Google's CEO testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday where lawmakers grilled him on a wide range of issues, including potential political bias on its platforms, its plans for a censored search app in China and its privacy practices.
This is the first time Pichai has appeared before Congress since Google declined to send him or Alphabet CEO Larry Page to a hearing on foreign election meddling earlier this year. That slight sparked anger among senators who portrayed Google as trying to skirt scrutiny.
[...] Tuesday's hearing was titled "Transparency & Accountability: Examining Google and its Data Collection, Use, and Filtering Practices" and many representatives posed questions on whether or not Google's search results were biased against conservative points of view.
[...] Another topic that came up multiple times was Google's plan to launch a censored search engine in China. The Intercept first reported details of the project over the summer, which would block search results for queries that the Chinese government deemed sensitive, like "human rights" and "student protest" and link users' searches to their personal phone numbers. [...] "Right now, we have no plans to launch search in China," Pichai answered, adding that access to information is "an important human right."
Also at Bloomberg and The Hill.
See also: Sundar Pichai had to explain to Congress why Googling 'idiot' turns up pictures of Trump
Google CEO admits company must better address the spread of conspiracy theories on YouTube
Alex Jones, Roger Stone crash Google CEO hearing
Monopoly man watches disapprovingly as Congress yells at Google's CEO
Previously: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal
Uproar at Google after News of Censored China Search App Breaks
"Senior Google Scientist" Resigns over Chinese Search Engine Censorship Project
Google Suppresses Internal Memo About China Censorship; Eric Schmidt Predicts Internet Split
Leaked Transcript Contradicts Google's Denials About Censored Chinese Search Engine
Senators Demand Answers About Google+ Breach; Project Dragonfly Undermines Google's Neutrality
Related Stories
Google is planning to launch a censored version of its search engine in China that will blacklist websites and search terms about human rights, democracy, religion, and peaceful protest, The Intercept can reveal.
The project – code-named Dragonfly – has been underway since spring of last year, and accelerated following a December 2017 meeting between Google's CEO Sundar Pichai and a top Chinese government official, according to internal Google documents and people familiar with the plans.
Teams of programmers and engineers at Google have created a custom Android app, different versions of which have been named "Maotai" and "Longfei." The app has already been demonstrated to the Chinese government; the finalized version could be launched in the next six to nine months, pending approval from Chinese officials.
Or does it not? China denies google's plans for a censored version
[...] Chinese state-owned Securities Times, however, said reports of the return of Google's search engine to China were not true, citing information from "relevant departments".
But a Google employee familiar with the censored version of the search engine confirmed to Reuters that the project was alive and genuine.
On an internal message board, the employee wrote: "In my opinion, it is just as bad as the leak article mentions."
Only a few of the search behemoth's 88,000 workers were briefed on the project before The Intercept reported on 1 August that Google had plans to launch a censored mobile search app for the Chinese market, with no access to sites about human rights, democracy, religion or peaceful protest.
The customised Android search app, with different versions known as Maotai and Longfei, was said to have been demonstrated to Chinese Government authorities.
In a related development, six US senators from both parties were reported to have sent a letter to Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, demanding an explanation over the company's move.
One source inside Google, who witnessed the backlash from employees after news of the plan was reported, told The Intercept: "Everyone's access to documents got turned off, and is being turned on [on a] document-by-document basis.
"There's been total radio silence from leadership, which is making a lot of people upset and scared. ... Our internal meme site and Google Plus are full of talk, and people are a.n.g.r.y."
Senior Google Scientist Resigns Over "Forfeiture of Our Values" in China
A senior Google research scientist has quit the company in protest over its plan to launch a censored version of its search engine in China.
Jack Poulson worked for Google's research and machine intelligence department, where he was focused on improving the accuracy of the company's search systems. In early August, Poulson raised concerns with his managers at Google after The Intercept revealed that the internet giant was secretly developing a Chinese search app for Android devices. The search system, code-named Dragonfly, was designed to remove content that China's authoritarian government views as sensitive, such as information about political dissidents, free speech, democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest.
After entering into discussions with his bosses, Poulson decided in mid-August that he could no longer work for Google. He tendered his resignation and his last day at the company was August 31.
He told The Intercept in an interview that he believes he is one of about five of the company's employees to resign over Dragonfly. He felt it was his "ethical responsibility to resign in protest of the forfeiture of our public human rights commitments," he said.
Poulson, who was previously an assistant professor at Stanford University's department of mathematics, said he believed that the China plan had violated Google's artificial intelligence principles, which state that the company will not design or deploy technologies "whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights."
