppose, but we should all be aware of what they are and begin taking appropriate steps. Or they can be a Chi-Com front and we should all take appropriate steps. What they should not be allowed to do is be those things and still be treated as an American company.
We should be treating them as a hostile foreign entity caught meddling extensively in our internal affairs. If Putin buying a few thousands of dollars in Facebook ads was enough to trigger several years of investigations, what of Google?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15 2018, @10:39AM (1 child)
Replace 'Breitbart' with 'Stormfront' and there'd be no argument, would there.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday October 15 2018, @04:36PM
It should not matter, especially in this case where it is a dump of a document that nobody disputes the authenticity of. How many articles per month does Soylent put up for discussion from World Worker's Party and whatever other openly Communist organization? So no, attacks against the source are still bad form. I do it when a Commie source is cited that is mostly just a repackage of a MSM article, on the ground the Communist spin in that first layer ads nothing of value and should have been stripped for the link within to the original source. But in this case Breitbart.com is the original source, they committed an act of actual journalism.
So, for the same of argument, you are asserting that there should be no argument whether a story broke on stormfront was worthy of debate. So if they broke compelling evidence on the Russia! Russia! Russia! hoax you are assuring everyone that the New York Times wouldn't be picking up the story within hours? Seriously?
And please note that yet again, the only reply is sticking to the deflection to the source gambit instead of the obviously damning facts about Google that people don't want to see because they would be forced to take a position.
(Score: 1) by Tokolosh on Monday October 15 2018, @02:52AM
“Internet media should spread positive information, uphold the correct political direction, and guide public opinion toward the right direction,” the state-run Xinhua news service reported in April, summarizing the instructions of Mr. Xi, who “stressed the centralized, unified leadership of the Party over cybersecurity.”
Google is going to help them with this project.
(Score: 3, Informative) by darkfeline on Monday October 15 2018, @08:32AM
I have a modest proposal, how about actually reading the leaked document and commenting on that?
For example, let me cite some stuff from the document that no one has read yet.
"What's driving this furore around free speech and censorship online?"
"According to Freedom House, only a quarter of the world's internet users reside in countries where the internet is "Free from Censorship""
"And there are worrying signs of new government encroachments"
"Governments also trying to tighten their grip on political discourse by asking Google to censor more and more content"
"In responding to public pressure, tech firms haven't managed the situation particularly well either"
"Tech firms are performing a balancing act between two incompatible positions"
"Why the shift towards censorship?"
"Don't take sides, Police tone instead of content"
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