Google has been aggressively suppressing an internal memo that shared details of Dragonfly, a censored search engine for China that would also track users:
Google bosses have forced employees to delete a confidential memo circulating inside the company that revealed explosive details about a plan to launch a censored search engine in China, The Intercept has learned. The memo, authored by a Google engineer who was asked to work on the project, disclosed that the search system, codenamed Dragonfly, would require users to log in to perform searches, track their location — and share the resulting history with a Chinese partner who would have "unilateral access" to the data.
The memo was shared earlier this month among a group of Google employees who have been organizing internal protests over the censored search system, which has been designed to remove content that China's authoritarian Communist Party regime views as sensitive, such as information about democracy, human rights, and peaceful protest.
According to three sources familiar with the incident, Google leadership discovered the memo and were furious that secret details about the China censorship were being passed between employees who were not supposed to have any knowledge about it. Subsequently, Google human resources personnel emailed employees who were believed to have accessed or saved copies of the memo and ordered them to immediately delete it from their computers. Emails demanding deletion of the memo contained "pixel trackers" that notified human resource managers when their messages had been read, recipients determined.
[...] Google reportedly maintains an aggressive security and investigation team known as "stopleaks," which is dedicated to preventing unauthorized disclosures. The team is also said to monitor internal discussions. Internal security efforts at Google have ramped up this year as employees have raised ethical concerns around a range of new company projects. Following the revelation by Gizmodo and The Intercept that Google had quietly begun work on a contract with the military last year, known as Project Maven, to develop automated image recognition systems for drone warfare, the communications team moved swiftly to monitor employee activity. The "stopleaks" team, which coordinates with the internal Google communications department, even began monitoring an internal image board used to post messages based on internet memes, according to one former Google employee, for signs of employee sentiment around the Project Maven contract.
Eric Schmidt has predicted that there will be two distinct "Internets" within the decade, with one led by China:
Leaked Transcript of Private Meeting Contradicts Google's Official Story on China
"We have to be focused on what we want to enable," said Ben Gomes, Google's search engine chief. "And then when the opening happens, we are ready for it." It was Wednesday, July 18, and Gomes was addressing a team of Google employees who were working on a secretive project to develop a censored search engine for China, which would blacklist phrases like "human rights," "student protest," and "Nobel Prize."
"You have taken on something extremely important to the company," Gomes declared, according to a transcript of his comments obtained by The Intercept. "I have to admit it has been a difficult journey. But I do think a very important and worthwhile one. And I wish ourselves the best of luck in actually reaching our destination as soon as possible." [...] Gomes, who joined Google in 1999 and is one of the key engineers behind the company's search engine, said he hoped the censored Chinese version of the platform could be launched within six and nine months, but it could be sooner. "This is a world none of us have ever lived in before," he said. "So I feel like we shouldn't put too much definite into the timeline."
[...] Google has refused to answer questions or concerns about Dragonfly. On Sept. 26, a Google executive faced public questions on the censorship plan for the first time. Keith Enright told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee that there "is a Project Dragonfly," but said "we are not close to launching a product in China." When pressed to give specific details, Enright refused, saying that he was "not clear on the contours of what is in scope or out of scope for that project."
Senior executives at Google directly involved in building the censorship system have largely avoided any public scrutiny. But on Sept. 23, Gomes briefly addressed Dragonfly when confronted by a BBC reporter at an event celebrating Google's 20th anniversary. "Right now, all we've done is some exploration," Gomes told the reporter, "but since we don't have any plans to launch something, there's nothing much I can say about it." Gomes' statement kept with the company's official line. But it flatly contradicted what he had privately told Google employees who were working on Dragonfly — which disturbed some of them. One Google source told The Intercept Gomes's comments to the BBC were "bullshit."
Here's an article written by Dave Lee, the BBC reporter that Ben Gomes misled.
Previously: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal
Uproar at Google after News of Censored China Search App Breaks
"Senior Google Scientist" Resigns over Chinese Search Engine Censorship Project
Google Suppresses Internal Memo About China Censorship; Eric Schmidt Predicts Internet Split
Republican Senators Demand Answers about Google+ Cover-up
Senators Thune, Wicker, and Moran Letter to Google
takyon: Three Senators have written a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai requesting responses to several questions about the recent Google+ breach.
Also at Reuters, Ars Technica, and The Verge.
How Google's China Project Undermines its Claims to Political Neutrality
Submitted via IRC for chromas
How Google's China project undermines its claims to political neutrality
The company's official position on content moderation remains political neutrality, a spokeswoman told me in an email:
Google is committed to free expression — supporting the free flow of ideas is core to our mission. Where we have developed our own content policies, we enforce them in a politically neutral way. Giving preference to content of one political ideology over another would fundamentally conflict with our goal of providing services that work for everyone.
Of course, it's impossible to read the report or Google's statement without considering Project Dragonfly. According to Ryan Gallagher's ongoing reporting at The Intercept, Google's planned Chinese search engine will enable anything but the free flow of ideas. Even in an environment where American users are calling for tech platforms to limit users' freedoms in exchange for more safety and security, many still recoil at the idea of a search engine that bans search terms in support of an authoritarian regime.
And that's the unresolvable tension at the heart of this report. Almost all of us would agree that some restrictions on free speech are necessary. But few of us would agree on what those restrictions should be. Being a good censor — or at least, a more consistent censor — is within Google's grasp. But being a politically neutral one is probably impossible.
See also: Senator Says Google Failed to Answer Key Questions on China
Related: Leaked Transcript Contradicts Google's Denials About Censored Chinese Search Engine
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday December 12 2018, @02:59PM (14 children)
Anyone is free to use any other search engine.
Also anyone can build their own search engine. A similar thing happened when Wikipedia was affected by the fact that reality has a liberal bias. The result was Conservapedia. [conservapedia.com] Nothing is stopping anyone from building a search engine that scours the web and creates search results that DO NOT reflect what is actually out there on the web but reflects a POV instead.
As I understand it, Google's search:
* is what exists on the web
* reflects YOUR interests
* is somewhat affected by popularity
It seems that at least some in congress believe there is a human that vets every web site or search result somehow. What are these people smoking? (now that cannabis is legal in DC)
To not realize that Google and Apple are competitors is to be seriously out of touch. But that seems to be the norm for politicians, and ESPECIALLY this administration.
Hey, here is an idea! Create a new Government search engine! Call it The Ministry Of Truth! It would be Fair And Balanced!
No, really!
Yes, really!
I also find the hypocrisy astounding that the right wing against government regulation and against protecting net neutrality are foaming at the mouth to regulate Google. Why can't they just go pick on Facebook who uses PHP?
Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @03:13PM (3 children)
Gangs of liberals roam Wikipedia, because that's what you do when you're unemployed and otherwise worthless to society.
Cities have liberal politics, because they have liberal populations (one man one vote), because layabouts clamoring for handouts must follow the money like groupies follow the rockstars.
That is, productivity has a conservative bias; loud, resource-intensive whining has a liberal bias (prove it by downmodding my perfectly commensurate reply).
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday December 12 2018, @07:17PM (2 children)
Bzzzzzzzzzzzt.
The correct answer is: Social Media Influencer.
Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 13 2018, @02:36AM
If you're ugly or antisocial you probably can't be one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 13 2018, @06:12AM
Well, it got modded Flamebait, but Wikipedia does have a problem. And it is not that it has liberal bias.
Reality also doesn't have liberal bias. That's a shitty statement meant to make young-ones feel good about themselves because they don't know anything about the real world to form their own opinions.
Wikipedia has a power bias. There is enough documentary evidence to show. For this reason it has more articles about Pokemon than probability. Because actual scientists hold less sway in the offline world than Nintendo. It is also why when it comes to social sciences (which are in my opinion have lost all reasons to be called science) there is a European bias, and feminist bias.
Interestingly, the neither scientists nor non-English speaking non-Europeans nor normal people have absolutely any interest in giving any credence to Wikipedia, so there is 100% control of those forces on it. But conservatives, specially American conservatives, have a huge interest in usurping the liberal power structure so they fight it out. Hence there are edit-wars on global climate change, history of civil war and feminist jurisprudence, but not on dark matter, history of Asia or male incarceration rates.
If you, like me, sit on the fence you don't edit wikipedia, you just read about pokemon and other fictional things on it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @03:19PM
My state forces me to slavery for google, having to work as a human classifier in order to get a driving license.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @05:29PM
Gangs of liberals roam Wikipedia, because that's what you do when you're unemployed and otherwise worthless to society.
Cities have liberal politics, because they have liberal populations (one man one vote), because layabouts clamoring for handouts must follow the money like groupies follow the rockstars.
That is, productivity has a conservative bias; loud, resource-intensive whining has a liberal bias (prove it by downmodding my perfectly commensurate reply).
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @06:43PM
Gangs of liberals roam Wikipedia, because that's what you do when you're unemployed and otherwise worthless to society.
Cities have liberal politics, because they have liberal populations (one man one vote), because layabouts clamoring for handouts must follow the money like groupies follow the rockstars.
That is, productivity has a conservative bias; loud, resource-intensive whining has a liberal bias (prove it by downmodding my perfectly commensurate reply).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday December 12 2018, @07:25PM (5 children)
Goodness Conservapedia is weird.
The front page I looked at proves reality has a liberal bias, because there's a link to an article "proving" young Earth creationism.
Weirdos.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @08:15PM (4 children)
Conservatives allow leftists into their conservative clubs on day passes, if only for the sake of an enjoyable argument. Yet, leftists disappear conservatives who wonder too close to leftist hovels.
That's why the world appears to have a leftist bias; the left purifies its territory and vandalizes their neighbors'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @08:36PM (3 children)
It is called insanity of the minority. You know your world view is outdated and dwindling fast, please cite the occurrences of this genocidal purification and vandalism. I'm sure they will be worth the wait lawl
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @08:41PM
Poor Conservatards! Mocked and shamed into silence by their very own stupidity and lack of reason! It would be sad, if it was not so funny!
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday December 13 2018, @03:16AM (1 child)
This is asymmetry, and the most vivid example I've seen was in Taleb's book:
https://philosophiatopics.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/skin-in-the-game-nassim-nicholas-taleb.pdf [wordpress.com]
The conclusion? One can not be tolerant with intolerant; she will lose. Intolerant have to be removed - all of them.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 13 2018, @08:15PM
As you explain, there is no room for the leftist intolerance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 13 2018, @04:52AM
I thought this administration was supposed to have out-teched the others during the election using data to manipulate people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @03:06PM (4 children)
But the urge to vomit everytime a Congressperson spoke was too great.
Now looking back at that, I'm wondering whether that compulsion is based on some brain fuckage pumped into my noggin' over the years by mainstream news. Like maybe it is an induced subconscious to divert people away from watching government through any lense by theirs.
Or maybe it's just I'm reliving a thousand moments where I had to resist the urge to smack the fuck out of high school drama queens who spend their day wasting everybodies time as "project managers". Pretty much exactly like listening to Congress isn't it?
In any case, thanks martyb for suffering on our behalf.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday December 12 2018, @04:08PM (3 children)
I subbed it, not martyb.
While I ripped a story from CNBC, I did watch about 20 minutes or so of the testimony. It was quite bad, and even worse when you fact checked some of the "specifics" Congressmen had brought up (about bias against conservatives and such). Who can forget the cringe "my granddaughter saw an attack ad with my face on it when she was playing a game on her iPhone... err, maybe it was an Android" moment? Other moments have slipped my mind but showed that those Congressmen were not tech savvy. Now, I don't expect Average Joe to be tech savvy. But these people gathered together to grill the GOOG man, and each of them presumably have their own staff to do research on their behalf. They can also read from written notes or a script if they think they are going to forget the details.
What I found myself thinking was that any one of these Congressmen could have contacted Andrew Orlowski, that rabidly anti-GOOG and anti-Wikipedia guy over at The Register, and they could have gotten his help to compile much juicier questions. Skip the pleasantries and the "oh, I bet you would have never imagined you would be sitting here today when you were a poor kid in India" crap. Just launch straight into the questions. Maybe get one of your colleagues to cede their time to you so you can ask more questions. Do all that and you could have witnessed a grilling way beyond any intensity seen. And unlike Alex Jones shouting outside, Sundar has to at least pretend to address the questions.
Another dumb thing: Congressmen taking their whole allotted time to deliver a political statement rather than ask any questions. Guess what, geniuses, you can post that crap on your House webpage. Or you can go on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, or the Sunday morning shows in order to make your point (even BBC would carry it if you approached them). What you need to do at the hearing is get Sundar talking as much as possible, about as many topics as possible, with no rest. And there has been some speculation that Sundar's "we have no plans to launch search in China" was either a lie or deceptive. Did anyone even ask if Google had such plans, say, 6 months ago?
I guess I did learn a couple of things, one being that Dragonfly is (supposedly) dead. I had thought Google was still planning to go ahead with it. I think Google leadership need to realize that although China is a big market, there is no easy entry into it anymore. You'd have to make big compromises to get in, angering Western users and employees, face firmly established players such as Baidu, and always be at risk of being kicked out. It's time to write off China unless you have a new approach, such as a non-political driverless car service, or until China's political system crumbles (which could take decades, if it ever even happens within our lifetimes).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @05:23PM
"I had thought Google was still planning to go ahead with it."
I was kindof weirded out by this whole thing. Didn't Google try and do this years ago? If I remember right, it ended with them ripping out all their racks overnight so they wouldn't be "appropriated". So it kindof looks like a suckers game to begin with.
I tend to disagree with those who regard state censorship as a reason not to do it. Invariably the algo's are going to leak non state-friendly data, because developers will optimize around them. My beef would the be state level surveillance part. But how do you beef that given the current surveillance state here in the U.S. ? If we were doing our part, we would be the beacon of freedom that Congress presumes itself to represent. Would be nice, but no. So I kindof consider it bad business idea, but ethically, it is kindof a wash.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday December 12 2018, @07:27PM
> "we have no plans to launch search in China"
Business plans change.
Google had plans for a censored search engine in China. Then 5 minutes before the hearing, those plans changed. Then 5 minutes after the hearing, they changed back again.
Congress cannot expect business plans to remain frozen when business conditions change. (such as when testifying before congress)
Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 13 2018, @06:29PM
"Another dumb thing: Congressmen taking their whole allotted time to deliver a political statement rather than ask any questions. Guess what, geniuses, you can post that crap on your House webpage. "
i've been complaining about this for a while too. they're so stupid and arrogant they think they have to explain everything to people and give their campaign speech, like anyone gives a shit. they only get 5 minutes for some stupid ass reason(as if they have jobs to get to or something) and they waste it like the asshats they are. yes, they should be posting their stupid explanations and BS propaganda on their tax payer funded websites. they can skip the stupid ass senate speeches too, as if they are convincing anyone on the other side of the isle to vote with them. give me a break. post your industry funded and written position on your website, along with everything else that should be there so people can harass you sellout bastards ahead of time.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 12 2018, @03:16PM (9 children)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 12 2018, @03:24PM (2 children)
Stop being silly. You can't see the new laws until they are passed. Can we just vote on it now?
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @03:53PM
Fake news.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @10:58PM
M'eh, cant say seeing the laws before would help anything when the governments interpretation of the law is secret.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @03:35PM (3 children)
United States >>> UK >> Canada > Australia >>> NZ
New Zealand has already passed various anti-encryption laws, and Australia is in the process of doing so. The UK and Canada and the US have had discussions about doing so for a long time, and it's currently being trialed in Oceania, with the ultimate goal being the U.S.
This is how it will go down: The Big Corps will play dumb, saying "We know something is wrong, but we don't know what to do. We need help from you wise legislators". The bureaucrats will reply: "Ah. Privacy and Security are the most important and sacred mandates. Therefore, we do indeed demand the strongest encryption feasible (which will only be easily implemented in hardware by the big, established corporations); this includes the latest, state of the art multi-key schemes, which will thereby allow certain law-enforcement agencies lawful access to this encryption without compromising the privacy of the law-abiding citizenry."
There's your "regulation". Easy for Big Corps (but hard for upstart competition). Easy for Government surveillance. Hard for criminals to exploit; hard for the masses to escape.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @06:17PM (1 child)
sounds good to me. bring on the war against privacy and encryption and i will become a wealthy dealer and will defend it more violently than pablo escobar.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday December 12 2018, @07:17PM
Ditto, but virtual violence. Anything physical would be device destruction, but not in a way that an IT person could get hurt. All the tech people of the world could unite and fucking burn down the whole goddamn system [youtube.com].
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday December 12 2018, @08:01PM
I would be interested in knowing what anti-encryption laws New Zealand has passed.
I did find this [newshub.co.nz] which has the minister saying he won't be passing anything like the Aussie laws.
Our border people have the powers to tell people to unlock their devices when coming into the country, but at some point someone will tell them to go eat a bag of dicks and the courts will have to rule on that.
I can see it being thrown out, as too broad.
That said, the general point you make may well not be wrong.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 12 2018, @03:43PM (1 child)
No, the tech companies are saying very much the opposite of "regulation is needed"? Where the fuck did you get that?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 12 2018, @10:12PM
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @04:56PM (4 children)
Google claim their platform has no political bias, as if it could not possibly do so.
However, they are more than willing to announce (loudly) that they will fix their machine learning models whenever someone else says they show bias against women, or a minority group.
You can't have it both ways, Google.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday December 12 2018, @07:30PM (3 children)
They could claim that they don't have it both ways. They could claim that when they find political bias they fix it.
But who decides what is biased? FoxNews?
Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
(Score: 4, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday December 12 2018, @08:11PM (1 child)
Alex Jones should.
Because he's not batshit insane and has no weirdo views about women or gay people.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday December 12 2018, @08:44PM
(Score 6, Inciteful)
It shall be made so.
Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @11:32PM
Certainly not "let's green-screen women as search and rescue team members and get Anderson Cooper to pretend to interview them" CNN.
(Score: 5, Touché) by stretch611 on Wednesday December 12 2018, @05:40PM (25 children)
From Washington Post [washingtonpost.com]:
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 12 2018, @06:17PM (24 children)
Translation: That particular democrat agrees with Google's bias, and gets positive results from Google.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 5, Informative) by DannyB on Wednesday December 12 2018, @07:32PM (6 children)
Translation? That doesn't seem like a translation.
If the search engine is returning true results that you don't happen to like, it is not bias.
Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 12 2018, @07:40PM (4 children)
If the search engine is returning true results that you don't happen to like, it is not bias. Can't argue with that statement. Nor can you argue with my statement. A person who is favored by the bias is going to like the results of that bias.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday December 12 2018, @08:48PM (3 children)
> A person who is favored by the bias is going to like the results of that bias.
True, assuming there is bias.
Is it true that if Google profiles you as conservative, or into knitting, or baseball, they give you results more to your liking? (I don't know, but believe it to be true.)
Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday December 12 2018, @09:52PM
Suddenly our conservatives don't understand how page-rank works.
I wonder if they feel any shame pretending to be ignorant to fit in with their conservative buddies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @09:58PM (1 child)
What if you search for information about Nazis, and forever thereafter get results preferentially from neo-Nazi sites, especially every time you do a search in public?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 13 2018, @06:42AM
Well, there's no reason to search for information on Nazi's unless you are a Nazi, so it makes sense.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Wednesday December 12 2018, @11:04PM
Last I knew, search engines were supposed to return relevant results. Has the mission now changed to returning only truthful results?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday December 12 2018, @07:43PM (16 children)
That's bullshit though and you know it. What's hard to admit, is that just maybe, Google is an accurate reflection of ourselves. Republicans have done very shitty things, and completely abandoned all moral authority by continuing to endorse the Orange Anus. With White Nationalism (aka White Supremacy) strongly linked to the Republican party now, I'm not surprised that conservative is a dirty word now. Hillary did get the popular vote, and what that really tells me is that other than fly-over country, people are strongly leaning towards liberal. I'm not excited about the far left either since I'm not down with safe spaces and criminalizing of pronoun usage. Nevertheless, you see where things are going to. So why is it so surprising that our technology is acting like a mirror?
You really think Google deliberately made sure idiot brought up images of Trump, or that perhaps all of us keep the words "Trump" and "Idiot" trending so tightly together that it is an accurate search result? It's very hard to make a search engine have a particular political bias, and Occam's Razor tells us the simplest solution is usually the truth; That's what people are searching, that's what they're posting, so that's what comes up.
I believe if you search for it right now the top search results are all articles explaining why the previous results happened. It already changed, which undermines any conspiracy against Trump. When you click on images, it shows a ton of pictures of Trump. Easily explainable because those are pictures that others have posted on the web with the term idiot in their description, blog, whatever, and the search results are an accurate depiction of the web. It seems that conservatives are upset about what the mirror is showing and want to manipulate it, and their efforts with gerrymandering show they would rather game the system then let it represent reality.
Trump had a chance to make the Republicans truly more popular with the independents, progressives, disaffected Democrats, and centrists. Except he wasn't nearly the President he claimed, and hasn't accomplished jack diddly shit for the people. Drain the swamp? He just changed who was in it and had control. His behavior with the TPP, and claims he would renegotiate trade to our advantage, are his ONLY good actions, and they're tainted. So again, I'm not surprised by what the mirror is showing. It tracks.
Finally, can you really blame Google for this alone? You know of the tech cold war against Google's algorithms and different attempts to manipulate it. I would sooner believe that an organized external campaign was waged to game Google, almost like a service a PR or advertising company would provide legally..... and then why again? Just so idiot and Trump trends? As if that would influence votes at this point?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 12 2018, @08:08PM (13 children)
I don't accept that, but, if it is true, then America should be embarrassed. Under the guise of eliminating an ages-old racist culture, you are instituting another racist culture. Under the guise of battling fascism, you are trying to build a Soviet style authoritarian state. If that is a reflection of yourselves, so be it. Just don't waste time arguing with me that your racist, soviet state is somehow superior to the status quo. And, PLEASE, openly admit that the left has abandoned The Dream of Martin Luther King. You simply cannot have King's dream, while establishing a New Racist Order.
Google actively suppresses results that cast women and minorities in a poor light. If Google is allowing images of Trump to crop up when "idiot" is searched for, then yes, Google has made a conscious decision to do so.
True. Plausible deniability - ring any bells? Google feels the need to make excuses for the association of the term and the image. And, despite the apparent shift in focus on Google's part, Trump's image is still seen when you search for "idiot".
Remember when this search yeilded images of a worn-out has-been drunken lush? Who was upset then? https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=CGkRXKKlOpCUtQWBkbqYAQ&q=what+difference+does+it+make&btnK=Google+Search&oq=what+difference+does+it+make&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0l10.2964.7668..8066...0.0..0.544.10512.2-3j9j11j3......0....1..gws-wiz.....0..0i131j0i3j0i10.ttsURHSqaTk [google.com] (ehhhh - google URLs - no I'm not "fixing" it, I copied it directly from my address bar.)
But, why would he? Trump is no Republican. In fact, Trump was popular with Democrats - until he decided to challenge Hillary in the presidential race. Trump is a populist, a loose cannon, who first beat out all the Republicans, and then beat the Democrat running against the R's.
Google has been waging war against males, whites, heteros, and people of faith, not to mention conservatives, for quite a long while now. Yes, I blame Google.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 5, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday December 12 2018, @08:27PM (3 children)
That's true. Every time I go to the toilet Google sends a trans person in to stare at me while I pee, which is very off putting.
The real problem of course is the Gay Atheist Ninjas who keep trying to kill me all the time. Google sends those too, and while the sandbags help, I'm running low on ammo.
It's really hard being a white man lately.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @09:05PM (2 children)
Funny, the same things keep happening to me as well. Does this mean I must be a conservative?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday December 12 2018, @11:25PM (1 child)
Maybe.
Do you get really, really angry at the thought that a trans-gender person might be able to choose where they go to the toilet, even though you have never actually met a trans-gender person?
If you do, you might be a conservative.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 13 2018, @04:56AM
I'm angry at my biology teacher for lying to me.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @08:42PM (1 child)
You've posted stupid shit plenty of times before, but this post in particular seems like the veil is lifting off of your true regressive nature. When chided for making pro-trump statements you say you didn't vote for him and he is a jackass, but then you post "Trump is a populist, a loose cannon, who first beat out all the Republicans, and then beat the Democrat running against the R's." which is a total joke now that everyone knows he colluded with Russia and that the GOP has been actively committing election fraud.
"Google has been waging war against males, whites, heteros, and people of faith, not to mention conservatives, for quite a long while now. Yes, I blame Google."
You are truly a dumbass, mixed with a jackass, and a little bit of Klan tossed in for good measure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @09:09PM
It's kinda like that scene in Indiana Jones and whatever, where the Nazi says, "Germany has declared war on the Jones Boys!", except that it is more like "SoylentNews has declared war on the Runawaty1956!" Now Runaway has a war on two fronts, both Goog and SN. Whatever you do, Runaway, do not attempt to invade Russia. Mostly because you are already there.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday December 12 2018, @08:55PM (2 children)
That is about protecting a class of people.
Do you really think so? Do you think someone actually filters through the ocean of information with an eye dropper and tweezers?
If Trump is the response to 'idiot', then Google merely REFLECTS that the web apparently says so.
Now whether Google should fix this is debatable. On one hand, Trump is not a protected class of people and so it's okay for idiot to return Trump, if the web says so and the algorithm fairly detected this correlation. But on the other hand, idiot may be a class of persons to protect, and they should not unfairly be associated with Trump.
Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @10:16PM (1 child)
Which is called bias towards a class of people, which is also known as prejudice or bigotry.
And when every possible class of people except for white men has these "protections", these protections are now the norm and there is now institutionalized racism and sexism against the one group that is denied these protections.
And when Google executives hold meetings gloating about how few white men they are hiring, that is hate.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @10:39PM
Oh, you poor poor snowflake!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday December 12 2018, @09:54PM (2 children)
Of course America should be embarrassed. Russia was able to manipulate our elections by manipulating us through power we willingly gave as sheep to some tech giants. I'm not sure what racist culture is replacing the old racist culture. You seem to be talking about the extreme left which is as fucking nutty and intellectually and ethically offensive as the far right.
"Your"? Slow the fuck down buddy. I'm not part of the extreme left by any measures, and being pro-union and pro-hybrid-socialist-capitalist does not group me in with them. I'm not arguing that either the status quo or the extreme left vision of America is correct. Both are reprehensible on many levels.
I don't what the fuck you are going about with this "New Racist Order". I know a lot of liberals, and lot of them are surprised that in the last decade that the left got stretched so much farther to the left, and that they're actually closer to centrist now. When you say "Left" you lose a lot of fucking people, because none of those people advocate for safe spaces, decriminalization of pronoun usage, free speech restrictions, etc. Every liberal I knew was offended by the teacher in SF that punched a demonstrating Nazi, who was not provoking anyone beyond enjoying his right to protest and be on the soap box. We were offended she thought it was legal, ethical, and moral to punch the man because he was a Nazi. That's bullshit, and it's also extreme fucking bullshit to paint the whole Left with the same brush. Do you think nobody on the left can tell the difference between a conservative, White Nationalist, and far far right ethnostate nutbag?
Dr. Martin Luther King is my hero. Yes, I think he would be rolling in his grave seeing Antifi and their militant response to the militant response the White Nationalists put out. It's not an excuse, and Dr. King would say to turn the other cheek, and the only way to can defeat them is to engage them conversation, and above all, peaceful resistance.
I've heard nothing about that at all, and you're just so completely full of it with your assumption it was a conscious decision to do so. Conscious decision making does not scale, and it's an algorithm. People getting butthurt by Google fail to realize that Google represents what all of us are saying and doing on the web. It's truly nonsense to think a sentient human being is at Google actively out for conservatives. Especially when the other possibilities make a hell of a lot more sense, like there are a ton of people out there saying Trump is an idiot and posting memes. One is conspiracy, the other is established fact.
Uh huh. Google didn't do jack shit, unless you mean engage in an immediate conspiracy with all media (conservative or otherwise), to make articles about it trend higher. Google only indexes content, it does not create it. Again, Google didn't shift whatsoever, it's the images of Trump along with negative captioning that causes those search results. The content in the search results is real. The only claim you can have is that there was an external campaign to create all that content out there, negative to Trump. The real truth remains, if there was a ton of positive content associated with him, you would find that instead.
No it hasn't. If it has done anything, it is to put up the mirror. Other than a minority of people on the far extreme left, I don't hear anything against males specifically, or straight people, or white people, or religious people, or conservatives. Males? You mean me-too? Well suck it up because I'm old enough to know they're not all lying. This has been a day on its way for some time now, and yes, men need to answer for some shit. Religious people aren't under attack, what is under attack is their bullshit attempts to control the rest of us based on their sky people beliefs. If that means they can't discriminate against a gay guy, that's a good thing.
What you're saying here is delusional, and to blame Google for society doesn't make any sense. They're a mirror, and that's clearly what upsets you more than anything. Google isn't the problem. Facebook isn't the problem. Twitter isn't the problem. We're all the problem.
You get your wish to control and regulate Google, and you're going to be sorely disappointed. The regulators aren't going to find a person, but a machine. 3rd party analysis of the algorithm won't show favoritism. It won't change society, or magically raise Trump's numbers overnight either.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @10:13PM (1 child)
From another comment site: "To pretend that a global businessman, who did have business interests in Russia, was shoved into office by the Russians, as if the American people were remotely controlled zombies, is the pinnacle of a propaganda narrative that takes voters to be dumb. A handful of social media postings hypnotized electors to vote for Trump? Sure. In reality the electorate of 2016 could only express this and only this: That they disliked Hillary Clinton so much, they would rather have anyone else, no matter how revolting of a jackass, in office. That is not the Russians' fault, that is the fault of the US elites." (anja-boettcher1 at spiegel.de)
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Thursday December 13 2018, @12:08AM
I agree that Russian interference couldn't influence the election more than a percentage point or two. However, that was all that was needed in the end.
I strongly suspect that Trump would've lost if he had been up against anyone other than Hillary. The Dems pushed many votes Trump's way by anointing her, and the Russians added the final straw(s) to the camel's back through Fake News etc.
And if you think that the American public is too smart to fall for that, remember that there are many examples that disprove that theory (My favourite one is that Gwyneth Paltrow's company Goop is still in business...)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @11:03PM
And this is why their image search is superior, for one thing at least...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 12 2018, @11:35PM (1 child)
If you think Google is not deliberately and actively biased, search Google for "white couples' and take a look how few are white.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 13 2018, @03:12PM
Yup, just an algorithm. Someone sat down, and decided, "We don't want to protray happy couples who are both white. We've got to send a message, so when anyone searches "white couple" they must get at least 20% black/white couples, and at least 35% or white/Asian and/or white/Hispanic. There must also be 10% of black couples, because black and white are so easily confused."
Doing a search for black couples, I see black woman, black man, just as any rational person would expect. Scroll down the page a ways, there's a light skinned woman who I think might be white, scroll a little more, another who could pass for white, but has an authentic looking Afro, another woman who is very light skinned and can pass for white, down about four more rows, I see, clearly labeled, "Asian Black Couples" with a black man and a light skinned woman who might be any Asian race/nationality. One single white guy with a black woman looks very out of place on this page. That's with a page setup giving me 51 rows of 9 images each.
But, there's no bias, it's just an algorithm. /sarcasm
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz