HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

I am not the OP, but they might have meant this: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

Also, as Moway linked to in this thread¹: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRf9UxsM-NE

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25359710

⬐ mattnewton

As someone very familiar with the original tgif, I still can't see the leap from having leadership acknowledge the majority of their employees feeling apprehensive about the election results, and being worried about the potential for their products to be used for what amounts to psy ops, to talking about google somehow manipulating elections.

I’d bet it would have the same effect simply having a photo of them wearing such attire (outside of work, in an appropriate setting) published on social media. Google is, from what I gather, extremely polarized:

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/16/google-content-moderation-in...

(Not to mention the whole James Damore thing.)

> If I imagine that google would take a political side in the US election

They did. Maybe not in public, but it has been communicated clearly to the employees:

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

⬐ Naracion

While this is true, I do not think this applies to the point that GP was making wrt influencing election results. Taking a public stance and enforcing said stance on communication through their services is a far cry from an internal discussion within a company where most employees lean towards one side.

I'm not saying this is okay--it probably could've been conducted in a more (politically) inclusive manner. But my argument is that this doesn't apply to the GP.

Edit. Also of course the main post about comment censoring is troubling.

There's a video of Google's first all-hands meeting after the election. It's like a funeral. Even the concept that someone could want Trump elected for a decent reason is utterly ignored. This includes and is led by the most senior of leadership - Sergey, Larry, and Sundar.

“Most people here are pretty upset and pretty sad,” Google cofounder Sergey Brin says as the meeting begins. “I find this election deeply offensive, and I know many of you do too. It’s a stressful time, and it conflicts with many of our values. I think it’s a good time to reflect on that. ... So many people apparently don’t share the values that we have.”

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

⬐ esoterica

There are no decent reasons to want Trump to be elected.

⬐ throwaway8879

Every individual has their subjective valuation of "decent reasons". Please do not proclaim yourself the sole owner of objective value. It is incredibly naive, and dishonest too. Reasons that do not seem decent to you will be so to others.

There are almost 8 billion of us. You don't speak for everyone. And I say that as a non-american who has no horse in the race.

⬐ Apocryphon

That was in November 2016. It's highly likely that sentiment, at least with management, has changed over time- especially since this administration has proven itself to be as solicitous towards big business as prior Republican presidencies. Not to mention, the publicly-signaled sentiment of the visible figurehead leadership can be very different from the true opinions of the corporate board.

People are forgetting something. We know Google is far left and wishes to impose their leftist agenda on the world at large [0].

All of their shenanigans including censorship of search, censorship on Youtube, and now this, would make this agenda and intent abundantly clear, even if they weren't exposed on tape admitting to it.

This particular action may be aimed towards Singapore, but I am 100% confident that this is a test run for a similar action in the United States.

[0]: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

Well, let's look at the most obvious right-wing publication. Here you go, original news reporting:

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/05/17/exclusive-facebook...

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/06/13/exclusive-facebook...

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

I just noticed that they even publish stuff in opposition to Trump: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/12/11/exclusive-text...

Note that I found "right wing investigative journalism publishing sources" to be ambiguous, because you could mean a "publishing source" as in a place that publishes things or specifically that you want a list of references as found in academic papers or on wikipedia. If I guessed wrongly, perhaps you could clarify.

It was that one from late last yer. Might have been https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl... . There wasn't anything there that was particularly scandalous; it was just a really interesting that this was the state of affairs inside Google.

⬐ disgruntledphd2

I mean, it's OK if management have political views, as long as those views don't influence search results.

As long as the experimental process is rigorous and the people are incentivised to use the right metric (and the metric isn't politically biased), then it should be fine.

However, upon making that argument I find myself concerned at the possibility that Google's corporate interests (and perhaps some political interests) may shape which questions get asked, and thus the direction the service takes.

It's quite analagous to Chomsky's views of news organisations in Manufacturing Consent.

That same all-hands. If you can stomach the host site, the video is still quite untouched. I'm not sure the video was hosted elsewhere, or I'd use a different host instead. https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

Ironically, one google search away: there is a surreal leaked video of company-wide meeting after Trump Election:

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

Google's response: "Nothing was said at that meeting, or any other meeting, to suggest that any political bias ever influences the way we build or operate our products."

Which of course is not true, as was ironically demonstrated on the same meeting pre-election, when instant answer cards in search results were popping up for Hilary queries, but not for Trump queries.

The leak about the Google winge fest after the Trump victory is an interesting data point.

On the one hand, the company claims not to be acting in a partisan way; on the other hand this comes out.

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

The company continues to claim, despite the contents of the video giving an appearance partisanship, that they are not biased in any way.

Then they launch the leak hunt.

If the video is no big deal, then why the big hunt and the paranoia?

Google is not just some private company out there - it is a large monopoly with the power to sway elections. They need oversight.

I for one think Google in China is long overdue

US, EU, Asian and African corporations, universities, institutions, NGOs, (you name it) are happily working and making money in China. This leaves Google without potential income they should have got if they hadn't left China in the first place.

As for the "moral high ground" argument: As long as the US hosts concentration camps for kids, supplies bombs to kill brown people, hunts down trans reporters, and imprisons people like Manning the moral high ground against this is shaky. To put it differently: if you think China's bad, just check out the US.

I might be wrong, but targeting Google (and the rest of the FAANG) began when US Republicans "found out" Silicon Valley is actually Dem. As proof: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

⬐ jaw2

What qualifies in your opinion as moral high ground?

⬐ kmlx

https://medium.com/@googlersagainstdragonfly/we-are-google-e...

⬐ whydoineedthis

Breitbart as proof for anything? Lol, you are funny dude.

⬐ titzer

> As for the "moral high ground" argument: As long as the US hosts concentration camps for kids....

Please stop this Red Team/Blue Team tendency. It's both binary thinking and a Red Herring. It has zero to do with the subject at hand, which is whether a search engine should collaborate with a government to censor, suppress, find, and punish dissidents or even the mildly curious.

As for moral highground, it's worth pointing out that more than a dozen human rights organizations have come out against this project.

I think you mean the video of Google executives showing partisan behavior at a meeting. If so, it's on this page:

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

The group hug at 0:16:50 is seriously creepy. Grabbing your coworkers is considered inappropriate or worse in normal American workplaces.

⬐ plaguuuuuu

Hugging people, literally the worst thing that has ever happened

Isn't it? It's hard to interpret https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl... otherwise.

⬐ Aunche

Just because a company's leadership dislikes Trump doesn't mean they'll ruin the integrity of their product.

⬐ xxpor

Even if google is biased against conservatives, how it that any of congress's business? The 1st amendment is still a thing, last time I checked.

⬐ dx87

Maybe not intentionally, but as much as SV companies like to talk about unconsious biases causing discrimination, it never gets applied to supposedly neutral companies like Google that are currently being sued for how they discriminate against conservatives and white males. If their internal culture is constantly promoting liberal political ideals, would it really suprise you if the developers subconsciously create their products in a way that suppresses ideas they don't agree with? The same thing happened with Twitter where they were preventing only Republican Congress people from showing up on the news feed. They claimed to be neutral, yet somehow managed to implement an algorithm that affected 0 Democratic Congress people and a couple dozen Republican Congress people. Hopefully "Oops, it was the algorithm discriminating, not us" goes away as an excuse people accept.

⬐ s73v3r_

If you've got proof that they're actually discriminating against conservatives for conservative opinions, and not for expressing bigotry, then I'd like to see it. Cause just about every one of these cases that I've seen is someone claiming that they're expressing "conservative" opinions, when in reality they're expressing anti-LGBT equality or anti-women views. I'm not seeing anyone get fired over their opinions on the capital gains tax, for example.

⬐ antimatter

The definition of bigotry has tilted so far to the radical left that expressing simple, widely expected scientific findings get you labeled as a bigot/racist/sexist/alt-right/etc. The issue is not that they are discriminating against just conservative policy or thought. It is that any and all disagreement with radical leftist ideology is considered some form of hate speech in need of censorship.

⬐ s73v3r_

No, don't give me that weaseling out crap. Put up or shut up. Either you have evidence of them discriminating against conservatives for actual conservative opinions, or you don't.

⬐ fzeroracer

I don't think it has at all. Can you explain some of these widely expected scientific findings that would get you labelled as a bigot or racist?

⬐ jlawson

Just read the Damore memo.

The response inside Google was "I will keep hounding you until one of us is fired. Fuck you." And Damore was fired for the memo; the person who wrote those words stayed on.

⬐ s73v3r_

You’ve just made my point that all these examples of “anti-conservative bias” are really just bigoted or mysogynistic positions that are dressed up with junk science.

⬐ fzeroracer

The Damore piece was blatantly filled with dog whistles and bunk science claims (specifically drawing a bunch of correlations) while also ignoring the history of software development / computer science as a whole.

It should be telling that after the fact he chose to idolize the KKK and proceeded to dox a bunch of Google employees for incredibly tame remarks in his class action lawsuit (of which I saw many images make the rounds in the alt-right media centralizing said information for obvious reasons).

Regardless his memo which he chose to release internally caused a massive divide among employees a Google. If Damore was kept on I imagine you would've saw a lot of talent proceed to leave the company. Additionally it's funny that you bring that up, considering there are a lot of people on the left that work at Google and feel like their views are being stymied.

⬐ None

None

⬐ Aunche

I wouldn't find it suprising if Google punished conservative fake news more than liberal fake news. That said, I trust them infinitely more than the government. That's a huge conflict of interest, and the government has never been good at remaining impartial about anything. Just look at gerrymandering.

⬐ someonelse17

The politics of private citizens are their own business and explicitly not the government's.

Furthermore even if that had any bearing on their search results whatever google presents on their own damn website is also none of the government's business.

⬐ beaner

It's funny to hear someone only ever make this argument when what is being censored is conservative. If it were the opposite way, and they were blocking results on, say, the travel ban, or competing startups, people would be up in arms.

⬐ someonelse17

I don't know about the prevalence of other opinions but what I'm suggesting (and there are many legal precedents to support this) is that the first amendment shields them from this nonsense as well as any antitrust allegations and complains about how some entitles think they should be featured in their results.

⬐ simula67

It is if Google wants DMCA safe harbour protections

⬐ someonelse17

I'm not sure what's behind the recent prevalence to this theory but that is false.

Also we should all want section 230 protection it's what preserves free speech online and the principle on which the whole web economy is built.

⬐ simula67

I don't like the idea that Google or any other entity can control how I think by presenting only one side of a story when the other side may have a reasonable objection, because it does not fit the politics of the operators of a platform. This is within the spirit of free speech.

I think it fair to say that if Google wants to be a publisher, they should be held accountable to the content they publish. If they want to be a neutral platform, they should not favor any particular viewpoint

⬐ someonelse17

What you want and what the law allows are different things, also just don't let any entity control how you think.

As for 'being held accountable' as publisher, I'm sure you're aware of many publishers that favor one side or one "viewpoint" in fact it's most of them, and they aren't being held accountable for that because we live in a free country.

⬐ jimbobimbo

They (publishers) actually are held accountable for the stuff they publish (e.g., publishing copyrighted material w/o permission will land you in the courtroom). This is why FB/Twitter/YouTube do not want to be publishers. However, because of their approach to moderation, they could wander in those waters.

⬐ someonelse17

They're not held legally accountable for political views.

The copyright stuff applies to everyone already.

⬐ jimbobimbo

Not political views, but slander/libel - publishers are liable.

⬐ randomposter44

I dare him to watch the entire video and say there's not a built in bias especially when they start talking about changing their search engine AI to give people "the correct information"

⬐ snowwrestler

I know a lot of conservatives who were also dismayed at Trump's election.

Trump doesn't stand for, or enjoy the support of, all conservatives. In fact quite a few of his policies and actions directly contravene long-held conservative principles, like free trade and staying out of internal business decisions.

I don't agree that the content of the leaked video[0] was reasonable. Google essentially controls information, so they have tremendous power. Their staff have openly called to subvert democracy, which I think most reasonable people find incredibly dangerous. And no, I don't like Trump.

[0]: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

⬐ namdnay

Where did Google leadership call to subvert democracy? At no point in the video do they instruct or encourage employees to do that. They're discussing what Trump means for their employees, not for their customers

⬐ yakshaving_jgt

I said Google staff had, and I didn't say they did that in this video. But then to be fair, I don't have any hard evidence for this.

EDIT: As it turns out, sources for this are pretty easy to come across online: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-travelban/google-s...

⬐ jasonlotito

Your source doens't back your claim of:

"Their staff have openly called to subvert democracy,"

The key here being "openly" and a specific call to "subvert democracy". None of this happened, and your source does not back up this claim in any way. These are apparently in internal only threads, and they were merely talking about tweaking search results.

Internal, private emails threads are objectively not "openly calling" for something and merely "tweaking search results" is not "subverting democracy" in any sane world.

You are spreading misinformation at best.

⬐ scott_s

This is the main claim: "Google employees discussed how they could tweak the company's search-related functions to show users how to contribute to pro-immigration organizations and contact lawmakers and government agencies, the WSJ said. The ideas were not implemented."

To me, that is not "subverting democracy." It is, however, taking an active political stance.

⬐ forapurpose

> the WSJ said

The WSJ is unabashedly an outlet for conservative and GOP talking points. That is clear on its opinion page, and I know that somehow people trust its news pages, but the same editors control the rest of the publication, as does the owner of the WSJ and Fox News, Rupert Murdoch. I wouldn't trust their summary of something relating to a conservative talking point.

⬐ yakshaving_jgt

I respectfully and strongly disagree. A functioning democracy is fundamentally predicated on a well-informed electorate.

If the primary source of information is manipulated in the name of political activism, how can they become well-informed?

Sadly I must qualify this by saying I don't believe the general public in the West are well-informed, but that doesn't mean that ideal should be given up entirely.

⬐ FireBeyond

From the parent:

> show users how to contribute to pro-immigration organizations and contact lawmakers and government agencies

From you:

> fundamentally predicated on a well-informed electorate

Describe how anything in the parent statement fails to contribute to, or detracts from, a well-informed electorate. Both examples are involvement in the functioning of a democracy, not detracting from it.

Nor is any private party obligated to provide "equal coverage". That the level of "informed" goes up, but does not encapsulate information -you- think should be included, does not negate this.

⬐ creaghpatr

Also from an investing perspective, it’s important to know if the senior leadership turns into a sniveling mess when facing uh...adversity in the form of the political horse they backed losing an election.

This is a post about a post. Here's the discussion of the Breitbart source post with many more comments and upvotes: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

Larry Page probably didn't attend the Senate hearings because he knew that this video was going to get leaked:

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

He would have been grilled for hours over it.

⬐ eutropia

At the risk of sounding partisan, why should I trust a breitbart dot com link?

⬐ None

None

⬐ seatdrummer

its just an unedited video. Just watch it if you care at all.

⬐ Jerry2

You shouldn't. It's an internal Google video. So unless you're a conspiracy theorist who thinks it was faked, it should be eye opening.

⬐ trendoid

He could have been grilled, sure. But I don't think that was the reason as Google was arranging someone else to show up before this leaked.

Nothing in this video is surprising though. It has always been clear that the value system of people in Silicon Valley is completely different from Republican values. Their despise for Trump or his base is the most obvious connection anyone can make.

⬐ ibejoeb

That video is amazing. Certainly doesn't hurt Damore's suit.

edit: To all the silent salties out there: am I wrong?

⬐ fallingfrog

Wait, you mean there's bias in our media?

All joking aside- I remember watching ed Snowden go from being a "whistleblower" to a "leaker" in the space of 8 hours. I watched Alexandria ocasio Cortez go from a bold new voice to being portrayed as a know-nothing (in a pretty sexist way) in about 6 hours. I remember how all the media were creaming themselves with excitement over the wmd's they were going to find in Iraq. I observe how the crimes of saudi Arabia are getting papered over and not reported right now. So yeah.. not surprising.

⬐ tzs

What media are you talking about? I Googled in Google News for Alexandria ocasio Cortes, and almost all of the coverage I found from mainstream publications was positive.

⬐ hotpockets

I checked and results are very different if you spell her name with a z, as she does.

⬐ mavhc

I don't see a difference, or much in the way of attack articles

⬐ hotpockets

The "s" page had a bunch of month-old stuff. The "z" page was more recent news. I just rechecked and it's mostly the same way (though we're already in a different news cycle). When I check previously, 4 out the first 5 links were negative. Now, it's 3 out of 6. (Different news cycle)

https://screenshots.firefox.com/c8bGMXUBBHMFkqga/www.google....

vs

https://screenshots.firefox.com/UeE3uvdbOyBrvvKT/www.google....

⬐ fallingfrog

Thanks, corrected

⬐ tzs

Ahhh....OK. I copy/pasted the spelling from the comment I replied to. It didn't occur to me to check to see if it was spelled right there.

⬐ Janeman544

Cortes's portrayal however seems pretty spot on to me.

⬐ simula67

> Alexandria ocasio Cortes go from a bold new voice to being portrayed as a know-nothing (in a pretty sexist way) in about 6 hours

Are you kidding ? She said US military was given $700 billion increase that they didn't ask for. She said that US unemployment is low becuase everyone has two jobs. She said ICE has to detain 34,000 people every night by law. http://www.politifact.com/personalities/alexandria-ocasio-co...

This 'if you criticise Democrat female politicians you must be sexist' line is incredibly annoying

⬐ cthulha

Who wants to tell simula67 about Trump's relationship to reality?

⬐ supernovae

She was criticized for being female regardless of her misconceptions on military spending and how many jobs people have. A huge chunk of the world doesn't give equal forgiving or demands of females as they do males - they demand more and forgive less. Ever looked at PolitiFact for just about every other politician? Just look at Serena Williams.. she blabbed and it may be the end of her career (or a lingering black eye)yet for other males in the sport, it just means the front page on the newspaper and nothing else the next day... We can't ignore this. I wouldn't want AI to shape the views of women any worse than they already are just as we shouldn't use targeted bias in user comments to make her look unique in light of her male counterparts than ran against her - of which they all have/had faults and screw ups themselves.

⬐ smsm42

> She was criticized for being female

I've read a lot of critique of O-C but never "for being female". Could you quote some critique like that so that it would be clear what do you mean? I honestly absolutely can't even imagine how such thing would look like: "We know O-C is female and thus unfit to hold an elective office..." or what? Name the most hostile press outlet to O-C outside wacko forums and 4chan and it would never dare to print something like that. Sure, there are sexists here and there, but openly and publicly criticizing a major political figure "for being female"? It's just rhetorical suicide. You must mean something else, but what?

⬐ praneshp

>> she blabbed and it may be the end of her career

This is a terrible overstatement. It's not even the first time she has fought against an ump, and not even the worst she has said. End of career lol.

⬐ iosDrone

It's a very stupid prediction that the Serena Williams incident will end her career. It should be a "lingering black eye" for her — she behaved horribly. But it won't be how she will be remembered ultimately.

⬐ monochromatic

> She was criticized for being female

No, she wasn't. There are lots of successful female politicians. She was criticized for being a moron.

⬐ supernovae

Yes, she was. It's a systemic problem in American society. Your comment is essentially proof of your bias. Unless you want to back it up and say everyone is a moron because once again, everyone has said things that could categorically quantify them as a moron - but your holding HER and specifically HER to a special case.

⬐ monochromatic

>every criticism of a woman is a criticism because she’s a woman

K.

⬐ supernovae

keep kidding yourself (oh, and so glad you can downvote instead of have honest discussion)

⬐ monochromatic

It’s aactually not possible to downvote someone who replies to you. So it wasn’t me.

Anyway, keep telling yourself that you understand people’s motives, and that they’re bad. In the real world, sexism and racism are not nearly as extreme as you’d think from the perspective of the tumblr echo chamber.

⬐ java_script

Wow so her ICE quote would've been 100% correct if not for the word "required" (evidenced by what Politifact ends up admitting in the body of the article).

Is there a rating worse than "Pants On Fire" we could brand this liar with?

(I don't know about sexist but the media sure is dumb and pedantic as shit.)

⬐ ChuckMcM

Wow, they are still using Dory. That is the question collecting software that Taliver Heath wrote. It was a pretty brilliant idea, people submit questions and other people vote the questions up (or down) and top ranked questions get selected automatically.

Its interesting to think about Brietbart putting this out there as some 'evil' thing, given what their all hands meeting would have looked like if the election had gone the other way. But from a tech perspective its always destabilizing to endorse a political ideology just like it is destabilizing to endorse a religious ideology in what is a collective for economic output.

That said, the previous tech position of 'hands off' (very limited engagement except for very specific technical issues like ITAR restrictions on strong crypto) did not do tech any favors when it came to legislation. I'm not sure what the answer is here other than "its complicated."

⬐ geofft

> But from a tech perspective its always destabilizing to endorse a political ideology just like it is destabilizing to endorse a religious ideology in what is a collective for economic output.

Is it destabilizing at all? The British Empire, one of the world's most economically successful projects, had its own religious ideology. The US has a "Protestant work ethic." When have we historically seen the adoption of religion as destabilizing?

It might be wrong, sure, but I don't think we have evidence to conclude that it's unprofitable.

⬐ mc32

Didn't catholics in britain have a hard time og it for some period? Didn't that contribute to internal instability? Or am i misrecalling history lessons?

⬐ dash2

This is true but whether it was profitable is a separate question. On which see Weber 1905 and the recent economics literature!

⬐ None

None

⬐ lhopki01

Much earlier period in history before there was a United Kindom.

⬐ pjc50

Yes, a much earlier period that ended in the distant past of 1998. Sectarian violence is now limited to pubs and football matches rather than high explosive.

⬐ mathw

That wasn't/isn't just about religion though, it's about foreign rule, colonialism and national identity as well.

And about to kick off again thanks to Brexit, because it was never really solved, just pushed aside for long enough for people (particularly people in Westminster) to start to forget.

⬐ geofft

There absolutely was internal instability, but if the claim is "Your company should not adopt a political worldview, you will at most be as economically successful as Britain between 1534 and 1998," that's... not much of a cautionary story at all.

⬐ rdtsc

> Its interesting to think about Brietbart putting this out there as some 'evil' thing,

Never worked at Google, but as they say it went about as I would have expected based on my outside perspective. Or at least I wasn't stunned by anything in particular...

Overall I think what people dislike is the disconnect between the PR message of "all opinions are welcome / we are open / neutral" vs the reality of them being fairly uniform in political affiliation. I think they might do better to just own it and stop pretending. Say something like "yeah we are biased and proud of it and we stand firm behind these values etc."

⬐ azinman2

Just because there’s a semi-uniform political bend doesn’t mean they’re biased in product. The ACLU backed the KKK’s right to March, but clearly doesn’t stand with the KKK’s values.

That’s something the Breitbart audience can’t wrap their mind around, as they’d never do the same.

⬐ smsm42

> Just because there’s a semi-uniform political bend doesn’t mean they’re biased in product

Surely. But that seems to be a basic assumptions in these quarters - if you hold certain views, they can't but influence who you are and how you do all things, including work. Isn't that the premise Damore and others were fired under? Isn't that the premise people get disinvited from tech conferences under - even if their politics has nothing to do with technology, their presence and others knowing about it can't but influence the interactions with them and the products they create, consciously or unconsciously.

But it can not work only in some cases - if we recognize that these things are unseparable, then it becomes impossible to claim Google being biased hard to the left has no influence on their decisions, including product decisions.

Example: if somebody who is working on search rankings writes an ML model to define what "reputable source" looks like, and by nature of their views they read only left-leaning publications, then the model will be trained in majority on such publications as "reputable", and would likely treat non-left-leaning ones as less reputable. Even without explicit intention of bias, the bias would be there. Moreover, since most of the people in Google would hold the same views, nobody would notice that bias as the output of the model would look exactly like they expect it to look.

⬐ rdtsc

> doesn’t mean they’re biased in product.

What is their product? Sure, if product is Android OS, or some wearable devices, yes, they are not biased anyone can buy and use them.

But are they also involved in filtering news, manipulating search results, tracking phone locations, hosting emails, selling ads, censoring or not censoring youtube videos etc.

Then "products" is not the only way a company like Google is effecting change in the world. They match employee donations to charitable organizations, they lobby the government (more than Verizon, military contractors and Wall St. banks), work with the government on drone AI software. Now they are thinking of moving back into China's market with all the privacy implications there, etc.

I think they are far from a "but they are just making a product and selling it, so leave them alone" type of company.

And of course, we might say here that Google's values match with ours so we'll give them the benefit of the doubt. And even though their executives cry on camera after their political candidate loses, when they turn around and go to lobby the government or to police youtube videos, they'll regain their cool and be unbiased. I'd like to believe that, but sure we can see why others might not.

⬐ igravious

> That’s something the Breitbart audience can’t wrap their mind around, as they’d never do the same.

Which clearly reveals _your_ bias. Well done.

You can't compare Google to the ACLU.

The ACLU has a track record defending free speech and freedom of expression. As long as the speech and expression does not contravene any laws the ACLU will defend it – it's irrelevant to them what values the speech and expression they are defending promotes or espouses. And, when you think about it, it's very unlikely that the ACLU will be forced to defend speech and expression nobody has a problem with so they are going to be defending speech and expression that gets peoples backs up.

Google on the other hand has no consistent track record of being neutral when it comes to content on their platforms. There's no transparency and insight into their deliberation processes. So if the group-think at Google comes down on one side or the other and they don't have a hands-off approach then that's very worrying. Of course, if you subscribe to Google's version of reality then you're going to be very happy with that but if you don't then too bad for you. If tech companies want to alienate a good chunk of their user base then they better be prepared for the backlash up to and including regulation and migration away to services that do a better job at upholding the ideals of free speech and expression.

⬐ azinman2

I’m not google. I don’t have to reject or hide my bias, and in fact this forum is exactly for positing ones bias. And reading the comments on Breitbart what I said should become self-evident.

Google has been very consistent in showing its bias for an open, connected, free world where quality information is accessible. It was formed by immigrants, and has been vocal in their importance. The Trump campaign was the exact opposite of all of these things... a closed world busting traditional order apart, kicking out those “rapist criminal” immigrants, equating any quality information that disagreed as “fake news” despite the election has an unprecedented amount of actually fake and totally fabricated news spreading like wildfire to sell online ads. AdWords got caught up in it, and that had very real world consequences.

That’s what the reaction was, and it feels appropriate to me. That was a very somber day, and to many of us who believed in a free and open world it felt like a day of mourning.

All that said, doesn’t mean Google hasn’t been and can’t be neutral to data. If they aren’t, then they lose business and open themselves up to lawsuits as a monopoly abusing their power. Nothing you’ve said points to the fact that they’ve actually silenced “non-left” news. And having worked there twice, the culture I observed is such that they’d never want to do such things. It’s antithetical to their world view to silence political viewpoints (as opposed to genuinely made up clickbait garbage for the soul purpose of ads).

⬐ smsm42

> Google has been very consistent in showing its bias for an open, connected, free world where quality information is accessible

I guess that's why they've been working with China to create censored sub-internet?

> It was formed by immigrants,

It was formed by Page and Brin, only Brin can be classified as "immigrant" and even him not of his own volition - he was brought in the US by his parents when he was 6.

> Nothing you’ve said points to the fact that they’ve actually silenced “non-left” news.

If by "silenced" you mean completely prevented access, then yes, Google does not have this power. Fortunately, almost nobody does. Biasing the picture, though, is another matter. US politics as it is now is often balancing on results of pretty close elections, and couple of thousands of votes thrown either way can do a lot. Google has access to data about billions, including vast majority of people in the US. People at Google are not shy about proclaiming at which side there are, and some also not shy about declaring they utter lack of respect and tolerance to the other side. Maybe there's a line they still would not cross and that line is way before it could influence any work decisions - but how exactly we can know that and believe that?

> And having worked there twice, the culture I observed is such that they’d never want to do such things

Are you sure that your acknowledged bias did not make you miss the willingness to suppress views that both you and your peers vehemently disagree with and hold despicable?

> It’s antithetical to their world view to silence political viewpoints

It's not what it looks like on the outside, at least. Just throw in "it's ok to be intolerant to those bad outgroup people" and you're in the clear. I don't see any hard commitment to free speech from Google. Maybe the people you've encountered that have this commitment are not actually those who dictate the policies?

⬐ camelite

> As long as the speech and expression does not contravene any laws the ACLU will defend it – it's irrelevant to them what values the speech and expression they are defending promotes or espouses.

Not anymore:

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/20180621ACL...

⬐ clarkevans

There is an interesting overview of the ACLU as part of the labor movement On Sept 7th's On The Media, entitled One Hundred Years Of Free Speech. https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/one-hundred-years-free-spe...

⬐ jiojfdsal3

"(00:54:33) An employee asks what Google is going to do about “misinformation” and “fake news” shared by “low-information voters.” Pichai responds by stating that “investments in machine learning and AI” are a “big opportunity” to fix the problem."

Anyone find this disturbing? They're trying to use AI to manipulate what users 'should' see?

⬐ dragonwriter

It's only disturbing if you reject the premise of the question in advance—that the concern is addressing inaccurate factual information. Connecting users with good information is literally the function on which Google wad founded, and applying AI to that mission has been a Google vision from very early on.

It would be weird and worrying if Google selectively choose not to do that with information that might have political salience.

⬐ ehsankia

Right, anyone who finds this offensive is implicitly agreeing that removing unfactual results would skew the results to be politically biased.

⬐ axlprose

So it's wrong to be offended at the possibility of mass-scale censorship just as a matter of principle?

Search results are always going to be biased the same way that any media is always going to be biased. Have the regimes of the 20th century not taught us that it's naive to think we can objectively correct for that without opening the possibility for significantly worse repercussions?

⬐ dragonwriter

> So it's wrong to be offended at the possibility of mass-scale censorship just as a matter of principle?

Mass-scale censorship other than that already implicit in algorithmic link ranking wasn't suggested, improving the quality of the algorithms already in use and intended to provide he best information (which false propaganda is emphatically not) was suggested.

⬐ LanceH

What's offensive is that if their candidate wins, they don't raise that question.

⬐ lern_too_spel

If the candidate who isn't spreading fake news wins, then fake news isn't a big deal. There's nothing offensive about that.

⬐ Digory

Right, but google’s premise is/was that it is feeding you the unfiltered view of the crowd. If not the world, at least of American computer users. That’s some signal about invariably qualitative judgments on facts.

“Hillary Emails” should give you results based on global pagerank, whether or not you agree with the subjective assessments about the importance of Hillary’s emails. Silently substituting the pagerank of New York or the subjective judgment of a room of Googlers undercuts the signal. If you give me the option to filter by DC or LA pagerank, that’s fine. But there should always be some free, unfiltered pagerank available.

⬐ dragonwriter

> Right, but google’s premise is/was that it is feeding you the unfiltered view of the crowd

No, it's never been that; it's always been that it's algorithmically selected to promote the best information, whether the best answer to your question or, more recently through some of their mechanism, the information most likely to be useful in the absence of a specific request, considering a wide variety of general, (and, for very many years, location-based, and personalized) indicators of quality and likely utility. “Unfiltered” is exactly the opposite of what has always been Google's value proposition.

> “Hillary Emails” should give you results based on global pagerank

PageRank is the oldest and most primitive of the algorithms used in Google's rankings.

> Silently substituting the pagerank of New York or the subjective judgment of a room of Googlers undercuts the signal.

Neither of those things is suggested in the response given to the question.

> But there should always be some free, unfiltered pagerank available.

Are you seriously suggesting that Google is obligated to offer a version of its search engine using only its 1998 link ranking algorithm with none of the additional filtering and ordering criteria that have been developed I the last 20 years?

⬐ Digory

> it's always been that it's algorithmically selected to promote the best information

“Best” being the word doing the work here. There’s been some expectation that Google gives you “best” based on the wisdom of a very large, diverse group. The more it diverges from that, the more it risks losing trust as an impartial assistant.

>Are you seriously suggesting (pagerank)?

I might pick a more precise example after Google tells me the algorithm. I’m using pagerank as shorthand for the early period in which Google assessed “best” mainly through the wisdom of groups. It’s impossible to erase all subjectivity, and it’s never been perfectly objective, but that doesn’t make the goal less important. I wouldn’t object to later versions that address SEO gamesmanship, gives me local mobile results, etc.

Google’s problem is that the video shows people who most Americans would not trust to tell them what’s best, or how to find what’s best. People might trust Google to find out what most people say is best. Google risks making their judgment the product; but what got them this far was a sense they are skilled in reporting back something about the world.

⬐ wyldfire

> Right, but google’s premise is/was that it is feeding you the unfiltered view of the crowd.

Actually, I don't think that's the case. Google has for a very long time considered a web site's reputation as part of a page's weight among search results.

IMO Google wasn't a primary transmission medium for fake news -- not like Facebook et al. So if you got to a fake news article from Google.com, you probably went looking for it.

To your point -- if you go searching for unique terms from the fake news articles, it seems reasonable/appropriate to show you the fake news websites from whence they came. It would be odd for Google to omit those sources that are likely the best/primary source of those terms. It might be reasonable to highlight the search results as coming from a source known to publish falsehoods. Like the "This site may harm your computer" warnings, it could be a clear flag for people to be skeptical. Unfortunately, it seems like they would be inheriting a morass of subjective or difficult to maintain criteria.

⬐ supernovae

People need to understand that fake news is an algorithm used against people - whether or not there is tech or AI pushing it. Those who push fake news know how it programs humans.

Having humans interpret what is real/fake is hard to do without bias, cheating, manipulation, favoritism and so much more.

Google knows social signal processing, it could implement ranking/scoring based on sites like PolitiFact and how many major news outlets are covering it, how the bios of the writers/contributors are - what the social graph of their reach is yaddy yaddy yadda.

We have signals for so much - that even humans use to sort/score what is real/what isn't. An AI would be able to do much of this based on social graphs and understanding of sources, targets, links, attributions and so much more.

For me, the scary thing isn't using AI to filter known lies, the scary thing is that we have AI that can do this but don't do anything because we have let the value of fake news be worth more than the value of standing for truth.

⬐ peterwwillis

What media organization on this planet doesn't make decisions about what users should and shouldn't see? Breitbart does it, The New York Times does it, your local news channels do it.

Google as a news broker is literally just showing you what Google wants to show you. I don't know why you'd think they wouldn't have a bias, or filter their output based on it. All media does.

⬐ adventured

None of those is a fraction as powerful as Google, which is an $800 billion goliath with multiple hyper entrenched monopolies. Those monopolies entirely change the equation and expectations.

Search, Android, YouTube. All three of those are either monopolies or close to it. YouTube by itself is worth a solid 20 times what the NY Times is.

Breitbart is maybe worth $100m, a top 100 US Web site with a couple million readers.

The NY Times is a $3.6b business, with maybe 10x the daily readership of Breitbart (and a much more lucrative readership of course).

If those two want to duke it out with each other, fine. Just like with Fox or MSNBC. None of them possess monopoly positions, much less in extraordinarily large, critical information pathways, as with search, YouTube and Android.

If Microsoft had acted in 1999-2000, during its peak Windows monopoly power, to use the desktop + IE in some manner to try to throw the Bush v Gore election in favor of Bush, the Democrats would have more than lost their minds over that. It would have been considered an extraordinary abuse of monopoly power by Microsoft. Google is going to soon find out they've unleashed a political genie that is never going back into the bottle.

⬐ None

None

⬐ None

None

⬐ peterwwillis

Where'd you get that number? Google made 109 billion last year, not 800. Alphabet made 110 billion. Amazon made 177 billion.

In comparison, Facebook made just 40 billion in revenue, but more people get their news from Facebook today than anywhere else. So really it's Facebook that's let the genie out, and they didn't need to be the wealthiest corporation or a monopoly to do it.

These are large corporations made up of lots of people and represent a wide array of shareholders' concerns. But individual billionaires also own media companies, and thus can have greater personal influence on what is expressed through those companies. https://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2016/06/01/these-15-...

⬐ randyrand

It does bother me that they never acknowledge the more knowledgeable and informed trump voters.

To think they don’t exist is almost as ignorant as the people they’re referring to.

⬐ happytoexplain

I see this complaint a lot - "hey, we/they are not like that", in response to a discussion about some perceived problem originating from within a broad group of people (I see it happen on all sides, but maybe more often from conservatives in response to liberal "elitism"), and often it is legitimate, but a lot of the time it sadly is just used as an off-topic attack on the conversation. E.g. when somebody tries to discuss the "bad apples" in the police, instead of actually discussing them, the conversation often gets shifted by indignant supporters of the larger group, in this case all police, who feel attacked by the conversation. I often wonder how to avoid this - obviously the person bringing up the controversy must not have an aggressive, accusational tone, but even then these kinds of reactions seem omnipresent in any forum. I wonder how many of the people reacting this way are just reacting emotionally, and how many truly believe the premise of the topic is actually utterly false ("there are NO bad apples in the police"), or feel that it might be true, but that the framing is somehow always an irrational attack on the entire group they are a member of.

⬐ tkmo

Interestingly, Credit Rating is one of the strongest predictors of voting Republican

⬐ happytoexplain

I don't think it's surprising that there's little relevance between somebody's financial wellbeing/decision-making and their tendency to believe misleading or false news that concerns political identity/ideology.

⬐ shams93

The solution is actually free college education for everyone who wants it, even if not everyone will be able to use it on their job the only solution is massively easier access to quality education that teaches you how to think, not what to think. The lack of critical thinking skills is a real problem but its largely by designs, some in DC think having an economic draft is a good thing and an educated population is not welcomed.

⬐ mc32

Will those intructors teach from both sides of the political spectrum and give both major philosophies similar time?

⬐ mcny

A good professor can have their bias but still encourage critical thinking. I'm from a university informally (?) affiliated to the Southern Baptist Convention in Texas. We often started our chemistry class with a reading of Psalms. We called the Paris Hilton tax/inheritance tax the "death tax" in our economics class as well as in our US History since 1867 class. In my limited experience, professors are able to teach students to think for themselves even when they disagree with me.

I learned a lot but I don't think college made me a "conservative". I was mortified to see our University president on TV demanding religious exemption from birth control in employee health insurance.

⬐ mc32

No argument here, except to say not all instructors are good teachers. Sometimes we’re lucky and get good ones who despite their biases teach us the fundamentals.

⬐ paulddraper

Wait...how many years of free education do you need to learn "how to think"?

⬐ mcny

I don't know but I think I learned quite a bit just talking to fellow students in the hallways and in the dorm.

⬐ tropo

Nearly every college is all about teaching you what to think, not how to think. They like to claim otherwise... which is another thing they want you to think.

The non-STEM courses are particularly a cesspool of telling you what to think. They grade you on it. Politically incorrect opinions, no matter how well argued, will badly damage your grade or worse.

⬐ smsm42

Yes. They think they can figure out what we should see (and how we should vote, obviously) and their mission, as good people, is helping us to get there. Kicking and screaming, if needed, it's all for our own good at the end. Yes, it is concerning. That's why there should be many search engines, and that's why everybody should support projects like DuckDuckGo. Having one corporation - with however noblest intentions they see themselves - solely controlling information input of billions is not healthy, no matter what your politics is.

⬐ jf

Using AI to manipulate what you see is already happening - especially if you browse the web without an adblocker.

⬐ jiojfdsal3

Yeah, but this directly has ramifications for our democracy, doesn't it? It looks they're actively trying to prevent certain content from being seen while exposing the content Google executives feel the masses 'should' see. This doesn't seem very neutral to me. The leaked video is quite disturbing.

⬐ dragonwriter

> It looks they're actively trying to prevent certain content from being seen while exposing the content Google executives feel the masses 'should' see.

Even if they were doing this overtly to promote a political view rather than to address the problem—false information—that the question expressly raises, this would be protected political speech.

> This doesn't seem very neutral to me.

Even if it didn't (and the actual answer to the actual question does not suggest political bias unless false propaganda uniquely favors one side), so what? What corporation, particularly in the business of distributing current events information, is strictly politically neutral? Certainly none of the ones pushing the narrative that this should be considered disturbing.

⬐ IggleSniggle

Every action or inaction with any social context is a political action. Who gets to decide what “neutral” even is, anyway? Of course this has ramifications for our democracy, along with every single other piece of media you’ve ever consumed.

I want my search engine to make me smarter and better informed and not baby me with only the content I already know or believe. In that respect, I don’t want censorship. But I also don’t want it to try and feed me just any old information that happens to be sitting around.

⬐ ocdtrekkie

The core of Google's business model is using AI to manipulate what people see. (Hint: Mostly ads.) Whether you want to argue it's politically-biased is a separate discussion.

Spam filtering is arguably using AI to manipulate what the user sees. In that case, it's less spam. A lot of AI is focused on finding what's the most interesting/valuable to the user, removing "bad" data, etc.

Members of most political parties, arguably, would like fake news and misinformation to be curated away, it's just that those parties often disagree with what news is "fake".

⬐ cjhanks

It is very disturbing. The notion that artificial intelligence can intercept information from individuals, and properly classify its accuracy seems dangerous.

It works with much of internet content, because formal communication has proper structure. But that is beside the point.

The real question is - who is responsible for classifying the training data? And what makes them qualified?

⬐ droopybuns

Deeply. Between gmail’s the auto-reply that tries to anticipate how I would respond to an email and the material in this video, I motivated to get off of gmail and all google products.

I can appreciate that they were disappointed in the election results. I am shocked to see leaders of a Fortune 100 company responding this way, in that forum. What are they thinking? That there is no legitimate reason for voting against Hillary? That all who have a different opinion than them are evil?

I have been really skeptical about James Damore- and I still think he’s a tragic clown, but now I am rethinking a few things:

Google appears to be a liberal monoculture that cannot understand legitimate alternative viewpoints.

Google’s leadership has no instinct to curb potentially controversial opinions in front of their own ranks. Clearly, no libertarians or conservatives work at google. Who would tolerate this kind of intolerance from their employer?

⬐ grumdan

Isn't this only disturbing if one rejects there being an objective distinction between misinformation and information? Sure, there are gray areas, but there are many actors exposing people to indisputably factually false claims, and "false" in this sentence is quite often not a political concept or subjective. The pope didn't endorse Trump. Trump's inauguration crowd was not the largest in history, etc.

Google may be involved in a lot of manipulative things, but trying to distinguish between blatantly incorrect sources of information and the rest does not seem like a shady political motive to me, and there overall goal seems worthwhile to me. Encyclopedias and scientific journals also manipulate what people are seeing and I don't think filtering mechanisms in general are problematic; it depends on how the information is selected, and if this is done through a good process, it can be very beneficial.

⬐ on_and_off

serious question : How else are they supposed to treat information at this scale ?

⬐ vernie

Damn those scare quotes are really scary.

⬐ dmead

Nope. better them than putin or steve bannon, or anyone who works at breitbart

⬐ imustbeevil

I've used the internet long enough to not want to spend another second reading a lie someone wrote a news article about.

⬐ jiojfdsal3

I didn't have to read the article. I just watched the leaked video with my own eyes in its entirety.

⬐ imustbeevil

You misunderstood. I'm responding to the idea that we wouldn't want to filter the aggregation of content on the internet. I overwhelmingly disagree that an unfiltered stream of everything everyone wants to say is the only way to consume that content. As in the example I gave, I would rather have a robot determine whether someone is lying before that content gets to me.

⬐ gizmo686

That is literally what Google was founded on. Their core technology behind their initial success was pagerank, an algorithm whose sole purpose is to manipulate what people see. They have stayed dominant through a combination of market forces, and keeping their algorithm near (or, IMO at) the top of the market for generalized search [0], and have leveraged this competency in other markets (video, ads, etc).

Beyond just Google, this is an inevitable result of having any which resembles the internet we know today. The alternative is to go back to human gatekeepers. While it is arguable if human gatekeepers are better from a consumption standpoint, it is clear that they are worse from a production standpoint, as it massivly increases the barriers to publication.

[0] In actuality, I suspect that Google's "algorithm" involves a fair bit of "cheating" by having humans nudge the results. Political bias aside, I think not doing this would leave them too open to attack from other players in the market who do.

⬐ liftbigweights

> That is literally what Google was founded on.

No it wasn't. Google was founded on being agnostic and giving you the most objective and representative view of the internet. If it didn't, it wouldn't have survived. Pagerank was not politically driven. It didn't care whether the links went to webpages that catered to larry page or brin's political ideology.

> [0] In actuality, I suspect that Google's "algorithm" involves a fair bit of "cheating" by having humans nudge the results.

We know it is. We know that they changed google news to appease large media companies. We know google seearch has been changed to appease large media companies. We know youtubee has been changed to appease large media companies.

The "do not evil" google of the 2000s died a long and slow death. The google of the 2010s has been quite biased. No longer is google objectively representing the internet as it is. It's representing the internet as page and brin wants it to be.

I don't know why people are celebrating it just because they are anti-trump. We know that there are tons of saudi, chinese and israeli money and influence in silicon valley. Do we really want a monopoly like google to be politically driven? Do we really want search and youtube to be politically driven?

Just because google is being manipulated in your favor today doesn't mean it is going to be manipulated in your favor tomorrow. It just surprises me so few people here seem to understand that.

⬐ wyldfire

> That is literally what Google was founded on.

Hooray! Pre-Google search sucked. It was really bad.

> The alternative is to go back to human gatekeepers.

I don't know what this means. Humans have never audited/controlled what gets indexed by crawlers. It's always automata unleashed on the data. It would be terribly unproductive to prune or tune the index with humans. However, using humans as a part of a feedback loop to tune an algorithm is a good idea [presumably all search engines do something like this].

⬐ unsatchmo

The post you’re replying to is talking about pre-internet means of distributing information like magazines / newspapers and television which are 100% controlled by human decision makers.

⬐ wyldfire

I see. Yes, that's clear to me now.

⬐ gizmo686

Digital computers aren't even 100 years old. Human civilization has existed for thousands of years. We have been able to curate and distribute information without computers, and it involved human gatekeepers.

Even in the early days of the internet, there were manually constructed listing of pages. Then, as the internet grew, there were manually curated listings. Then, these manually curated listings started to compete with crappy search engines. Eventually, as these search engines improved, the manual curation was delegated to a smaller niche of the information distribution market.

We could, in principle, go back to manual curation as the dominate method. That has been the status quo for almost all of human civilization. Doing so would destroy the internet as we know it (and would be politically impossible for that reason).

⬐ flukus

> the manual curation was delegated to a smaller niche of the information distribution market

I'd say manual curation is bigger than ever, at least for news, it just happens via sites like reddit and HN.

⬐ wyldfire

Yes, I misunderstood the point.

> Doing so would destroy the internet as we know it (and would be politically impossible for that reason).

IMO this is what renders this part of the discussion moot. Given this conclusion, it's not a valuable thread to pursue.

⬐ roenxi

I value political neutrality in the workplace, so I have a lot of in-principle issues with what is being shown here right from the get-go. I didn't wind the video back to find the exact quote, but we now have publicised evidence of senior leadership at Google who stood up and said 'obviously our values are not the same as a big chunk of Americans'. Clearly a lot of them are specific Hillary supporters, a candidate so unelectable she lost to Trump.

There is a practical difference between pagerank, which is a transparent algorithm, and a non-transparent magic algorithm that is controlled by a group who are clearly not engaged with the idea of corporate political neutrality. Taking the views expressed here as a starting point, logically why shouldn't they try to tilt the election result using their power?

EDIT I'm just going to add this in because it just doesn't sit well. It shouldn't acceptable for leadership in a workplace to stand up and express pain and dismay at the outcome of a democratic process.

⬐ slg

>I value political neutrality in the workplace

Political neutrality is just political support of the status quo. That is a perfectly acceptable political stance to take, but you should recognize it is still a political stance.

⬐ threatofrain

Granted, most people say political neutrality and they mean a homeostasis for what they like, but some people can say the word and mean it -- such as a YouTube platform that really just doesn't look at what gets posted.

⬐ dingle_thunk

By definition, neutrality is not support of anything.

⬐ slg

Imagine you are a parent of two children, one 10 years old and the other 7. The two children are fighting with each other. What is the result of staying neutral in that argument? If you don't intervene the 10 year old is almost certainly going to win because they are likely stronger and more mature. By not intervening you are tacitly endorsing the 10 year old's power of the 7 year old.

The same thing applies in any fight/conflict/argument/debate when there is a power imbalance including in politics. This is most obvious in debates about civil rights. When it comes to those issues if you don't support an oppressed people you are endorsing the continue oppression of that people.

⬐ dingle_thunk

So you disagree with the actual definition of a word? This is absolute nonsense. From a legal and a linguistic perspective, neutrality is well defined. Sometimes people just don’t want to hear your crap, and the particular flavour of crap is of no relevance. Sometimes people just do not wish to be disturbed. It’s not a power struggle, it’s basic human decency. It’s understanding that you don’t necessarily know what other people at work are going through, and it’s also none of your business.

⬐ skedaddle

Neutrality is different than support for the status quo. The status quo actually requires constant political activity to maintain. It's changed dramatically in the past decade. To support the status quo you would have had to restrict politics to e.g. Hillary Clinton on one side Marco Rubio on the other. You might consider that "neutrality" but I think what GP meant was rather that they prefer colleagues and management not to talk politics at all.

⬐ stanleydrew

I'm interested in why you believe it shouldn't be acceptable for leadership to express "dismay at the outcome of a democratic process."

I assume you feel it is appropriate for leadership to express dismay about some things, so what makes democratic processes special?

⬐ roenxi

Well, my position on the subject is complicated and it is a struggle to condense it down into something reasonable.

Basically, there is no way whatsoever that being a capable and talented corporate leader makes your opinion somehow right. If anything, the comforts of great wealth and power make it less likely that their opinion actually represents the best interests of ordinary folk. So my starting point is that the opinion of Google's leaders is not more valid than anyone else's.

Then the second aspect is that they are on that stage in official capacities as leadership of Google. So they are representing the company's views to their employees.

Combining those two, why should republican voters in Google have to experience what is basically a public condemning of their vote? It isn't professional to publicly condemn the views of half your customers and potentially a large percentage of your workforce for no legitimate business reason.

Obviously, the concerns about possible immigration issues I would accept as completely relevant. I'm not sure if that has actually affected Google's business operations - but that aspect wasn't the main focus of the all-hands. The focus of the all-hands was clearly dismay that an unpopular Republican candidate had taken office. It wouldn't have happened had the alternative, an unpopular Democratic candidate, taken office.

So with these thoughts in mind, I don't think it is an acceptable situation. If this were a more traditional public company I'd like to believe professionalism would have been maintained.

⬐ Pimpus

I agree with you. Bringing up politics in the workplace is rarely appropriate, and the way Google does it here is not only inappropriate but very offensive. I definitely wouldn't want to hear mud slinging about my political views in a corporate environment. This whole meeting is simultaneously childish and deeply disturbing.

⬐ gizmo686

As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I think search should be regulated, and part of that regulation should be some standard for political neutrality [0]. However, there is no neutral algorithm to this problem. Any algorithm favors certain sites over others. There is almost definitely going to be some correlation between the sites that are favored and the content of those sites, political or otherwise. There is simply no getting around that. The discussion we need to be having is how to do this in an acceptable way.

[0] I do not have a good idea of what such a standard would even look like, and would err on the side of being too lax in this regard.

⬐ ryanobjc

Why should search be regulated?

And I assume ALL search engines should be equally regulated.

Also, you better be pretty specific about what politically neutral really means.

For example, I just started a political party devoted to spreading obvious lies. Political neutrality means I should have top billing, right? Above the fold? Even though no one needs or wants what I’m selling?

⬐ lern_too_spel

If one or more parties is pushing misinformation, the only way to be politically neutral is to give misinformation the same standing as correct information. Society does not benefit from such a policy.

It is better to have a policy of factual correctness at a minimum. Politicians should adjust to accommodate that.

⬐ jlebar

> EDIT I'm just going to add this in because it just doesn't sit well. It shouldn't acceptable for leadership in a workplace to stand up and express pain and dismay at the outcome of a democratic process.

Isn't this exactly what they do whenever they lobby to change an existing law?

⬐ toofy

Yeah, companies make political statements all the time, on a regular basis, on all political "sides".

-- Whether it is a hunting accessories business advocating for 2nd amendment rights,

-- An enormous craft supply store (hobby lobby) using religious beliefs to decide what their employees insurance will cover,

-- A shoe company (Nike) hiring a controversial spokesperson (Kaepernick),

-- A coffee company (Starbucks) choosing to say holiday rather than pander to a religious sect,

-- A bakery refusing to sell cakes to lgbtq folks,

-- Enormous corps spending massive money to disrupt any employees attempts to discuss whether or not they wish to unionize,

-- A software ceo donating sums of money to groups trying to ban lgbtq marriage,

-- Fossil fuel spending billions to support candidates who support their business interests,

-- Renewable energy industries supporting candidates who support renewable energy projects,

-- A famous software ceo providing substantial funding for lawsuits to bring down popular liberal media sites he disagrees with,

I find it incredibly confusing why people pretend like this is a new thing, or that silicon valley is alone in this, or that the left shouldn't be allowed to use the same tools.

To be clear, I think all business interests and influence should be severely limited from politics, but that just isn't the world in which we live. The world we live in allows a disproportionate amount of influence from all industries, with plenty of real world examples from across the entire political spectrum.

If we want to have a conversation about removing corporate interests entirely, I'm game, but I'm not willing to entertain some false notion that only liberals use these tools and certainly not willing to say only conservatives can use those tools as cudgels.

⬐ toomuchtodo

> EDIT I'm just going to add this in because it just doesn't sit well. It shouldn't acceptable for leadership in a workplace to stand up and express pain and dismay at the outcome of a democratic process.

The majority can still be wrong, or make immoral democratic decisions. It is our job as citizens, all citizens (even business owners), to rally against unjust law and public policy.

It is the very rights that US foundational documents express as inalienable that allow workplace leadership to express pain and dismay at democratic decisions.

⬐ panarky

> I value political neutrality in the workplace

If you're doing meaningful work, you're changing things in the world.

Changing things in the world is necessarily and inevitably political.

If the workplace appears politically neutral, then one of two things must be true. Either what you're doing doesn't affect the outside world, or there are hidden, unstated political motives at work.

I would much prefer my company's leadership to acknowledge the politics inherent in our work and openly state their motives and point of view.

Doing otherwise is either meaningless or dishonest.

⬐ davemp

This is a blatant false dichotomy.

You can do meaningful work that will generate value/change that is largely unaffected by the political landscape (within reason). Sure every company would love tax breaks and subsidies but let's be realistic here.

> I would much prefer my company's leadership to acknowledge the politics inherent in our work and openly state their motives and point of view.

Most do. Companies just tend to avoid aligning themselves with a party and strictly speak of only specific issues and how said issue should be addressed to benefit their interests.

⬐ jayd16

Choosing to ignore politics and your ability to change it is itself a political stance.

⬐ Pimpus

I wasn't aware that cats were political.

What a silly argument.

⬐ iosDrone

You sound like you're really fun at parties.

⬐ tomohawk

Everything is political. This was partisan, though. There's a big difference between being political and being partisan.

Additionally, advocating for policy changes is far different than acting out like this about specific candidates.

Finally, the fear on display here is mostly the fear that comes from ignorance. It is astounding that a company that prides itself in knowing things would be so ignorant of such a large part of the US population, and would apply such unsavory labels to them and their intentions.

⬐ quotemstr

You are part of the problem.

Is antibiotics development changing the world? I should hope so. Do bacteria care about which presidential candidate won? Absolutely not. Most fields, in fact, do not involve the acrimonious political issues of the day.

The idea that "everything is political" is a lame excuse that activists use to hack politics into spaces where it doesn't belong. Even if a field has some tenuous connection to some political principle somewhere, bringing the political aspect to the fore only creates distractions and sows division.

Workplaces can and should be non-political and denying that political neutrality is possible is a particularly annoying strain of political activism.

⬐ dragonwriter

> Do bacteria care about which presidential candidate won?

Bacteria don't care about anything, but the people developing and prescribing antibiotics very often do care, for reasons directly connected to their work (and those concerns may not be in the same direction.)

⬐ fzeroracer

Let's discuss climate change then, because despite that being a field reinforced by science it is also one that is considered highly political in today's environment. Can you claim you're politically neutral if you are not willing to listen to people who deny climate change?

The problem with attempting to force a politically neutral stance is that it allows politics to invade where it shouldn't. Your logic is fundamentally flawed.

⬐ axlprose

> Can you claim you're politically neutral if you are not willing to listen to people who deny climate change?

If you're literally not willing to listen to any arguments for/against a hypothesis at all, then sure, you're likely more invested in the political aspect than the science itself. But if you're just arguing in favor of what the majority of the established literature suggests, then no, because being pro-science is orthogonal to politics, and arguing in favor of research doesn't make one political. Just because one particular subset of science gets latched onto by politicians, doesn't make it an inherently political subject any more than people who argue that the moon landing is fake make video/image editing an inherently conspiratorial subject. I also wouldn't be accusing others of flawed logic when making an argument that relies on guilt-by-association.

⬐ fzeroracer

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the debate works. We're not talking about two rational individuals forming a debate in good faith where they're able to change each other's opinion.

We're talking about people latching themselves to an anti-empirical evidence, anti-scientific approach to things such as climate change or vaccinations. The debate becomes political when there's enough people and policymakers believing in something, scientific process be damned, to actively affect law.

The debate about vaccinations causing autism for example is a absolutely political one, enough that we see people eschewing scientific fact in a way that endangers large portions of our society. Yet when we talk about an environment needing to be politically neutral, then their opinion must be treated with equal weight. We've seen this occur with people who are anti-evolution as well, where they demand their opinions be taken seriously and allowed into the greater debate. And it shows with our current society.

⬐ axlprose

> Yet when we talk about an environment needing to be politically neutral, then their opinion must be treated with equal weight.

No, that is absolutely not how science works. There's a reason why scientists undergo a peer review process to publish papers, and why journals have an "impact factor" score: it's because they're not all equal, and it takes an incredibly long time to become established as credible inside of academia.

If you're referring to the casual layman bickering that happens in the peanut gallery surrounding certain scientific results, then sure, all kinds of people with ulterior motives jump on those kinds of bandwagons and flamewars. But the scientific process itself does not (or at least tries not to) work that way, thus serving as a counterpoint to the idea that "everything is political".

⬐ fzeroracer

This topic had never been about ensuring political neutrality in sciences and the scientific process but rather political neutrality in the layman's workplace. You're attempting to drag this argument to somewhere it's not.

And even then to counter your opinion: Who do you think helps fund and provides resources for said scientific research? This is part of the claims made by laymen that connects politics to the scientific process.

⬐ crazygringo

Bacteria absolutely care -- or at least we humans care about how it affects bacteria.

Political policy determines how the FDA regulates (or doesn't regulate) drugs, including antibiotics. Political policy determines if taxpayer dollars are spent getting antibiotics to those who need them, or on missiles instead. Political policy determines whether doctors are incentivized to minimize antibiotic prescriptions (and prevent superbugs) or not.

The idea that anything isn't political is unfortunately naive. It's like saying the air we breathe isn't important because we don't notice it.

If we're talking about a company, everything from the regulations it follows, to the ways it negotiates with labor, to the taxes it pays, the liability it passes on to consumers (or doesn't)... it's all political, because it's all determined/constrained by political policy.

Saying that workplaces should be non-political is a political statement, and by definition a conservative one because it embraces the status quo.

You can't escape politics even if you'd like to, and if you're the citizen of a democratic country then one can easily argue it's your civic duty not to escape it, though of course you're free to neglect that duty.

⬐ quotemstr

> Bacteria absolutely care

Seriously?

> Political policy determines how the FDA regulates...

That's exactly what I mean when I talk about a tendentious excuse for putting activism where it doesn't belong. A drug company might have a lobbying arm that has to care about policy (and that, for pragmatic purposes, talks to all sides!), but a researcher looking at chromosomal recombination isn't going to do a better job of examining the damn chromosomes after being subject to political screeds. If anything, politics in that venue will distract researchers and detract from the business's core. Is that cost worth it so that some people can feel self-righteous?

> Saying that workplaces should be non-political is a a political statement, and by definition a conservative one

So, according to "crazygringo", neutrality is "by definition" supporting the opposition. Much George Bush. Very "with us or against us". Wow.

Re "by definition": see https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cFzC996D7Jjds3vS9/arguing-by...

⬐ sooheon

> A drug company might have a lobbying arm that has to care about policy (and that, for pragmatic purposes, talks to all sides!), but a researcher looking at chromosomal recombination isn't going to do a better job of examining the damn chromosomes after being subject to political screeds.

If the researcher refuses to politicize, he will be used as a tool by others who will. Play the game and win, or be used.

⬐ unsatchmo

I don’t know if I agree with crazygringo, but I do believe everything is political to the degree that bad politics can take it all away in a heartbeat. There is some plateau where I think is fine to let politics play out, the place where you draw that line is of course also political. The issue in the past has been that by the time we cross what the vast majority consider to be the line, it’s too late to easily turn the boat around. That is what people you consider alarmists are worried about.

⬐ None

None

⬐ Aloha

Doctors are inclined to minimize antibiotic prescriptions because of good medical practice,

⬐ dang

> So, according to "crazygringo", neutrality is "by definition" supporting the opposition. Much George Bush. Very "with us or against us". Wow.

Would you please stop breaking the site guidelines like this?

They include: "Don't be snarky. Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

⬐ quotemstr

Noted.

⬐ dang

> You are part of the problem

No personal swipes, please. Your comment would be fine without that.

⬐ quotemstr

Noted. Would "This attitude is part of the problem" have been acceptable?

⬐ roenxi

> If you're doing meaningful work, you're changing things in the world.

I don't accept that as a truism; most work is maintaining the historically unprecedented comfort that we enjoy as a society and I think that is meaningful.

Providing food is meaningful, providing shelter is meaningful, extracting raw resources is meaningful, taxation and welfare are meaningful, taxation and government services are meaningful. I could go io but that covers the basic point.

And since we are talking about a specific company, I don't even necessarily accept that the folk at Google are changing the world more than anyone else. I don't know anyone personally who's commented that 'wow Google has really changed my life' since the introduction of Gmail about 15 years ago. So, whatever they are doing it isn't very visible. Most of the improvement in the technological world is startups and the work of the circuit people.

⬐ thwy12321

the open source technologies they have created, Map/Reduce, Tensorflow... they essentially invented large scale cheap computing. This has had massive effect on the technology industry and the world.

⬐ roenxi

Do you feel that Map/Reduce or Tensorflow are somehow tools of some sort of convoluted leftist, rightist or centerist agenda? Do the communists have an ideological position on large scale cheap computing?

Those technologies do not require Google to be politically active in any way. Saying they are inherently political is like saying a supermarket is inherently political. Might be true in some technical sense, but practically most people are happy to call it a public good.

⬐ panarky

> like saying a supermarket is inherently political

> happy to call it a public good

Some supermarkets cut prices in half in advance of Hurricane Florence that is expected to make landfall today.

Other supermarkets maximize profitability and eliminated sale prices and discounts in advance of the hurricane.

Some supermarkets have large, prominent displays of unhealthy foods. Others emphasize healthy alternatives.

Sometimes merchandising decisions are purely profit-maximizing, other times they're trying to do good for their community while simultaneously making a profit.

If even a supermarket is political, how do you expect internet giants to be somehow non-political?

Virtually everything that they do involves tradeoffs that some people like and others don't.

⬐ whytaka

> Providing food is meaningful, providing shelter is meaningful, extracting raw resources is meaningful, taxation and welfare are meaningful, taxation and government services are meaningful. I could go io but that covers the basic point.

I'm amazed to read that you don't think these things don't change the world. And more so that you don't think these things are political!

Agriculture is political. Land development is political. Resource extraction is political. Taxation is political.

As GP said:

> there are hidden, unstated political motives at work.

⬐ malandrew

The problem is when they become involved in political issues that are unrelated to their economic activity.

⬐ whytaka

Yes, but to Google, the proper representation of facts is related to their economic activity.

⬐ michaelt

Presumably what roenxi means is you can't detect your butcher or plumber or garbage man's political affiliation by looking at their meaningful output; and neither when hiring such a person would you need to filter on political affiliation.

⬐ fzeroracer

How do you maintain political neutrality when the two sides of an argument consist of climate change vs denial? Vaccines vs anti-vaxx? Being pro gay marriage vs against?

There is almost no such thing as polititcal neutrality. Every site, every piece of media and every search engine is likely to have some sort of bias you need to be aware of. There is an argument to be made that Google is a monopoly and should be reigned in, but coming at it from the stance of 'they have a political slant' seems ill-advised.

⬐ skybrian

Pagerank is just one factor in a much more complicated algorithm. The full algorithm has always been secret, because SEO is a thing. If you demand a transparent algorithm, you're giving up search that actually works.

However, at a meta-level, there is some public information about how Google decides whether a change is making things better or worse. This doesn't tell you how the algorithm works, but it shows the goal they're optimizing for.

Google has "over 10,000 human raters" that rate search engine results. I don't know how they choose the raters, but presumably it's a variety of people in each country. You can read about them here:

https://searchengineland.com/library/google/google-search-qu...

Also, the guidelines that the human raters are supposed to follow are public, and you can read them here:

https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en...

⬐ greyman

To be honest, it caught me by surprise how politically unified the whole top management is, and how strong their political convictions are. It is publicly known that Eric Schmidt for example supports democrats, but I (wrongly) supposed that is mostly his personal affinity. Now it seems that not; the company as a whole supports one political party. Now the question is how is this reflected in their products (search, Google News, etc).

⬐ minwcnt5

Isn't it more that they're against Trump, and what the Republican party has become? They are only for one political party because there is only one alternative. Back in the day, I know that their leadership was close with people like Colin Powell and Kissinger, so there are probably some traditional republican values held, it's just that in recent years the party has become completely toxic.

⬐ greyman

But this is also basically just a political opinion - some people agree that it is "toxic", others not.

⬐ None

None

⬐ lake99

If there is a contemporary personification of Evil, that is Kissinger. It's not about "traditional republican values" either. As far as I can see, both your big parties are a continuation of Kissinger's policies.

⬐ mikejb

I don't think they're that unified; They united here to support employees who worried about their future. But I would assume they have certain common views, e.g. that immigration isn't the all-time evil.

Also, the company as a hole supports both parties - their lobbying efforts (and campaign contributions) are more diverse, which makes sense since you don't want to bet everything on a single horse/party.

⬐ throwaway_trust

To be honest so much corporate speak. Only Sergei's voice seems to be authentic. Everyone else trying to be extremely careful with their language of comments even though it's not a public event.

And "misinformation" and "fake news" will be combatted by AI? Seriously? That is like saying, "I have no clue but I will use some buzzwords". Pichai/GOOG knows AI better than everyone. I think they still don't have plan for combatting misinformation.

⬐ Liron

Scenarios like this predictably happen. They were smart to speak carefully.

⬐ segmondy

Not a public event? Well, how come we are watching the video? It's public. So careful? Why are you using a throwaway account?

⬐ gizmo686

I think they are being genuine when they say their plan is to combat fake news with AI; their business is built around AI. It is one of their core competencies.

I think they are going to fail, and quietly increase the human involvement once they realize that their AI isn't good enough. Then they will slowly scale back the humans as their AI improves, until the next controversy when they realize that they still need humans.

⬐ skybrian

There are plenty of humans involved in evaluating the algorithm. See my other post:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17975122

If you mean humans rating every new page on the Internet in real time, this isn't possible. It's machines or nothing.

⬐ dreepDeam

Ah, well, not to put too fine a point on it, but search engines don't even come close to rating every new page on the internet in real time.

There are like days of lag, in search engine results, unless you eagerly, eagerly, eagerly force your way into strategic points of the existing index for each independent search engine, separately.

Nevermind DNS replication, which is it's own beast. So, from domain registration, to DNS replication, to getting listed, to becoming relevant (which requires all kinds of meta tags and dom restructuring for crawlability, plus roll-your-own-site-maps, and so on), to being recognized as a reliable source of information, such as press releases, before we even get to news possibly going viral?

Well, news actually doesn't even go viral without humans in the loop. I mean consider how viral a high karma rank gets you on hacker news? It's just enough to get 10K eyes on a site in unison, to overwhelm a non-load-balanced server. And that's the voting of users doing all the work.

And then to include heavier social sites like reddit, twitter and facebook in the mix? That's almost purely human opinion performing the ranking factor. The attention of the users closes the feedback loop, and the chain reaction can strap a booster rocket to notoriety.

So, I'd almost say the really real time (like viral real time) stuff is almost only humans doing the work, and the robots are just there for the chatter threshold tripwires.

⬐ jsjohnst

> Nevermind DNS replication, which is it's own beast.

There’s a lot wrong with your post, but let’s start here. How do you think DNS works? Your statements about it indicate a complete lack of knowledge on the topic. I can register a new domain and have it resolveable anywhere in the world in minutes.

⬐ abraae

That's a tragic view.

How did we get to the state where the "truth" is such an elusive concept?

Is it so hard to determine whether basic statements are true or false? And to build larger, higher constructs out of those building blocks? That's basically what science has been and is.

It seems comically easy to identify fake news in most cases. Was this inauguration crowd larger than that one? That's a simple question to answer.

⬐ axlprose

> How did we get to the state where the "truth" is such an elusive concept?

Look into the fields of epistemology and the philosophy of science, in particular the works of Karl Popper such as The Logic of Scientific Discovery. The "truth" has always been an elusive concept. Outside the realm of mathematics, it's rather difficult to objectively prove most things "true".

⬐ makomk

Two days ago, partisan advocacy site ThinkProgress ran an article with the headline "Brett Kavanaught said he would kill Roe v. Wade last week and almost no-one noticed". The reason no-one noticed is because he said nothing of the sort and ThinkProgess knew as much. One of the fact checkers partnered with Facebook labelled it as false, they attached the usual warning, and this made ThinkProgress and a chunk of the left-leaning press furious. They accused Facebook of "defaming" and "censoring" them to "appease the right wing", claiming that this was actually some kind of partisan attack on the truth.

That, in essence, is how we got here. There are plenty of loud, vocal defenders of "truth" out there, it's just that the loudest and most vocal of them define "truth" to mean "what our side believes".

⬐ amanaplanacanal

It was a bad headline, for sure. I see more attention grabbing headlines every day.

⬐ skybrian

Why would you expect the truth of basic statements to be easy to establish? Science is hard and many basic questions are debated by experts. Political consensus is difficult.

⬐ solipsism

Science is not a public endeavor. Science is conducted by trained professionals. Besides the training, there exist filters (self selection, academic tests, etc) which ensure the scientific community has a higher than average connection with "the truth".

The public at large has never been particularly well connected to truth. One difference now is that, in the past, the public at least respected and trusted scientists, academics, etc. Nowadays they're scorned.

⬐ megous

I think humility of knowing how little any single individual knows, and how much "details" matter, would be much better attitude for everyone to take, rather than thinking the truth is easy, even for seemingly basic stuff.

⬐ gizmo686

We got to that state when we started talking about so much information that it is impracticable to have a human read all of it, let alone provide a truth judgement for all of it. Even getting computers to read all of it is a significant engineering effort.

Simply getting computers to understand the statements is one of the holy grails of AI research; let alone determining if they are true.

⬐ throwaway_trust

> I think they are going to fail, and quietly increase the human involvement once they realize that their AI isn't good enough. Then they will slowly scale back the humans as their AI improves, until the next controversy when they realize that they still need humans.

Exactly. AI is not good at subjective decisions of qualitative data. For example, nobody knows any political candidate's net worth apart from IRS, until they make those records public. And say political candidates make statements that they are way less or way more than their net worth they cannot detect it is true or false.

That's why I was surprised. Pichai is smart enough that AI can't combat fake news. Hence he was just saying to save face.

⬐ ehsankia

Realistically there doesn't exist a good solution for this. That's why every single site out there with user content that is large enough is struggling with moderation.

There is no solution that scales up to billions of users, and while it's true that AI most likely won't work, it is the best they've got right now. Do you have a better solution? Because Google has hired some of the smartest people and even then they still are having issues with Youtube every other week, so I'm sure you'd be paid a pretty hefty sum if you could solve this.

⬐ snaky

> Do you have a better solution?

There is a somewhat working solution, but it might be incompatible with American voter (for some time) https://www.scmp.com/news/china/poliitics/article/2162036/ch...

⬐ raxxorrax

> Do you have a better solution?

Let the receiver evaluate the information? Sure, some will have false believes. Cannot change that and you shouldn't even attempt to do so. Because authority has been wrong to an equal degree.

The whole premise falls flat in my opinion.

There won't be any viable solution, if the problem cannot even be defined. Currently it is based on a feeling that there are mean and false statements on social media.

And this fact is emphasized by parties who like more control about content.

Anyone aware of the current capabilities of AI should know, that it is no solution, at least in its current state. Sure, big tech likes to signal otherwise. But these statements just underline their business interest in that sector. Nothing wrong with that.

Wanting to tighten control about content is.

⬐ toofy

> Let the receiver evaluate the information

This ignores one of Google's primary missions. As jlebar posted in a different comment

> evaluating trust on the internet using computers (call it AI or not) is literally Google's core competency.

This idea that we should pretend as if there is no problem to solve seems incredibly strange to me. Particularly when we know unreliable information is being weaponized by bad actors to influence entire populations of people. This is a very real problem which needs solving.

Humans have limited time for research and we value reliability. Consider all of the hype around the recent severe decline in trust of authenticity and reliability of products purchased through Amazon. We tend to prefer shopping at places where we know the products we purchase will be of a certain standard. We go to trusted sources (as amazon was previously) because we don't have the time to carefully evaluate each of the many many items we purchase every week. We choose a store we trust will have already done that quality check.

It seems as if Google believes it is important for it's business that the information it prioritizes has a certain quality or reliability level. Google prefers their information be more like a Target store than a back alley tent. And if the amount of people who shop at Target stores over back alley tents is any indicator, I'm guessing Google is probably on to something.

I'm certainly skeptical about who should be able to decide what is "true" on subjective issues, but I don't see how we can pretend as if there isn't a very real problem of actual provably false information being weaponized.

I for one am fairly busy and just as I don't have time to do a deep dive of research into whether or not the shampoo, deodorant, milk, cereal, orange juice, whiskey, dish soap, cold medicine etc etc etc are fake; I also don't have time to deep dive research if the 30+ articles I skim everyday are provable outright lies. Not only don't I have the time, I don't necessarily have the inclination.

⬐ leetcrew

> We tend to prefer shopping at places where we know the products we purchase will be of a certain standard.

we don't just prefer; we pay to shop at places where we trust that the products will be of high quality (or at least authentic).

no one i know around my age pays for any news whatsoever (including myself, admittedly). this should tell you something about how much we value quality news.

⬐ allthenews

>AI is not good at subjective decisions of qualitative data

That's exactly the core strength of AI. It is what differentiates AI from hard coded solutions. Estimations(subjective decisions) based on correlations in fuzzy (qualitative) data.

In your example, you could take a set of data containing the net worths and other characteristics, e.g. birth zip code, spending habits, affiliations, and if there are any trends related to net worth, a properly architected neural network trained on the appropriate data could easily estimate subjectively on what amounts to qualitative data.

⬐ toast0

The IRS doesn't know your net worth. They know your income and deductions, mostly.

⬐ abtinf

Short of launching a forensic investigation, subpoenaing records, and carefully watching you, how would the IRS know your net worth?

⬐ jlebar

"Fake news" has lost all meaning in the intervening years, but at the time, it is hard to remember, we were concerned about essentially phishing websites that made themselves out to be (say) CNN, but were not.

As others have said, evaluating trust on the internet using computers (call it AI or not) is literally Google's core competency.

⬐ tinkerteller

This is great stuff and chance to see Google’s famous TGIFs. Also rare chance to hear Larry Page’s changed voice. It’s beyond shocking however that leaders of search engine business so openly preaching their political views. Given this is at the highest level, one cannot have confidence that things would remain bias free. I would have expected these leaders to make sure they keep their political views to themselves just to be fair to conservative employees who are ironically minority at Google.

⬐ cromwellian

Google has vast numbers of minority and immigrant employees, do you expect them to have no opinion when their own employees are afraid of the government discriminating against them?

This isn't political bias against conservative economic ideas, or even classic social conservatism, this is bias against racism and bigotry. And were they wrong? Two years later, everything people had been worrying about in this TGIF got worse.

Every few weeks some new dog whistle is blown.

There are some things which are just wrong, that if you're not a coward, you take a stand against. I hope any congressional testimony over this is combative, not milquetoast PR speak. Rather than spin, come right out and say: the company's values stand against racism and bigotry, and if Ted Cruz melts like a snowflake over it, so be it.

⬐ akhilcacharya

Google was around when W was elected and re-elected and nothing of the sort happened at their all hands then. It’s absolutely different because the particular candidate that won is uniquely odious in his approach and policy proposals that has/could negatively impact the lives of many Googlers.

⬐ xyzzyz

Overall negative impact on Googlers of decade-long war, increased airport security and PATRIOT act in general has greatly outpaced whatever extra negative impact Trump has caused so far and will cause in foreseeable future. I'm not surprised in the slightest that majority of Googlers are not liking Trump very much; there are plenty of very good reasons to do so. However, as much as media hype it, let's not pretend that he's so much worse that W in terms of what actually happened since his election.

⬐ randomposter44

Part of my decision for leaving Google was the insane left leaning bias within the company. I never outed myself as a conservative person because I've heard coworkers equate republicans to monsters.

⬐ ryanobjc

I feel bad for conservatives these days. Your standard bearers are not very good people.

For example at this very minute the rest of the world is discussing if trumps son really meant to be antisemetic or not. That’s the pinnacle of the modern GOP, which you have to admit is tied with political conservatism. GOP = conservative.

What the fuck are the rest of us supposed to do with thus situation? You say you’re conservative... what does that mean you even believe in? Because your party apparently means white supremacy, anti-semitism, concern trolling over deficits, just for starters.

So I guess the only choice is to decouple your beliefs with the GOP, right? Still though we’ve had decades of “GOP = conservative” messaging. You’re in a right pickle.

⬐ jasonvorhe

Maybe being conservative just isn't that smart to begin with?

⬐ stryk

THIS is a not-insignificant part of the problem. right here. You jumped straight out of the gate with calling the OP stupid. Not even a feigned attempt at some sort of discussion or debate.

You saw the word "conservative" and BOOM it's right into the Us vs. Them, Me vs. You, Good vs. Evil. I just don't see how that is healthy, at all, for anyone or anything including the country. It's childish. Social media and karma/upvotes/likes/karma/fake-internet-points, whatever you want to call it, has devolved us into kids on the schoolyard.

United we stand, divided we fall. grow up

⬐ ionised

I mean, if you look throughout history, even at the last century, you see civil rights actions that were vehemently opposed by conservatives and traditionalists.

Votes for women, emancipation of slaves, equal rights for women, for blacks, for gays, for the transgendered, worker protections, abolition of child labour, mandatory paid leave, maternity leave, environmental protections etc.

The list could go on, and in each and every instance we have had conservatives and traditionalists fighting them tooth and nail, and losing the battle every single time.

While the comment the person you replied to is short and lacking in substance, I do think there is truth to it.

What's that old Buddhist maxim?

Change is the only constant in life or You cannot change the wind, but you can adjust your sails.

Change is a certainty, but conservatives and traditionalists have made it their life's work to resist it.

⬐ dang

Please don't foment flamewars on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

⬐ jayd16

You should separate what Californians think of conservatives from what they think about Republicans. California has a lot of liberterian leaning views but not a lot of respect for the GOP.

⬐ cromwellian

Depends on what Republicans you're talking about, the classic Buckley, Jack Kemp, Milton Friedman style of conservative, who you can have intellectual disagreements over economic policy about, or today's nationalist, xenophobic, cult-of-personality Republicans, which I'd call Trumplicans, who have abandoned everything classical liberals stood for (free trade, immigration, against crony capitalism) and now actively enable an administration that literally threatens to intervene in markets and pick winners or create losers.

Or the people who burn their shoes and lose their minds every time someone (who is black) kneels at a football game. Those are the monsters.

⬐ didibus

I find it reasonable, even somewhat logical, to label racists, sexists, homophobes, trans-phobes, immigrant-phobes, xenophobes, anti-semitists, islamophobes, etc. as monsters. Don't you? I'd be interested to hear why not?

Personally, anyone who is actively seeking to enact hurtful policies against targeted individuals who have committed no crimes and shown no treat, in order to benefit themselves, could be logically qualified as a monster. An atrocity is defined as a cruel act. In that sense, if you support and encourage such acts, it seems appropriate to label you a monster.

This has been true for most of history. At least with today's common morals, it seems to hold that historical act of cruelty are deemed as enacted by monsters.

And marketing wise, republicans seem to have greatly associated themselves behind such people and policies. It's unfortunate if you fall in the camp only for everything else. Like say you just support gun rights, small governments and pro-life, because you truly believe that is best for everyone's livelihood, success, stability, prosperity, safety and happiness. Yet condemn and disagree firmly against acts of cruelty towards innocents. You might have people wondering why then you'd be willing to compromise one over the other, and question the truth of your condemnation.

⬐ mciancia

Aaand that is just another example of what OP is talking about ;)

⬐ didibus

Can you explain how so?

I guess I'm putting forward two points:

1) Being a hateful person with a desire to oppress innocents seems to aptly qualify for the label of monster.

2) Those who equate republicans with monsters do so because of the republicans' current active support and promotion of hateful people and their desire to oppress the innocents.

Nothing here seems unfair to me, or irrational. I feel it all simply follows. Oppressors are labeled as monsters, groups that are represented by oppressors and support oppression have their members labeled as monsters.

The logical follow up, is that if you yourself are not supportive of oppression, then disassociate yourself with the groups that are? Join another group that represents yourself more accurately? Form a new group which represents yourself more accurately? Or attempt to change the group so it becomes more accurately representative of yourself?

Why, if you are against the oppression, would you continue to support the group otherwise? There's only two reason I can think of. Because you're a partisan, and you just feel an irrational sense of belonging, like if it was a big family you are part of, and this is just the clan you belong too no matter what. Or because you are okay with the oppression put forward by the group if it means you also get X, Y, Z, etc. Where X, Y, Z are other policies like say banning abortion or maintaining gun rights.

⬐ nerdnumerouno

You are a mentally ill and insolent. Take a hike.

⬐ rphlx

The view that someone is automatically a monster or an "oppressor" because they voted Republican is wrong and offensive in the extreme.

It is possible to vote Republican without wholly supporting - let alone personally imitating - everything that Trump does, just as it is possible to vote Democrat without wholly supporting everything Obama did.

You vote for the party that gives you the most of what you want and has a reasonable chance of being elected. Rarely if ever will you be entirely satisfied with their personal behavior or policies once in office.

⬐ didibus

> The view that someone is automatically a monster or an "oppressor" because they voted Republican is wrong and offensive in the extreme.

Yes, I agree and that's not what I'm saying at all. The view I'm talking about is that the Republican party has associated itself with such people, that a number of their ranks is composed of such people, and that some of their agenda is supportive of such people. Thus if you identify yourself as a Republican, it's normal to wonder if you could be one of those people.

So it's the other way around. Voting Republican does not make you a monster, but monsters make up the Republican party.

Bigots are rallying behind the Republican party, and it seems to be letting them in with open arms. This in turn has the effect of having people question the true values of all Republicans. When someone then tells me they're Republican, I need to ask... Oh, so, are you racist? Or sexist? Or bigot? Or anti-semitist? Etc.

And that's because the Republican party has chosen to blur the lines. This was not always the case. It's a new phenomenon.

> You vote for the party that gives you the most of what you want and has a reasonable chance of being elected

Well, sure, but I feel you need to consider the pros and the cons. Otherwise it's a deal with the devil.

⬐ cromwellian

Seems no one understands Popper's Paradox. Lots of talk about it being unfair that a workplace is intolerant of people who are intolerant. There are just some values that are not negotiable for a modern, civilized, homogeneous society. We're not talking about debates about the level of social welfare, or regulation, we're talking about common decency of treating people equally, regardless of gender, sexuality, or ethnic origin.

There's no reason anyone has to respect ethno-nationalist views against immigrants.

⬐ tosser00001

"There's no reason anyone has to respect ethno-nationalist views against immigrants."

There are plenty of reasons to be against the current immigration regime that don't involve ethno-nationalism but it's nearly impossible to forward any such arguments without being accused of being an ethno-nationalist.

⬐ danharaj

Like what?

⬐ qwerty11111

Obviously controversial, but this could be one of the reasons some may fear immigration:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year%27s_Eve_sexual_assaul...

⬐ OxO4

So because of one example, you are attributing criminal behavior to a whole group of people? Sounds like textbook racism to me.

⬐ hef19898

Which is one of the worst examples ever. It was so highly politizised at the time. But you have point, it actually helped to form a certain narrative and a lot of people followed that narrative.

⬐ qwerty11111

How is it a bad example? From Wikipedia itself...

> On 7 June, a Federal Criminal Police Office report confirmed that most of the perpetrators were of North African origin and had arrived in Germany during the European migrant crisis. Investigative results about the perpetrators were congruent with witnesses' statements.[48]

⬐ hef19898

Because it was one particular case and the numbers have been looked at isolated. That and the fact that the first reports have been exagerated. Not to even speak about the way right wing groups used these reports...

I'll leave it to you to research crime numbers like rape, theft andn such for carneval in Cologne or the Oktoberfest in Munich. Because These are the numbers that provide the context.

Disclaimer: That does not in the slightest way imply that any of These cases are defendable, the least of all rape. Still, context helps to prevent knee-jerk reactions.

⬐ nailer

I find it hard to believe you couldn't think of a reason to not support mass migration other than 'racism', but Sweden let around a million people into a country of 10 million in an unmanaged fashion which is causing a lot of social issues? Germany where Angela Merkel let in 5 million people and the CDU lost a huge amount of support after similar things happened?

⬐ OxO4

50 million people? Germany has a total population of 80 million, so something is definitely off with your numbers. What kind of "social issues" have immigrants caused in Sweden?

⬐ nailer

5 million, typo edited. The second is easily Googlable and not under dispute by anyone.

⬐ antientropic

I did Google it and I found 1.7 million refugee applications in Germany in the period 2008-2017. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_migrant_crisis#Asylum...)

Where did you get your 5 million from?

⬐ danharaj

Quantify those issues. At the scale of millions of people (I'm going to assume your 50 million was a typo, not that you're innumerate or gullible), one must quantify.

If 100 people out of 100,000 who migrate cause problems, and they are all fleeing intolerable living conditions, then the only reasonable way you can say that all 100,000 should be shut out is if you value the welfare of the 99,900 so low that it is outweighed by the social harm caused by the 100 even after taking into account the benefits of migration.

⬐ nailer

Most European migrants are financial migrants rather than refugees. A journalist went to Calais during the supposed 'Syrian refugee crisis' there and found 0 Syrians.

⬐ whack

It sure doesn't help when our President says Mexican immigrants are "drug dealers and rapists", and wants to cut off immigration from "shithole countries".

⬐ wemdyjreichert

*hole countries was anecdotal and reported by someone who did disagree very much with Mr. Trump. Just pointing out it's unproven.

⬐ whack

You'd have to be extremely biased in your sources, to not believe that Trump said some variant of the above.

https://www.vox.com/2018/1/12/16885312/trump-shithole-countr...

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) told the Post and Courier that his South Carolina colleague Sen. Lindsey Graham, who attended the meeting, told him Trump’s reported comments were “basically accurate.”

And Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who also didn’t attend the meeting, told the Washington Post he heard about Trump’s comments before they went public, and they matched the later reports.

https://www.vox.com/2018/1/16/16897016/trump-shithole-shitho...

Anonymous Republican sources have pushed the story that Trump in fact used the phrase “shithouse countries.” According to the Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey, Robert Costa, and Ashley Parker, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA) told the White House that’s what they remember Trump saying in the meeting.

Trump has apparently decided that the controversy is hurting him politically, so his allies are using this minor discrepancy to justify public denials that he said “shithole.”

⬐ belorn

People can have opposing views about how to treat people equally, regardless of gender, sexuality, or ethnic origin. A famous historical example is the equality feminism vs difference (diversity) feminism, which is directly opposite views with the exact same goal. One view is that women and men are equal and any difference is so minor as to not be significant, the other asserts the differences and promotes them as being important and of equality worth. The effort to achieve equality are for those two groups opposing efforts where every step forward for one is a step backward for the other.

Intolerance against different opinions oppose any dissenting views that shares the same goal but not the strategy to reach it. Equality feminism vs diversity feminism, open source vs free software, and so on.

⬐ mariodiana

Setting aside the validity of Popper's Paradox, you might actually consider that you're on the wrong end of it: meaning, you're the intolerant one. I'm serious. Because you slander people who hold views opposite to yours and look to silence them once you have taken hold of power.

A person can be for immigration enforcement and NOT be an ethno-smethmo whateveryourecallingit. If you don't control your border, you're not a nation.

⬐ rphlx

If only it were so simple. What you are proposing seems to require universal acceptance of an authoritarian regime that sets the social rules which are, as you say, "not negotiable". Otherwise in a free society almost everything is negotiable and a precise definition of common decency is not so common, particularly across cultures. Similarly, trying to produce a complete and widely-accepted definition of intolerance is almost certain to elicit plenty of actual intolerance, but not enough to actually compile a complete and widely-accepted definition of intolerance.

⬐ y3sh

As a conservative who worked at Google: There also is risk is that if a conservative shares a conservative view correlated with intolerant views (but not actually intolerant), they become likely to be lumped in with the intolerant. The hard part about Popper's paradox is defining what is intolerant (outside of the obvious cases cited in the comments here).

⬐ quotemstr

When accusations of intolerance become effective weapons for silencing one's opponents, everything befomes intolerant. There's no mystery principle here: censorship and intimidation are pure power plays.

⬐ bitlax

Modern intersectionality dictates that people be treated very differently based on their gender, sexuality, and ethnic origin.

⬐ danharaj

This is a bad faith interpretation of intersectionality.

⬐ bitlax

It's an accurate one, but you're welcome to add any nuance you feel is necessary and let people respond to it.

⬐ danharaj

Well, for one, intersectionality is about how one describes reality, it is by no means normative and a cursory glance at the wikipedia page indicates as much, with citations if one is so inclined to put any effort at all in thinking critically.

But are you?

⬐ smsm42

> intersectionality is about how one describes reality

I am sorry, but this is one of the most useless definitions I've read lately. Almost any human activity and any point of view can be described as "about how one describes reality", from quantum gravity theory to buddhism. And, on top of that, it does not contradict the premise bitlax described above.

I am all for thinking critically but if you proclaim that the description above is wrong - and not only just wrong, but so obviously wrong as the wrongness to be obvious to the author, and thus "bad faith" - I think the minimum requirement for you would be to produce a better definition. And "read the wikipedia, it's all there" is not providing a better one.

⬐ danharaj

Lol

⬐ smsm42

Good answer. Thank you for a thoughtful discussion.

⬐ None

None

⬐ jbattle

Modern intersectionality starts from the observation that people ARE treated differently based on their gender, sexuality, and ethnic origin.

I don't know who the pope of modern intersectionality is, so I don't know what It dictates. But your formulation, if applied to abolitionists, would read like "Abolitionists dictate that people should be treated very differently based on whether they are currently enslaved"

⬐ bko

You should disclose that you are a Google employee in your comment.

⬐ otterley

Why? There's no potential conflict of interest.

⬐ quotemstr

There is no such paradox.

Popper is talking about not permitting of force as a mechanism for dispute resolution. The "paradox of tolerance" isn't a paradox at all. It's just a bludgeon people use to suppress free speech. It's ridiculous to claim that a discussion of the proper level of immigration is a threat to discourse generally.

⬐ qwerty11111

I'm assuming you're totally against Asia then? Asian countries have been far more staunch against refugees.

Japan for example accepted only 27 refugees in one year while rejecting 7,586 according to the Brookings Institute. South Korea accepted only 94 in one year. Refugees are pretty much shut off from Singapore and China and many other Asian countries.

I'm curious why these countries don't receive the same flak for their "ethno-nationalist" views against immigrants. There are no boycotts against buying goods from these countries as they are with Trump hotels.

EDIT: I see that you work for Google. Your company is censoring content on behalf of the communist government in China despite their "ethno-nationalist" views against immigrants (not to mention their abysmal human rights record). What's the explanation?

⬐ calcifer

> I'm curious why these countries don't receive the same flak for their "ethno-nationalist" views against immigrants. There are no boycotts against buying goods from these countries as they are with Trump hotels.

This is text book whataboutism. Just because someone isn't publicly complaining about Y doesn't make their criticism of X any less relevant.

⬐ qwerty11111

Y is more far oppressive but is coddled while X gets all the flak and is stifled. Conservative sites like Breitbart are essentially stifled on Google while the oppressive Chinese government can manipulate any Google search results it wants. What is Google's reasoning for this?

⬐ hef19898

And just because one Party is really "evil" I can be as "evil" as I want unless I become the most "evil"? Really?

And you really Need an Explanation why a company adopts to reuls in specific country (not saying it is good thing) and treats a (fringe) news outlet differently (not sure if they actually do, so)?

⬐ fcarraldo

This isn’t a fair comparison. The Chinese government cannot manipulate search results outside of China, where companies must either comply with local law or be eliminated via the Great Firewall.

This policy, while controversial in itself, has nothing to do with what you perceive as “stifling” of Breitbart in, I presume, American search results. I’d argue that this is nearly blatantly untrue - try searching for a term that Breitbart has written about, and you’ll find results at the top [0] or for Breitbart itself, and you’ll get a full-featured overview of Breitbart content and articles [1].

What evidence is there that Breitbart is stifled by Google?

[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+may+use+military+to+bu...

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=breitbart

⬐ mc32

20, 30 years ago many of the same people clamoring for open borders now were speaking against globalization, corporate imperialism, cultural imperialism, but speaking for and on behalf of the cause of American workers who were being swapped out for offshoring, etc. But now the credo is open borders and strong companies which can stand against nation states and dictate values.... It’s as if the political magnetosphere swapped poles.

⬐ dzdt

Who is clamoring for open borders? I don't know of any prominent examples of political figures who take that position, just examples where their opponents falsely characterise the position as "open borders".

⬐ smsm42

Just in this topic there is several commenters that take exactly that position. There are many more. Of course, not every person who opposes immigration restrictions is for open borders, and not every politician that is ultimately for open borders would think it is a good tactics to proclaim it right now. But proponents of unlimited (and essentially unlimited - i.e. guarded by checks that anyone with two brain cells can pass or limited by mechanism that lacks enforcement in practice) immigration obviously and prominently exist. You can see people with slogans proclaiming that on any pro-immigration protest. Surely, not everybody thinks so. But denying that there are many people saying so is denying the obvious.

⬐ mc32

The ptogressive base makes arguments for it. They make arguments against ICE, make arguments agaist enforcing immigration laws, make arguments for “sanctuary cities”. What other country, even poor countries who, for consistency’s sake, should espouse such policy had such policies? Most othet countries I’ve been to the police have the power to deport; depening on case, on the spot. I have known of people who worked abroad who were given hours to arrange for their stuff and get out after staying beyond their visas.

⬐ dzdt

Neither "abolish ICE" nor "sanctuary cities" are equivalent positions to "open borders". That's my point. I just searched again, and find only one example of a politician coming anywhere close to advocating open borders (Keith Ellison, representative for MN, wore a shirt saying "yo no creo en fronteras." He has however repeatedly refused to openly say he supports "open borders".) The mainstream liberal/progressive position isn't to clamor for open borders. It is to clamor for every individual to be treated with dignity and respect and compassion for their circumstances. The push to abolish ICE and for sanctuary cities is a reaction to injustice committed in the name of the law by ICE specifically. (In the progressive view, what is "just" is a different question to what does the law say.) All the talk about "open borders" comes from conservatives purposely exaggerating and mis-characterizing their opponents' views.

⬐ smsm42

"sanctuary city" is essentially equivalent to open borders. If you deny the ability to enforce immigration policy, then having immigration policy is just a waste of money and effort. It's like having a door but no walls around, so if you are not allowed in the door, you just go around it.

> He has however repeatedly refused to openly say he supports "open borders"

Come on. If the person does not say "open borders" for tactical reasons, it doesn't mean he doesn't support the concept, especially if he says "no creo en fronteras".

> The push to abolish ICE and for sanctuary cities is a reaction to injustice committed in the name of the law by ICE specifically.

So let's say police and courts do an injustice (that happens a lot) and you say you want now to abolish police and courts. Would it be unfair to say you object to law enforcement? If yes, then you'd have to explain how do you see law enforcement absent police and courts. Or recognize that - for whatever reasons you arrived to this position - you are now doing exactly that. Somebody who objects to enforcement of immigration laws - as a whole, not in specific cases - must either explain how it is not "open borders" - and the burden of proof is on them - or recognize that's what they are for. Even if it is tactically uncomfortable.

> All the talk about "open borders" comes from conservatives purposely exaggerating and mis-characterizing their opponents' views

Please explain how "open borders" is mischaracterizing "yo no creo en fronteras". Maybe my Spanish is worse than I thought it is - what exactly does it mean then?

⬐ r3vo

The problem with this line of thought is that it is used to strongarm people with conventional right wing political views into silence by accusing them of harboring the taboo opinions you listed.

You cannot utter even the most platonic of right wing sentiments without the shrieks of frantic lunatics accusing you of being Hitler himself.

This idea of taboo subjects is exploited by nefarious far left activists, not for the cause of 'decency' or the preservation of western liberalism, but as a bludgeon to silence all thoughtcrime of the right.

⬐ None

None

⬐ smsm42

No, it's not about "intolerant of people who are intolerant". There are actually a lot of people who are actually intolerant which are tolerated much better than a conservative in a liberal environment. Surely, the disagreement may be deeper on fundamentals, but the everyday tolerance would be worse.

> There's no reason anyone has to respect ethno-nationalist views against immigrants.

There's something called "political Turing test". The essence is that if you can not convincingly describe a position of an opposing side - in a way that they'd agree it is close to what they believe in - then you are not fit to discuss this position intelligently. Unfortunately, from the video is pretty clear almost nobody of those who spoke there would pass this test on anything related to anybody who voted for Trump. Yet they feel fully entitled to deny basic respect to people they didn't even bother to understand. And yet they feel smugly morally superior about it.

⬐ droopybuns

Reason:

Narcissist finds it convienient to assume all who disagree with them are ethnonationalists.

⬐ oriol16

treating people equally, regardless of gender, sexuality, or ethnic origin

This is a very vague statement, you can apply to your convenience. You could say Damore broke the principle and justify any penalty against him. I could say you don't follow this civility premise by choosing your partner based on your gender.

Every country in the world has "ethno-nationalist views against immigrants", and things work fine.

⬐ CoolGuySteve

The world would be $78 trillion richer if countries had open borders. So I'm not sure what definition you have for "fine".

https://www.economist.com/the-world-if/2017/07/13/a-world-of...

⬐ smsm42

This article is bunk. It makes unbased extrapolation from small-volume migration to a mass migration which has completely different set of problems. ObXKCD: https://www.xkcd.com/605/

⬐ zmix

> Every country in the world has "ethno-nationalist views against immigrants", and things work fine.

For whom?

⬐ qwerty11111

Pick any country in Asia.

⬐ pacala

It depends on what the meaning of the word "equally" is.

⬐ Janeman544

Only if definitions of "tolerance" and "equality" were that simple. Not all people on left are tolerant. As a Hindu I have found that the left is far more intolerant of Pagans that Christian conservatives in USA. Libertarians are easily one of the most tolerant of them all but the left does not like them either.

Painting people you don't like as "intolerant" and "deserving of persecution" was precisely how Hitler convinced Germans that it was okay to kill Jews.

⬐ test001only

This exactly. The common playbook now seems to be to hide racism and intolerance under the blanket of conservative and accusing anyone who opposes that to be against free speech and conservatives. These nonnegotiable values do not belong to the left or right, it belongs to the society as a whole.

⬐ lbsnake7

Who decides these nonnegotiable values? Society as a whole? If half of the country voted for Trump and believes in his values, then half of the society that you are a part of has different nonnegotiable values. So these values are no longer nonnegotiable and are now very much just whatever values the majority holds.

⬐ test001only

Why do you assume the basic values differ between these two set of people. That is seeing people in black and white. Let us take a nonnegotiable value of not being racist. Are you implying that 50% of the people are racist. Nope - that is certainly not the case. People who voted for Trump might have voted for various other things - there might have been certain issues that they resonated with him, vote for Republican party etc. They might have voted for him despite his flaws.

⬐ smsm42

No, the common playbook now seems to be to accuse anybody disagreeing with the hard left in racism and intolerance as an attempt to avoid any discussion with them and if possibly, demolish their personality and their life so nobody else would dare to speak up. While posing as "society as a whole" and taking on oneself to define what is nonnegotiable (which curiously seems to be exactly matching the views of whoever is declaring it) and unilaterally deciding that only the views the declarer holds or ones extremely similar to them are even worth discussing, and people not agreeing to them must be unpersoned.

⬐ simonsarris

Except there are plenty of rational reasons one might want to restrict immigration by country, as even Gwern has gone over before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13859767

> immigrant outcomes differ by orders of magnitude by country and that this has considerable implications for the immigration debate and that many of the arguments made by the left for illegal immigration & open borders range from ignorant to outright lying with statistics.

In 2014 Havard fellow Eugen Dimant did a study on immigration from corrupt countries, with the consistent finding that "Immigration from corruption-ridden countries boosts corruption in the destination country."

https://ethics.harvard.edu/blog/crook-crook-he-still-crook-a...

To put forth either of these as reasons to restrict immigration from one set of countries, and encourage immigration from another, almost always gets you labeled a racist, ethno-nationalist, etc. If you don't believe you will be called that, I invite you to try and discuss them pro/con style (pretending you are fairly convinced) with some of your more liberal coworkers, and see what they say.

Just being immigration-skeptic in general now often leads to such charges, which is absurd. The most basic rational reason of all is very simple: If the fundamental mechanic of democracy is that the people vote and these votes matter, then every citizen should have a strong interest in making sure that the criteria for being a citizen is in place to attract good citizens and repel bad ones. Instead, we can barely talk about it.

⬐ whack

> To put forth either of these as reasons to restrict immigration from one set of countries, and encourage immigration from another, almost always gets you labeled a racist

That is the very definition of racism. You're ascribing negative traits to specific races/ethnicities/countries, and using that as justification for discriminating against all individuals from that demographic.

If you want to advocate for racist policies as being pragmatic and in the public interests, go ahead and make that argument. But at least have the honesty to call it what it is.

FWIW, I don't think racism and stereotypes make for good public policy, no matter how "true" they may seem. This was the same logic used to discriminate against Irish, Italian and Eastern-European immigrants, and I don't think it's worth going down that same road once again. We can build a sensible immigration policy based on individual merit, without debasing ourselves into racist ideologies.

⬐ simonsarris

So you must believe the 1985 Schengen Agreement to be a racist policy, then. Or any international treaty delineated by a set of countries. That's quite the odd position in my opinion, I don't share your beliefs.

⬐ coffeeonrollt

Lot of people don't seem to realise that the view points they hold are racist and get angry when called out. Case in point, in India I have seen people generally calling lower cast people unfit or outright stupid for a job by cherry picking examples and generalising it across the entire group. When called out, they often respond with anger similar to the parent. In their viewpoint, they are making a judgement based on "facts".

⬐ belorn

When the right talk about toxic and destructive cultures and suggest policy to address it then that is racism and discrimination.

When the left talk about toxic and destructive masculinity and suggest policy to address it then that is using clear language and decisive action about a structural issue in society.

We could be making sensible policies based on each individuals own merit and it would be great. No more women vs men, immigrant vs nationalist, white vs black. It is the future I would like to have but what I am getting is the choice between two ideologies who each ascribing negative traits to their own set of races and gender, with policies to match.

⬐ whack

I'd consider myself a liberal, and I'm opposed to any and all attempts to discriminate against an entire demographic group, based on negative traits that are (supposedly) statistically common. Regardless of whether the group in question is Mexicans/Whites/Females/Males/Muslims. I would consider anyone espousing such ideology to be racist/sexist by definition. There are certainly fringe bigots in the left, but I'm sure the majority of Clinton voters feel similarly as I do.

⬐ smsm42

> I'd consider myself a liberal, and I'm opposed to any and all attempts to discriminate against an entire demographic group, based on negative traits that are (supposedly) statistically common

Good for you. Any ideas about how to get people talking about "toxic masculinity" and "evil whiteness" day and night on board? How about people that call for "white genocide"?

> I would consider anyone espousing such ideology to be racist/sexist by definition.

OK. But would the consequences of this definition for someone publicly talking about "toxic masculinity" as something common to most/all males be the same as being an open misogynist, for example? And if not, do you think it's wrong and how would you propose to change it?

> I'm sure the majority of Clinton voters feel similarly as I do.

Do they? How comes somebody like Farrakhan is still very much welcome to the polite society on the left?

⬐ belorn

I am glad to hear someone with that view. I would like it to be fringe, and while the last weeks election here in Swedish is plainly showing how mainstream generalizations like "mens violence again women" are, I feel like looking at like it is fringe might just help push it to actually become fringe.

Equality of this kind is a topic that could create common ground between liberal left and libertarian right, with policies and laws that focus on the individual and human behavior rather than groups. It would mean giving up having a group that each side can point at and blame for all faults in society, and the cynical in me would say that this means its political impossible, but it would make for a better world and possible push people to towards each other rather than apart.

⬐ whack

I agree with you. There's nothing more dehumanizing than being insulted or discriminated against, because of the demographic group you belong to. I think we should all speak up against it when we see it happening.

⬐ jlebar

> Instead, we can barely talk about it.

Is your contention that the main thing about the election of Trump that upset the people in this video that he took a cooly rational stance against some forms of immigration?

Banning all Muslims -- including citizens and visa holders -- from entering the country does not seem to be aligned with this position.

Saying that a judge was unqualified to do his job because of where his parents were born does not seem to be aligned with this position.

Blasting the family of a soldier who died saving others on the basis of their race and religion does not seem to be aligned with this position.

If your point is that you're frustrated that Trump has lowered the standards of intellectual dialog in the country, well, join the club, friend.

⬐ simonsarris

No, my contention is that people who want to talk about immigration often get a response sidetracked with talking about Trump & co and whatever their positions are, instead of talking about immigration.

(Or worse, lumping any positions into support for whatever they're doing.)

⬐ UncleMeat

That's fine, but that clearly isn't what happened here. This is very specifically about Trump.

⬐ simonsarris

The parent-most comment I replied to is commenting specifically on workplace tolerance, which I take to mean among employees and their own views.

Trump does not work at Google, Trump supporters at Google may support his policies, or not, and for his reasons or for their own reasons. Conservatives more generally have claimed Google is intolerant of their views, which is the reason this video is making the rounds in the first place.

So I disagree, I do not think this is very specifically about Trump. I think this is about workplace discussion of political issues, and for that matter is an issue in SV that pre-dates Trump. For example from 2015: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/closete...

⬐ bduerst

Of course there are legitimate reasons to control immigration - nobody is saying there isn't - but these are not reasons given by the current white house administration.

⬐ dmitrygr

I have no comment on the content of this, since I don't want to get fired for saying anything remotely close to what I think. I am kind of curious how this video was obtained however.

⬐ ocdtrekkie

After the Damore thing, Breitbart posted several anonymous interviews with conservative Googlers and Xooglers, so it seems like they've cultivated a group of contacts there. One of them specifically even discussed this exact TGIF and what it was like. I suspect one of those contacts leaked this to them as well.

⬐ dmitrygr

Officially, the penalty for leaking is termination. I cannot imagine anyone who'd risk that.

⬐ ocdtrekkie

There's been a large number of leakers at Google over the last year, so there's definitely people who find Google's misdeeds worth publicizing, even at personal risk. And that's on both sides of the political spectrum.

As I mentioned, several conservative Googlers have already talked about internal matters with Breitbart. Damore's memo was an internal-only document that was leaked on the liberal side. There were leaks about Project Maven and the censorship program Google's developing for China.

Though I would have to wonder how much easier this leak would be to catch. Google would "merely" need to identify who has somewhat-recently accessed this video file, and as an older recording, the number of viewers has certainly tapered off significantly.

To be honest, I'm seriously curious, are you saying your employment with Google is more important than what you think is right or good? While personally, I wouldn't leak from an employer I felt was doing bad things, I also wouldn't need to be terminated: I'd walk out the door.

⬐ cmrdporcupine

I can -- leaks seem to be becoming the norm rather than the exception. The company has seemingly gotten too large for the remarkably open culture we had when I joined.

As a Canadian I don't have a strong opinion on the content of this video, though I remember the event. But I do have a strong opinion about leaks/leakers.

It's not that I want what we do to be 'secret' -- it's that I want an internal work culture that is open and I want to know what's going on across the company and have issues discussed out in the open.

Finally, no I am not surprised people leak even with risk of termination. There's lots of jobs in the valley for people to switch to.

⬐ rdtsc

It is interesting that you've been downvoted (as your post is gray when I saw it), just for questioning that you might face repercussions for adding a comment. Which kind of proves your point I suppose.

⬐ gizmo686

All it proves is that comments that contribute nothing get downvoted. Especially when they explicitly draw attention to the fact that they are not contributing.

⬐ paganel

> All it proves is that comments that contribute nothing get downvoted.

I actually think it contributed a lot to the discussion, hence why I upvoted it (even though it still looks grey to me now). More to the point, the OP seems to be a conservative Google employee who feels his/her job is threatened by the internal company culture at Google, internal company culture which can be seen in the the video itself.

⬐ rdtsc

Hmm I thought it nicely contributed a point that then was proved as well. Here is someone who supposedly works at Google which encourages "to bring your whole self to work" and where people are "supporting and sharing in open dialog" (paraphrasing from the video) afraid to make a comment on the video on a "hacker" news forum for fear of retaliation.

This is not even a Google owned platform just some external forum. So they think someone will scour the web, find their comment, take down their name, head over to Google's HR / thought-police dept., report them and they'd face retaliation. Seems on point with discussion at hand to me.

⬐ test001only

When people/organisation are categorised in to buckets of left and right leaning, it becomes difficult to have a clear conversion. What happened here was a president was elected whose election promises would negatively affect employees of the organisation. They were right in trying to comfort their employees, especially being Google who are famously known to pamper their employees. This is not being left or right, this is just being human.

⬐ jessaustin

Wow they get lots of comments over at Breitbart. 11k on TFA, 35k on a soundbite from Cher, 22k for some ridiculous complaint about Serena (hmmm, is this some sort of theme?), 3500 on some guy having a heart attack. Is this normal for partisan news sites? They need to figure out some way of monetizing those comments.

⬐ adamrezich

A lot of mainstream news source sites have heavily-policed comments or none at all. I'm sure there's plenty of spam comments, but it's almost like people with views that become disallowed in popular online platforms don't in fact change their views or stop existing as many seem to think, and instead find other outlets for their views. I hardly see any "right-wing" views from non-politicians in my Twitter follows, yet I know that millions of such people exist in the US alone.

Again, there's likely some spam in there, but to handwave such a quantity of comments away as "bots" would be to ignore reality.

⬐ jacquesm

> They need to figure out some way of monetizing those comments.

The people funding those sites are cleaning up with the votes they've bought in this way. The comments are the monetization.

⬐ comesee

Breitbart is hardly unique in being accused of being a tool for manipulating voters for the business-owning elite. In any case, it's just a conspiracy theory. You have no reason to believe the people at Breitbart don't sincerely believe in the issues they report on.

⬐ jacquesm

> You have no reason to believe the people at Breitbart don't sincerely believe in the issues they report on.

I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt by staking the claim that they are doing this because they are a bunch of cynical bastards. You are making things worse for them by claiming they really are that stupid, and while I can't rule it out 100% it borders on the unbelievable.

But if you want to go down that route, be my guest, I do believe Robert Mercer knows what he is doing (just like Rupert Murdoch) and that the damage they are doing is intentional. It's pretty easy to mess with people's heads and there is an awful lot of that going on, if the visitors of those sites sincerely believe in the various levels of BS that are being peddled then some sort of shared blame would be appropriate.

I have similar feelings towards religious people and the perpetrators of religion: a failure of critical thinking skills leading to significant damage to the world, with a larger portion of the blame apportioned to the guys in charge (why is it always guys?).

⬐ comesee

I don't think that conservatively biased media is necessarily either stupid or cynically manipulative. Bastards is a strong word. Can you really not imagine an intelligent decent person genuinely holding conservative beliefs?

You seem to have strong feelings against Breitbart. Why?

⬐ malandrew

The National Review and the American Conservative are two examples of news sources that lean conservative whose writers and audience are intelligent, decent persons genuinely holding conservative beliefs.

⬐ amanaplanacanal

I realized a bit ago that my news intake was from almost entirely left wing sources, so I started adding The American Conservative. I agree. Good site, and the comments are moderated, so they don't head straight into the sewer that other sites do.

⬐ happytoexplain

>Can you really not imagine an intelligent decent person genuinely holding conservative beliefs?

Why do people jump to this wild ideological attack? I don't see anywhere in the parent post that implied otherwise. If you feel that calling Breitbart and Rupert Murdoch out for what they are is a statement akin to "all conservatives are stupid or indecent", isn't that just instigating a flamewar for no reason, rather than responding to the post?

⬐ comesee

Not trying to instigate a flame war, thanks for correcting my language if that's what it seems like. I'm earnestly trying to understand what it is about Breitbart that causes Jacques to have the opinion that the people who produce are either stupid or cynical manipulators (not my words). Let me rephrase, can you really not imagine an intelligent decent person subscribing to Breitbart?

⬐ DanBC

I know lots of right wing people and they loathe Breitbart.

Why are you insisting that conservative people must support racist media outlets?

⬐ comesee

I'm not. I didn't realize people thought Breitbart was racist. Forget conservatives. Let me rephrase, can you really not imagine an intelligent decent person subscribing to Breitbart?

⬐ jacquesm

> Can you really not imagine an intelligent decent person genuinely holding conservative beliefs?

Sure, but that has nothing to do with the heady mix of garbage and conspiracy that the likes of Breitbart like to stir up in order to appeal to emotion rather than to ratio.

> You seem to have strong feelings against Breitbart. Why?

By trying to frame this as an emotional affair you've just killed my appetite for continued discussion. See, I am not going to let you goad me in the same way that Breitbart does to its visitors. It's cheap and in the end does not serve any purpose other than to derail the discussion. It's Schopenhauer 101.

⬐ comesee

I'm not trying to frame this as an emotional affair. Feelings was just an expression in that case. I don't have an ulterior motive here, I'm sincerely asking in good faith. What are your objective issues with Breitbart? Nothing in Breitbart seems that extraordinary to me. Let me rephrase, Can you really not imagine an intelligent decent person subscribing to Breitbart?

⬐ jacquesm

> Nothing in Breitbart seems that extraordinary to me.

That's your problem right there. If your understanding of the world, history and your reading comprehension are such that Breitbart looks normal to you then I'm afraid I am out of options to convince you of the opposite, you will have to do some catching up.

We are talking about the same website I hope?

It's a non stop orgy of emotional button pushing with a complete lack of balance with respect to the reality on the ground. It's quite possible to lie with facts by selectively leaving out facts that support counter examples and those things that do not support your worldview. Breitbart is apparently good enough at this that it can convince people like you - able to string together a couple of sentences with more than two syllable words in it - that this is normal.

So, maybe it is possible that an intelligent and decent person subscribes to Breitbart, but it would require stretching 'intelligent' to the point of abstraction and 'decent' would not enter the picture by my definition of that word. Most decent and intelligent people that I know would be more than capable of seeing it for what it is: outright manipulation of public opinion for political purposes, so blatant that it is surprising it works at all.

If you feel it is normal then that is your problem, especially if you consider yourself to be intelligent and decent. Personally I like my news diet to be solidly grounded in reality, not a carefully made selection of facts to support certain political bumper stickers such as 'white is good, black is bad', 'immigrants are bad', 'America is great' and so on.

Remember too that history has a way of not looking too kindly on those that felt that obvious aberrations were perfectly normal and decent, when in fact all they were justifying was their own bigotry and biases. Time to figure out which side of history you want to be on, good luck, you'll need it.

⬐ comesee

I understand that you think Breitbart is manipulative but you really haven't offered any examples or any other type of evidence.

I've never seen an article on Breitbart claim "black is bad" or "immigrants are bad." They are critical of illegal immigration, since it's illegal.

They are pro-American, but so am I since I am American. What's wrong with thinking America is great?

⬐ GABAthrowaway

See, I think this is the mistake you're making. You seem to think that there is some element of objective truth left here. There isn't. It's echo chambers all around. The truth is, everything is a simulacra. Fake news, fake memories, fake reality. Fake everything. Wake up.

⬐ jacquesm

That's another tactic often employed: to try to make it seem as if there are no facts therefore it does not matter if one side or another lies with abandon. So therefore you should not believe anything you read in the newspaper, because after all 'nothing is real'.

Truth is a matter of degree, there is no black and white, so yes, it is hard to get to an objective truth when there are more than one participants to any discussion of a real life event. Witness the variety of stories you will get about a car accident that happened 5 minutes ago with several eye witnesses. You will get as many 'truths' as there are people. But a majority of them will usually agree on the bulk of the observable facts, even if individuals can be - and have been proven to be - spectacularly wrong.

But that sort of analysis does not pertain to the kind of bullshit that the likes of Breitbart will stir in with the soup to get the ratings up and the blood boiling.

Those are calculated efforts at inflicting maximum damage and to get people to respond emotionally rather than rationally. Think 'pizzagate' rather than 'blue vs turquoise'.

⬐ None

None

⬐ GABAthrowaway

It's the beginning of the Singularity, though people are not realizing it. Hivemind collectives are already growing exponentially, with extreme subcultures that are essentially customized filter bubbles. It will become steadily more impractical to resist the temptation to join one. You will be punished and an outcast (socially and economically) for not being apart of a hivemind consciousness. People are already deferring the vast majority of their cognition to machines. Eventually, I predict that as technology improves, cybernetics will become an inevitability. So there are an infinite amount of truths now, which is why I don't bother to seek something so fragmented (i.e. outside of my echo chamber).

⬐ jessaustin

I suppose that's possible, but it seems rather convoluted. Why wouldn't those hypothetical funders simply bribe both branches of the status quo party like every other rich asshole does?

I might change my mind about all this if any of the actually-different young democrats who have forsworn such financing are actually elected this fall...

⬐ jacquesm

I'm not aware of any such ridiculous sites on the left side of the spectrum, insofar as you could call the democrats 'left', in most countries a party with their political stance would still be on the right. Some would argue the USA does not have a functioning left wing party.

⬐ cmrdporcupine

Since the fall of the Berlin wall or even since Mitterrand most western countries lack a functioning left wing party. You can call Labour or the NDP or the SDP or the PS 'left wing' in comparison to their opponents -- but from a historical view they've dropped almost all the classic socialist positions.

In some ways the US has merely been the vanguard of a trend.

⬐ tinco

The USA has no functional political parties. The Republicans won on a zero integrity populist gambit that is betraying its voter base and the ideals of the party with every stroke of his pen and typed character.

The Democrats are so mired in their internal politics and fear of having and identity they produced an agenda and candidate so weak they lost to a senile compulsive liar.

⬐ newnewpdro

This video presents as if the leadership is coddling a room full of kindergartners sad over the loaner class pet going home. Company full of children.

⬐ codeonfire

Are you surprised? Google invented infantilism of their workers. They invented basic colors, office slides, and office ball pits. They make new employees wear propeller hats. They want a naive "ender's game" work force while their business of monitoring the web browsing and location of hundreds of millions of people is actually very serious.

⬐ expathacker

> Google invented infantilism of their workers. They invented basic colors, office slides, and office ball pits. They make new employees wear propeller hats.

In 1999/2000 I was riding office slides at excite@home[1], and jumping in ball-pits at idealab when Google wasn't at all noteworthy except that their fans were exhausting directly into mine from their adjacent cages at globalcenter.

> They want a naive "ender's game" work force while their business of monitoring the web browsing and location of hundreds of millions of people is actually very serious.

Interesting choice of comparison, as Ender's Game is frequently criticized being an apologia for Hitler[2][3] or a Handmaid's tale for conservatives. Fanboy thugs of Card's "Handmaid's tale for conservatives". and fanboy thugs of Orson Scott Card were encouraged to attack the writers who posed this argument[4]. Card himself is a rather outspoken conservative and homophobe[5], [6] whose work is primarily about encouraging mormon ideals/moral absolutism and has essentially called for an anti-gay genocide[7].

Ender's brother and sister over the world by putting on online personaes, Locke and Demosthenes of both the right and left soas to control popular opinion by owning both sides of the debate. In a way was sort of a guidebook to modern right-wing political strategy. In a subsequent book, Ender moves to a world colonized by Brazilians. Brazil itself was a favorite post-WW2 hiding spot for Nazis.[8]

[1] https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Who-killed-Excite-ho... [2] https://peachfront.diaryland.com/enderhitlte.html [3] http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm [4] http://atdt.freeshell.org/k5/story_2005_5_28_22428_7034.html (postscript section) [5] https://www.sunstonemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/arti... [6] https://www.salon.com/2013/05/07/sci_fi_icon_orson_scott_car... [7] http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2013-05-09-1.html. [8] https://www.history.com/news/how-south-america-became-a-nazi...

⬐ megous

I was wondering about the abundance of propeller hats in the audience, if it's some insider joke or what. But seriously, new employees have to wear propeller hats?!

⬐ codeonfire

It is an inside joke marking employees as stupid childish marks. As if to say that the person is someone management has identified who will at least pretend to be ignorant and naive as a child. That is the whole basis behind this infantilization shit.

⬐ mikejb

Yes - they're called "noogler hats", and they sometimes even sell on ebay. (Who buys this stuff?)

⬐ DyslexicAtheist

HN can be a huge traffic generator, so can we change the URL to youtube instead of sending traffic to breitbart?

⬐ dash2

I think if the story is worth reading then Breitbart deserves credit for breaking it, whether or not you think they are bad guys.

⬐ None

None

⬐ happytoexplain

I disagree - I think there's some level of malevolence and ill will at which an organization doesn't deserve any help if at all possible, even if they simply wrote a true story. If we were in some reality where there was no other way to consume the story, sure, then it's worth linking to them. But we'll always have other ways to instantly and easily host information.

⬐ petermcneeley

Twice it was mentioned that the cause of WWII was boredom. Is this actually a real theory?

⬐ tvh

I'm not aware of it being a theory, but I strongly recommend this read for anyone who entertains this "boredom" root cause idea, which seems bonkers. Also, regardless of that, it's a massively interesting read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wages_of_Destruction

⬐ rdtsc

I found that interesting as well. He seemed to be the most informed and data driven. "Data shows that no, we are not as divided, but that these voters are bored and have routine jobs..."

First result I found was this article:

https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/14/health/boredom-extreme-politi...

Which references a few studies:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ejsp.2205

Though can only see the abstract. It shows that boredom leads to extremism both left and right wing as extremism provides meaning. I can see that to some extent. Article is the just the abstract, need a login and possibly to pay money to read the full text.

Another one:

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2016/images/07/13/consevatismas...

⬐ rphlx

At best a crackpot one with no serious support from contemporary leaders such as Churchill, or historians since then AFAIK. Putting the war in the Pacific aside, I think you can place much of the blame for WWII on the election of an extremist in Germany, and that had little to do with any alleged "boredom" in the electorate. A fairly decent case may be made for "anger", "disillusion", "jealousy" and "resentment" though, and I suppose you could make a case for those also being important factors in the 2016 US election.

⬐ paganel

> Is this actually a real theory?

I'm not a professional historian by any means, but I think Ernst Nolte's opinion (he was a German historian) that WW2 was actually an European Civil War fought between fascism and communism is right (you can read an introduction into the whole discussion on his wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Nolte). His basic idea was summed up by another historian, Norman Davies (you can ignore the "leftists" part at the end):

> Ten years later, in The European Civil War (1987), the German historian Ernst Nolte (b. 1923) brought ideology into the equation. The First World War had spawned the Bolshevik Revolution, he maintained, and fascism should be seen as a "counter-revolution" against communism. More pointedly, since fascism followed communism chronologically, he argued that some of the Nazis' political techniques and practices had been copied from those of the Soviet Union. Needless to say, such propositions were thought anathema by leftists who believe that fascism was an original and unparalleled evil.

People in the States and generally speaking in Western Europe tend to forget how much communism (Bolshevism as it was called back then) was seen as a threat after WW1. I happened to view a video on YT a couple of days ago of German Radio's official announcement of Hitler's death. I don't know German but the only word that I could distinctively comprehend was "Bolshevism" (or whatever its spelling is in German), which shows that even with Hitler dead and defeat just a few of days away the Germans were still thinking about the big bad man coming from the East (as far as I could heard no mention was made in the same announcement about the "Amerikaner").

⬐ cjcole

"the Germans were still thinking about the big bad man coming from the East"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_Soviet_occupat...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_...

'The majority of the assaults were committed in the Soviet occupation zone; estimates of the numbers of German women raped by Soviet soldiers have ranged up to 2 million.[7][8][9][10] According to historian William Hitchcock, in many cases women were the victims of repeated rapes, some as many as 60 to 70 times.[11] At least 100,000 women are believed to have been raped in Berlin, based on surging abortion rates in the following months and contemporary hospital reports,[9] with an estimated 10,000 women dying in the aftermath.[12] Female deaths in connection with the rapes in Germany, overall, are estimated at 240,000.[1][13] Antony Beevor describes it as the "greatest phenomenon of mass rape in history", and has concluded that at least 1.4 million women were raped in East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia alone.[14] According to Natalya Gesse, Soviet soldiers raped German females from eight to eighty years old. Soviet and Polish women were not spared either.[15][16][17] When General Tsygankov, head of the political department of the First Ukrainian Front, reported to Moscow the mass rape of Soviet women deported to East Germany for forced labour, he recommended that the Soviet women be prevented from describing their ordeal on their return to Russia.[18]'

"as far as I could heard no mention was made in the same announcement about the "Amerikaner"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes

⬐ piokoch

"People in the States and generally speaking in Western Europe tend to forget how much communism (Bolshevism as it was called back then) was seen as a threat after WW1."

Because it really was, Europe was pretty lucky that Soviet army was defeated in 1920 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Warsaw_(1920)] before it managed to go further to the West - that was the ultimate communists goal, as they wanted to spread revolution across whole continent.

In that way not only Eastern and Central Europe countries would experience the fun communism brings: poverty, inequality, secret police murdering opposition members and priests, lack of freedom.

⬐ ionised

> In that way not only Eastern and Central Europe countries would experience the fun communism brings: poverty, inequality, secret police murdering opposition members and priests, lack of freedom.

You say that like fascism didn't exhibit these characteristics as well.

⬐ jjtheblunt

No, it's hubris by arrogant fools.

⬐ andresp

What is most worrisome is the absolute lack of ideological diversity. Google might want to consider tackling this on their diversity policies and work groups. In the light of this video and James Damore reports I can imagine that the company is not a safe space where conservatives can freely express their points of view without feeling uncomfortable or taking the risk of being ostracized or penalized throughout their career. It would be interesting to know what led to this lack of diversity, potentially addressing some recruitment bias with conservative quotas or positive discrimination while hiring. Additionally, anonimously investigating whether a compensation gap exists between conservatives and democrats could identify whether the discrimination also happens during other stages of the employee career at Google, e.g. promotions, bonus, projects... This could be done by the company or enforced by the state itself (like what happens in the UK) and the results should ideally be publicly available.

⬐ was_boring

What is normally covered during a Google TGIF all-hands, especially during a slow week? I imagine this is not the normal.

⬐ d4l3k

It's normally product announcements and any other issues/news about the company along with a Q&A session with the top leadership.

⬐ misterbowfinger

I'm honestly confused why they didn't just postpone TGIF and then ignore the election. Just say someone got sick or something. Let employees deal with the results themselves and move on.

⬐ jasonvorhe

Because they have a lot of people on staff who were genuinely scared of the lunatic who just got elected because they're gay, trans, from a different country, muslim or black.

It's good knowing that the giant behemoth you work for will have your back, and even support from your peers will do a lot.

⬐ nodesocket

I find it a bit absurd when I hear pundits and media types claim that liberal bias doesn't exists in silicon valley tech companies (top to bottom). As somebody who lived in San Francisco for five plus years, I can firmly attest it is more than bias. It's utter disdain, hatred, and prejudice. Just look at how James Damore was handled it should be clear that diversity of thought and individualism is not accepted. It's a complete echo chamber of shaming culture who stand on a pedestal of moral superiority.

Another example, Antirez has been absolutely mob shamed into changing master/slave in Redis by a Google employee. If you are against the change because it's an industry standard you are called a racist.

⬐ carapace

I live in the Bay Area, I grew up in San Francisco, I'm firmly left-leaning in much of my political views.

I upvoted your comment because in my opinion you are right, although overstating it a bit.

The "Left Coast" is biased. There is a lot of tribal knee-jerk reactivity, and there are rabid haters. (Yeah yeah the right has 'em too. There's a reason Tim Chevlier and David Gudeman were both fired. Not my point.)

"Not all lefties" though, okay?

⬐ nodesocket

Thank you for understanding the thesis of my comment. It's already getting downvoted unfortunately. The most absurd thing to me is how is this kind of rhetoric acceptable at a company sponsored event? It is obviously politically motivated and totally biased. One speaker nearly started crying about Hillary losing. How is that fair to employees at Google that are conservative?

⬐ carapace

> Thank you for understanding the thesis of my comment.

Cheers! I wanted to back you up from my side of the aisle. I've seen some pretty shabby behaviour from my own and I'll help you call it out.

> It's already getting downvoted unfortunately.

Well, you were pretty salty. :-)

> The most absurd thing to me is how is this kind of rhetoric acceptable at a company sponsored event? It is obviously politically motivated and totally biased. One speaker nearly started crying about Hillary losing.

Well, it was a very strange moment. Yosemite Sam had just been elected, proving that we're definitely stuck in Timeline XX7J5, the really shitty one, and emotions were raw. Judgement faltered.

I myself nearly wound up sitting in the middle of the street wearing nothing but an adult diaper and sign around my neck that read "Give me food or kill me."

> How is that fair to employees at Google that are conservative?

It's not. It's actually pretty gross. And again, I'm saying this as a left-leaning person who was appalled by the election results. All it takes to understand how messed up this is (if you don't already) is to try to imagine a bunch of right-wing people doing the same thing if Clinton had been elected.

We were talking about this exact subject one day in our cubicle farm and someone pointed out that there were no doubt people in the room who had voted for Trump. I piped up in my best Michael Palin voice, "A witch! Burn 'em!" and we all had a chuckle, but there was nervous edge.

No one admitted to voting Republican though.

Tribalism sucks.

(But Trump makes me miss Dick Cheney.)

⬐ akhilcacharya

How is Trump winning fair to the Iranian immigrants working at Google?

⬐ jayd16

You act like Trump didn't quickly move to travel bans and visa shenanigans that have a serious impact on employees. Worrying about harshing a victory buzz is not a priority.

I'm not sure why you think politics doesn't effect Google and the people who work there or why concerns shouldn't be addressed in an all hands.

⬐ nkurz

How is that fair to employees at Google that are conservative?

What obligation do you think that a company should have to respect the political leanings of its employees? While it might be in a company's self-interest not to alienate talented employees with minority political beliefs, do you believe it should be forbidden for the company to "choose sides"?

⬐ nodesocket

Just as liberals like to promote social justice, I think it's not fair to conservatives that are harassed, outed, and unfairly represented. Since when is it ok for a company to hold a political rally?

⬐ jayd16

Not that I agree but certainly since the Citizens United ruling.

⬐ nkurz

Since when is it ok for a company to hold a political rally?

There are at least two separate angles, legal and moral.

I'm certainly not aware of all the laws, but I think 'jayd16' in the sibling is right that it's been definitely legal under federal law for a company to express support for a particular party or candidate at least since the Citizen's United decision. California state law may override this with regard to a "rally" with it's "hostile workplace" laws, but I don't think there is clear precedent. This seems like reasonable overview article on the legal situation: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2016/10...

Morally, I personally view it mostly from the angle of "free association". For me, if a group of people who run a company want to express their support for a candidate, they should be allowed to do so even if not all the employees agree. If the group's goal is primarily monetary, I'd expect that they'd avoid alienating employees because of their political beliefs, but I don't think it should be forbidden for them to have other priorities, even if it causes certain employees to feel unwelcome. This isn't great, but it's better (in my mind) than the alternative of forcing the larger group to silence themselves.

I was asking you what your thoughts were on it, because currently the usual pairing is "conservative" and "pro-Citizen's United". You seem to be pro-conservative (or at least concerned about the treatment of conservative employees) but against allowing corporations to express political preference. Thus I was wondering where the lines are for you.

⬐ closeparen

"Utter disdain, hatred, and prejudice" is an entirely appropriate reaction to someone trying to upend your life through immigration policy.

⬐ rixed

mob shamed by a Google employee?

⬐ jayd16

I don't think anyone claims Californians working in SF aren't liberal.

What you really mean is you want to be a mildly bigoted in peace and/or demand attention because historically disadvantaged groups are getting attention without any backlash while simultaneously telling others to get over their own insecurities. When people say you have a persecution complex you think its a liberal agenda.

Case in point, no one thinks caring about industry standards makes you racist. Not caring about what makes others uncomfortable so you don't have to learn a new word is what's frustrating. The appropriate response to a silly request like that is "oh, uh, sure whatever. Just update the wiki."

⬐ adnzzzzZ

>The appropriate response to a silly request like that is "oh, uh, sure whatever. Just update the wiki."

The appropriate response to people being bothered by words is for them to grow a thicker skin. I want the world to be a better place, and I want that to happen by making individuals stronger. Individuals grow weaker if you coddle them in every way imaginable. So I find your request to change a word that upsets people disgusting and morally wrong, and that's why I won't change it.

So no, it's not just a matter of just saying "sure whatever".

⬐ nailer

> What you really mean is you want to be a mildly bigoted

Please don't tell anyone else 'what they really mean'.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

⬐ spangry

It's not just a simple case of 'update the wiki'. You've actually got to modify the code and potentially break already established APIs (and break scripts that parse redis logs).

But putting aside the fact that it's not costless to make these sorts of changes, it's also pointless. These people will never be satisfied. They're not offended; they're bullies who want to control other people and virtue signal to their bully friends. Giving in to their 'little change' just encourages more bullying, more salami-slicing, more 'little changes' (e.g. removing any reference to the word 'whitelist', instituting a code of conduct etc.).

Redis is open-source: if their political sensibilities are so offended, they can fork the project (like ayojs for example, https://github.com/ayojs/ayo).

⬐ jayd16

By "Update the wiki" I do also mean "sure just do the work yourself." We're saying the same thing.

That said, fighting against things you claim to have no preference over you're also partaking in the same control/power trip shenanigans. That's when things really go off the rails.

⬐ hjrnunes

Not really.

It's not the particular choice of words that bothers people. It's the fact that they either have to submit to the frivolous power-trippers or die on a hill they don't particularly want to, in this case defending the word 'slave'.

You're saying they should just submit, despite the fact that they realise the whole point of it all just is their submission.

In other words, submit to the bully because, otherwise, you're just as bad as him.

⬐ jayd16

The rub is you really don't know what their motivation is. You can suspect but if they're willing to put in the all the work, it costs you nothing.

Going on some crusade for no gain or loss and only to deny someone else is just whipping up drama. If you have legitimate complaints, make them.

This doesn't have anything to do with politics. Any argument based around "I don't care so you shouldn't either" is bound to cause issues.

⬐ hjrnunes

Yes. I don't know their motivation the same way a man is presumed innocent in a court.

But people are not courts. So I do not need, not is it practical, to act like one.

However, I do know the justifications their proponents present for it. And I do know that they're frivolous. They just claim it will somehow make the world better.

They set up a conjecture - that abstract people abstractly suffer when they read those words - and proceed to impose a real action based on the conjecture: we have to delete the words.

Notice how no actual person is presented has having suffered from reading these words in Python code, let alone questioned (like a witness in a court, btw). So no actual suffering is presented.

Yet, the actions, the imposition, is concrete. It is actual. Some very actual people will have something imposed on them directly and indirectly because of this frivolous conjecture.

And the conjecture is frivolous precisely because it is an extraordinary claim - that people suffer when they read 'slave' in the context of Python code - that is presented without a single shred of anecdotal evidence, let alone proof or demonstration.

⬐ tcbawo

Is it really surprising that a multinational company would have a preferred candidate? Although, I'm sure they lobbied extensively for all major candidates. It is interesting that both major parties seem to want to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to free speech, "common carrier", and antitrust issues.

⬐ JohnBooty

Wanting to improve their news algorithm to favor more trustworthy sources is not a violation of free speech.

"Free speech" guarantees you the right to say what you want, as long as it doesn't interfere with others' freedoms (i.e., making death threats or yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theater)

"Free speech" does not guarantee you a platform for your protected free speech. I have the right to claim blatantly false things; Google is absolutely not obligated to amplify my voice.

I am allowed to claim that Obama shot JFK. That does not mean that Google, you, or anybody else is obligated to help me spread that opinion.

⬐ gizmo686

The first amendment does not prevent Google (or any other company) from restricting speech. That is a very low bar.

The distinction between government and private groups is not a clean as you might think. At a large enough scale, private groups can start to take on a role in society that resembles that of a government, should we not then expect them to be held to a standard that resembles that we expect of governments?

The FCC cannot revoke your spectrum license for saying Obama shot JFK. Should ISPs be able to revoke your internet license for saying that?

Google is a much harder case, because the core service they provide is filtering; and that filtering is an immensely valuable public service. But given the role that filtering plays in society, is is not an area that should be left unregulated.

⬐ rsj_hn

That's a bit of a strawman, since the OP didn't talk about the first amendment but about "free speech". Free Speech is a principle coming from the enlightenment of which the first amendment is one expression, but certainly not the only expression.

The idea is that speech should be tolerated even if you disagree with it, and that societies that make room for controversial speech are better off, in the long run, than societies that do not. As a corollary, it espouses the view that individuals should be free to speak their mind and should be tolerated even if their speech is controversial. Because we cherish Free Speech, we created the first amendment. The first amendment is not the sum total of free speech, nor is free speech merely a governmental issue. For example, the California labor protections that protect employees from being fired for what they say in their private time is an example of the principle of free speech at work, and has nothing to do with the first amendment.

The principle of free speech is why there are many processes, both private and public, in which the public is invited for individuals to air their views, whether they be question and answer sessions in companies, or local government hearings. It's also the principle behind movements to build public libraries that stock controversial books. Almost every institution, whether public or private, tries to give some room for dissenting speech in its operations and tries to create a space for people to air their views. Thus the attacks on these spaces, even if they are not attacks on the first amendment, are of concern to those of us who value free speech. This includes opposition to efforts at censorship, both public and private, whether these be the circulation of blacklists of communists during the cold war, or any other kind of punishment, both public and private, merely for speech.

You may not agree with these values, but merely saying "well, the first amendment doesn't prohibit it, so it's not an attack on free speech" is a wild misunderstanding of what free speech is.

⬐ amanaplanacanal

Yes but. It seems to me that forcing somebody to say what you want them to say is a much larger infringement on free speech than preventing them from speaking. Who should be telling Google, or anybody else for that matter, what they have to say? I have heard people suggest that Twitter, Facebook, or Google de-platforming people is an abrogation of free speech, but it seem to me that it would be a worse abrogation if you didn't allow them to do that. Should we pass laws to force the New York Times to print certain articles? That would seem a worse outcome for free speech than what we have now.

⬐ gizmo686

I'm not sure if you are agreeing with me or not.

As far as I am aware, the US does not have any substantial free speech protection other then the first amendment, so it does not make sense to say that "free speech" guarantees us anything beyond what the first amendment does.

The arguement that my parent was making is that Google can deny you use of their platform without violating your free speech. In my view, the only way that makes sense is if you interpret free speech as narrowly defined by the first amendment. Otherwise, to be denied Google seems to be clearly denied free speech.

⬐ 3rwww1

> The distinction between government and private groups is not a clean as you might think. At a large enough scale, private groups can start to take on a role in society that resembles that of a government, should we not then expect them to be held to a standard that resembles that we expect of governments?

Just after his Senate hearings, Mark Zuckerberg made some statements about preventing further election interference (obviously), and then went on talking about implementing new content-filtering policies within Facebook such as "community driven governance", an "appeal process" and even a "supreme court" and some sort of "due process" (Paris Vivatech 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp0BnrHn6cA around 34:40)

Zuckerberg and his peers are not elected individual, they cannot be removed from office, etc. While not disputing his intentions, using tools traditionaly used within democracies doesn't make up for a democratic process. Substituting laws by terms & conditions, courts by a privately-owned justice system, is a slippery slope to say the least.

⬐ JohnBooty

    The distinction between government and private groups is 
    not a clean as you might think. At a large enough scale, 
    private groups can start to take on a role in society that 
    resembles that of a government, should we not then expect 
    them to be held to a standard that resembles that we expect 
    of governments?

Absolutely agree that companies, particularly companies with large market share, can effectively wield state-level powers and that it is something we need to figure out as a country.

In this case we're talking about Google's all-hands discussion about weeding out bad-faith actors. They weren't trying to silence people who simply thought Trump was the better candidate, they were talking about something very close to spam filtering. "Silence Republicans" is something that (even as a liberal) is something I'd be absolutely opposed to; filtering out outright fraudulent news sources (from any part of the political spectrum) is something we should all support.

We've been doing something similar as a country for many years. Notice how tabloids like the National Enquirer aren't typically lumped in with "real" news sources at the newsstand.

⬐ adamrezich

>The distinction between government and private groups is not a clean as you might think. At a large enough scale, private groups can start to take on a role in society that resembles that of a government, should we not then expect them to be held to a standard that resembles that we expect of governments?

I hope this view becomes more mainstream soon. Regardless of outcome, it's something that people need to consciously think about.

⬐ tinkerteller

It is surprising that those people put in charge to run business by stockholders are picking sides in front of employees who they have subordinate powers over them. This is big no no. Imagine being an employee who believes in conservatism and being forced in to group think, suppress your personal political speech and view. There is no difference in boss pitching himself as politically left vs boss pitching Christianity vs boss pitching male superiority over females. Business should never take sides in politics, race, gender or religion to make sure they are fair to all employees. Leaders needs to keep their view in these subject personal just as they keep their religious identity personal. Not doing this allows businesses to essentially hijack democracy by enforcing their political will on employees. Businesses should not be wielding their leverage of paychecks in to bending anybody’s political will and opinions.

⬐ solipsism

Imagine being an employee who believes in conservatism and being forced in to group think

Forced? No one is forced to work for any given company.

Companies are not mindless profit making machines. Not even public ones. They're composed of people. They have values. Some are very homogeneous culturally, some very heterogeneous.

Business should never take sides in politics

You are welcome to your opinion on that point. I don't agree, nor do many other people. As an employee and as a shareholder, I like companies with strong moral character. And that can include political action.

⬐ rdtsc

> Is it really surprising that a multinational company would have a preferred candidate?

Not really. Google lobbies the government more than Verizon, Wall St. banks and defense contractors. We don't usually mind cause they lobby for the things we care about as well.

However we could also see how perhaps Eric Schmidt, ex-CEO and at that time Executive Chairman, walking about at a Hillary Clinton's event with a staff badge might make things a bit too obvious:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxbUJoZWEAAzp04.jpg

But perhaps Google isn't partisan enough? I think it is the superficial "we are not biased and all opinions are welcome" type message clashing with their existing bias, that's bothering people. I think they should be bolder even and say, we are biased, we support these values.

⬐ ocdtrekkie

Corporations seem like they have a comical level of hypocrisy, until you realize that corporations are in it for the money, and will almost always take the most profitable position for them in any given debate.

For instance, you will see strong calls to regulate businesses they have to interact with, while actively fighting against regulation of themselves, even on the same issues.

⬐ rsj_hn

Yes, corporations are in it for the money, and they are hypocrites, etc. I don't think most people have a problem with that (except maybe those who think corporations are moral agents), but what's been happening recently is very concerning:

1. Corporations, always wanting to appeal to younger voters because brand loyalty is sticky, naturally try to position themselves externally as hip/woke/whatever. That means espousing whatever cool urban cause is hot right now, like Nike supporting Kaepernick to whitewash their labor and environmental record while appealing to urban trendsetters, or cosmetic companies parading around 12 year old transgender models to show how leading edge they are. That's not a big deal by itself, as Nike gonna Nike and everyone wants to position themselves as a trend-setting lifestyle brand.

2. Tech companies, in particular, needing to appeal to a tight labor market for young programmers, feel a need to make more internal concessions to the politics that young programmers have, creating a woke monoculture in many places. No, they're not gonna budge on stuff like paying taxes, but they are happy to no-platform someone who is, say, pro-life, or uses the term "illegal immigrant" instead of "undocumented american", or someone who points out the real risks of giving mastectomies to pre-teens or even medical castration of young boys suffering from gender dysphoria. OK, a bit creepy, but the republic will survive (although some of the kids are going to have a hard time).

3. The same companies are now effective monopolies in large online spaces (Facebook, twitter), online marketplaces (Amazon), and online information dissemination (Google).

Uh oh. Combine 1,2,3 and you have a real threat to Free Speech. If you say the wrong thing, you might get booted from huge public marketplaces.

If you only had 1, 2, you could always find some competing brand and there wouldn't be a monoculture.

If you only had 3, then you might expect, say Google, to skew information about H1-B visas or whatever narrow economic interests it cares about, which while bad for the public discourse, isn't an all encompassing, stifling thing.

But the combination of all 3 poses really big problems for creating space for dissenting views and having those views heard. The closest analogy I can think of would the 1950s chill, in which a few large conglomerates were working hand in glove to suppress communist/leftist views. That was the era of Chomsky and Hermann's "Manufacturing Consent", where leftist positions were thrown into the memory hole and only lived in fringe spaces, like random anarchist bookstores and tiny meetups. They were completely shut out of the public dialogue and policy making process. Blacklists circulated of who you shouldn't hire, and there was consensus on what you shouldn't report. It was a bad time, and led to some very, very bad decisions, such as the Vietnam war, war on drugs, and rollback of some important new deal protections. I'm not looking forward to the new circulation of blacklists and the cheering that is happening to the new chill in public discourse.

Now we see a similar monoculture forming that is trying to stifle what are basically traditional conservative cultural views -- views that were basically mandatory in the 50s are forbidden today -- while you still have the right wing views about economic organization in place -- and this is also going to lead to some very bad decisions.

At least no one has won a total victory, and so you see leftist business openly weeping at government election results, not because they are sad about all the tax cuts, extension of IP protections, and further erosion of anti-trust, which they knew they would get, but because it offends the cultural left who they need to cater to as their employees and young urban customers.

But if you look at a scatterplot of where people fall, the biggest group is the cultural conservative/economically liberal group. Although it's trendy to say you are an economic conservative and cultural liberal, fewer people inhabit that space.

So we are in a situation in which the maximum number of people are being excluded from the public discourse. Even if you don't agree with this group, if there is still some shred of shared loyalty for your fellows, you don't want to see the majority of the nation excluded from our new monoculture. It's a great time for tax cuts, but not a good time for free speech and we are gonna make some colossally terrible decisions as a result of this exclusion, together with radicalizing a large section of the population.

⬐ adamrezich

This is a great analysis and I'm mainly replying in order to hopefully spur replies with actual constructive discussion instead of letting this turn into one of those [dead] comments you see that says something "controversial" yet gets zero replies before being buried; it's always a bummer when that happens.

⬐ carapace

I think we're seeing the formation of "Morlocks" and "Eloi". Most people can't conceive of or understand the potential power of FB, Google, etc. to form, in effect, a new mode of government.

Even CA is mostly a "red state" outside of the cities.

Speaking to hypocrisy, I haven't watched the video (yet) but I'm sure the "lower classes" of Google will not be represented in the attendees. The service staff at Google are largely made up of a different proportion of races than the technical staff. Fraternizing is discouraged and, in fact, the service staff can get in trouble for it. It's the kinder, gentler racism of the well-to-do left.

⬐ amanaplanacanal

Can you give us some examples of number 2 happening? Because all I've heard about is those companies removing people who are whipping up their followers to abuse somebody. It is possible that there are examples of them removing people who are merely expressing conservative values, but I haven't seen it yet.

⬐ rsj_hn

Well, say person X thinks we should have fewer H1-B visas. Person Y thinks to themselves "Hey, this is my enemy! He is trying to expel me from the country! He's attacking me! He makes me feel unsafe"

And all of a sudden, you can claim to be firing people for being abusive, when in reality you are firing someone for expressing their policy preferences.

And if we really want to have open debate, we need to discuss these things. Imagine if you are pro raising capital gains taxes, or repealing Prop 13, and someone else depends on that for their livelihood. They will feel personally threatened. Or someone who is pro-life might make someone who is pro-choice feel personally threatened. And I haven't even gotten into foreign policy.

In this modern era where everyone is screaming about being "unsafe" whenever they hear something that they oppose, and everything is personalized, pretty much everything that you feel strongly about is going to sound abusive to you if you are on the other side.

⬐ tcbawo

Technology and information overload are driving everybody to think their viewpoint is the suppressed majority, feeding a victim mentality. We seem to be working towards more of a massively individual polyculture than monoculture. Also, we shouldn't always project everything into right and left, as there are other orthogonal dimensions for framing policy (eg. authoritarian and individualistic). That's a hidden cost of the creeping politicization of everything.

⬐ rsj_hn

I totally agree that this is not a right/left issue per se. There are many competing strains:

traditionalists are skeptical of radical social change, but may also be skeptical of turning everything over the free market

libertarians just want to be left alone and don't want anyone telling them what to do

leftists may be communitarians or anarchists or even neoliberals who want to abolish national borders

And people may have different views on different scales -- e.g. I know a lot of Nimby's who oppose new people they don't like moving into their neighborhood and think they should have a right to keep them out, but at the same time support open borders for the nation as a whole.

And to be honest, I think there is something to recommend each of these views. Nobody is entirely the enemy. What bothers me is attempts to blacklist arguments/speech or to suppress open debate between these competing views. That really bothers me. It's like you can't just disagree with someone, you have to snuff them out, try to get them fired, and expel the enemy entirely from your view. It's a recipe for disaster.

⬐ TangoTrotFox

There's an interesting thought experiment. Break America in half by general partisan divide - allow for free migration based on political ideology alone. How long would it take before these now wholly 'unified' halves then turn to bitter and polar divisiveness? What would be the new divisive topics?

There's probably roughly a 0% chance of success, but Calexit would be a phenomenal social experiment and perhaps something people could learn an immense amount from. On the other hand, there's already an immense amount of information and history people could learn from today. But anything that's inconvenient to 'the' ideology is irrelevant, of course.

⬐ rsj_hn

I don't think it would take long at all, sadly.

⬐ None

None

⬐ rsj_hn

No, it's not surprising at all. Every company has a preferred candidate in pretty much every election, at least the CEO and top leadership certainly does.

What is surprising is turning an all hands into a kind of mass grieving funeration for all of their 90K employees, replete with publicly weeping executives and the entire executive leadership being vocally outraged. Turning an all hands into a political event like this is both unprofessional and, frankly, creepy.

⬐ skybrian

To add some context: remember that Google has employees who felt personally threatened by election results (immigrants and transgender employees). Nobody knew what Trump would do.

The worst fears turned out to be overblown, but it was hard to make the case for not worrying at the time. Telling people they had nothing to worry about would have simply been offensive.

There are few election results that employees would consider to be threatening like that. It was very much a special case.

⬐ ctlby

It was trivial to make the case, and that people didn’t see this represents a massive epistomological failure. Perhaps it would have been offensive, but adults should not be indulged when they engage in hysteria.

⬐ skybrian

Eh. Maybe you could have used platitudes like "America has survived worse" and "most people in government will follow the law, even if he doesn't." But those aren't particularly comforting.

⬐ rsj_hn

I was around when Bush won re-election. After he lied us into war. I couldn't believe it. I was absolutely stunned, depressed, and horrified that something like that could happen.

Yet not once did I expect my employer to "comfort" me. I mean, my God, that's not the job of an employer. Friends comfort you. Your employer is not your friend.

⬐ rphlx

Google appears to have a long history of infantilizing its workforce, partly - one hopes - as a sort of group-bonding in-joke, and partly - one suspects - as a darker psychological management strategy with objectives that are not always unambiguously in the infant's best interest.

⬐ monochromatic

> Telling people they had nothing to worry about would have simply been offensive.

The truth is offensive to some people. Trump Derangement Syndrome was in full effect.

⬐ akhilcacharya

Considering he continues to have a severely underwater approval rating I’d wager it’s less derangement and more the majority view.

If anything the “it’s all normal, everything is fine” folks whose reactions are more interesting here. It’s certainly not the consensus view.

⬐ swebs

His approval rating has been hovering around 45-50%.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trum...

⬐ akhilcacharya

That is the sole pollster that indicates this. The rest indicate low 40's to mid-high 30's. This is despite a growing economy.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/

⬐ monochromatic

And we still trust polls in a post-2016 world?

⬐ akhilcacharya

....yes

⬐ monochromatic

No concerns about the “shy trump voter” phenomenon this time around?

⬐ akhilcacharya

Nobody believed that then either because it’s a myth.

⬐ monochromatic

How do you explain the election results then?

⬐ monochromatic

I haven’t exactly seen trans folks being rounded up and out into camps. The people who said everything was going to be all right were correct. TDS remains in effect for others.

⬐ akhilcacharya

“Not committing genocide” is a very low bar for a presidency in the worlds sole superpower and I’m concerned that anyone would hold this or any administration to such a low standard.

⬐ monochromatic

It’s what people were getting their panties in a wad over.

⬐ aikinai

Seems everyone's down-voting you, but considering the huge number of immigrants and international employees at Google, it'd be crazy to expect a Trump win to be treated neutrally when the foundation of his platform was antagonism of immigrants and other countries.

And it wasn't completely overblown, there were many Googlers trapped inside or outside the US immediately after Trump took power; one, for example, had no way for her parents to meet her newborn baby as they were all banned from travel. [0]

[0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/one-google-employee-on-trump-or...

⬐ pen2l

I work in a research hospital, I went through a lot of similar meetings, and a lot of emails talking about where to get help if you're feeling down.

I remember thinking hey this is a bit over-blown... but then I talked to this Iranian guy on my floor: he was extremely shocked and depressed. He had a situation on his hands -- he wanted his wife to come to America, but was afraid that wouldn't be possible and he was entertaining the idea of just quitting and returning to Iran.

Surely at Google, where a lot of immigrants work, they went through similar experiences.

So I totally am okay with what I see in the video -- I think it was the right move by GOOG executives to take that position, if only for the employees.

⬐ ryanobjc

Also, many people think that openly accepting immigrants is what makes both google and America great. It was pretty clear that trump was very anti immigrant. And that’s a direct attack on the success of google.

And the first thing he did policy wise literally confirmed everyone’s worst fears.

⬐ Domenic_S

What happened with your friend's wife? Did she come over?

⬐ theossuary

Considering Trump is still in power, and the travel ban is still in effect, I'd say that's a no.

Americans have a short memory.

⬐ Domenic_S

The ban has exceptions for, for ex. students; there are still ways.

⬐ rsj_hn

There are people personally threatened in every presidential election, and most of those fears are overblown pretty much all the time. Lots of extremist views in this country and lots of people feeling threatened about pretty much everything.

Should google have held the same weeping festival in case Hillary won, and someone was personally threatened that she would start a new war in Syria or lead to war in Russia? Which could lead to a nuclear war? Of course not. That would be as ridiculous as what happened now. You don't cater to those kinds of views in the workplace.

The correct response is not to hold a company meeting about how threatened anyone feels in an election, but to talk about the new products being rolled out and what you expect from your employees in their business life. And there are lots of blogs and opportunities for Google employees to express their political views outside the company. No public weeping of executives is required.

⬐ skybrian

Oh come on, you're doing a terrible job of understanding how your political opponents think.

⬐ dang

Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN, and certainly not uncivil ones.

⬐ betterunix2

Google employees are highly educated (disproportionate numbers of PhDs work there etc.), and highly educated people in America, on both the left and right, were mourning when Trump was elected. You do not have to be left leaning to think a President who does not read books, who admires dictators, who is surrounded by criminals, and whose campaign rhetoric involved the overt demonization of ethnic and religious minorities (and plenty of dog whistles too), might be a bad thing for this country. I would have voted Republican if the Democrat candidate had encouraged division in this country the way Trump did. I have intelligent Republican friends who voted for Hillary for the same reason; even my Christian Conservative father in law, who said Bush was not conservative enough, could not bring himself to vote for Trump (he only voted for congressional candidates in 2016). People across the political spectrum recognized the danger Trump poses from the moment he started talking about Mexican rapists.

One problem with the "debate" on Trump is the effort by some to make this into just another political disagreement and to normalize Trump. It is not just politics and the all-hands meeting was not a "political event." People have every reason to be scared by what has been happening since Trump took office.

⬐ akhilcacharya

Imho it’s creepier to have a president-elect threaten to ban your employees from entering the country or threatens to lock up his opponent ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This bizarre external obsession with the internal cultures of basically just 2 tech companies is really weirding me out too. Reminds me of the campus reform folks handwringing about Ivy League admissions...perhaps there’s a pattern.

⬐ wyclif

“We all need a hug,” she then instructs the audience of Google employees to hug the person closest to them.

⬐ singularity2001

How ironic that youtube might have contributed to the radicalization of the world (see recent discussion). They realized too late or valued their revenues higher than values.

Or they adopted the value of a neutral stance, which is good. At least in theory; in practice there hardly is any true neutral.

⬐ DyslexicAtheist

it has become very difficult to not talk about politics & policy when having a tech discussion at work (and even on LinkedIn) today. The previous stance, that "tech should be neutral" has been, and remains a cowardly position to take by management.

Personally not a fan of google's ideology but I really appreciate their openly addressing the politics-elephant in the room.

⬐ oriol16

Talking politics at work is only ok if it's left wing. Mocking Trump and his voters, calling people racist and morons, that gets you an applause. Showing understanding for the opposite site gets you in trouble. That's chapter one of "surviving in the workplace in 2018".

⬐ davedx

The opposite side, with its “very fine people”?

⬐ None

None

⬐ oriol16

50 million voters in US only with above average income/education. The fact they voted for Trump doesn't mean they would share all his faults, and it doesn't even mean that you can describe them before you can critizice them, call them offenders, and a long list of "very fine things".

⬐ on_and_off

I have not watched the whole video but I don't see how that's surprising, offensive or problematic.

⬐ justaaron

I should bloody well hope that anyone with a brain has a bias against astro-turf fake-populist wanna-be dictators.

We owe no consideration to deliberately-destructive trolls seeking to undermine all notions of civility and social progress merely to feed Rupert Murdochs empire of faeces further banquet tables full of roasted dead orphans.

Breitbart, OTOH, is precisely a harmful entity seeking to undermine all that is decent and good.

⬐ titzer

Is this really the top rated comment? sigh, I think we can do better.

> We owe no consideration to deliberately-destructive trolls...

Oh man, here we go. Look, there are trolls and there are populists and fascists and neo-Nazis and anarchists and racists and scumbags and dickheads and all of those NAMES out there. Yeah! Fuck those NAMES! BURN!

..it fixes nothing to piss further into the pool. And then to turn around and call it fixed, or not fixable. How does that fix anything to be nasty right back and then convince yourself you can ignore them? That by ignoring them you are ignoring all this nastiness? Don't you think your nastiness validates their nastiness, even if you think anti-nastiness nastiness will make things better? That's a trap. We're all devalued when we inject even more bad karma into this crap ball.

We need to define ourselves by what we want the culture to be, not by the people who think are our political enemies.

So, how about instead: we actually define what is acceptable in our culture and where the line is. And then when people step over the line, we don't demonize them as bad people who seek to wreck all that is holy and good, we point out how they violated the acceptable cultural norms in a non-aggressive, non-offensive way. And then we consistently return to actions and words and not assumptions of motives and further othering of people. That way, instead of the dialog being about people's feelings and motivations, it's about how they violated the norms by actually doing something that is in direct violation of our acceptable norms, e.g. personal insults.

> Breitbart, OTOH, is precisely a harmful entity seeking to undermine all that is decent and good.

See. You are getting precisely nowhere with this, unless you consider polarization to be somewhere. I mean, seriously. What the heck do you expect? This is no dialog. They're just all bad people who hate, hate, hate. So you hate them back. Cycle.

⬐ sehugg

Breitbart openly advocates for the destruction of the press, which they call the "Democrat-media complex". Hard to deal in good faith under those circumstances.

⬐ tropo

CNN actually achieved the destruction of the press, getting an opposing (right wing) media source banned from multiple platforms.

⬐ liftbigweights

Which is their right as press.

Also, you are forgetting it's a two way street. The other side is calling for the destruction of the press as well.

The only difference is that CNN and NYTimes have the power to destroy other press. Smaller companies like Breitbart and Infowars cannot.

How about we protect free speech and free press?

> Hard to deal in good faith under those circumstances.

Exactly. It's why nobody trusts media anymore. It's a real concern for society. And nobody in media appears to want to address it. Rather they are doubling down and making the situation even worse.

⬐ lanestp

Civility? Yes, this comment reeks of that. I’m interested in what good you think you are doing with this kind of vitriol? Do you think it furthers your side of the argument? I can assure you that it does not.

“Deliberately destructive trolls” is interesting phrasing when held up against “roasted dead orphans.” If we owe no consideration to the former, you prove yourself such with the latter.

⬐ liftbigweights

Do you realize you sound exactly like the people you are attacking. After you've calmed down, try reading your comment. It's just amazing seeing people ruled by emotion rather than rationality.

Also, why are so many foreigners so obsessed over US politics. I swear every top political comment on every social media platform seems to be from a brit or a canadian.

Everything is going to be okay. Trump is going to be gone in 2 or 6 years at most. You'll have another president to be angry about. Trump isn't the end of the world.

I thought people couldn't get any crazier after obama's election and the birther/tea party movement. Boy was I proved wrong.

⬐ oriol16

Oh wow. It turns out liberals aren't so polite and respectful as they claim to be.

⬐ mikejb

You have to be a liberal to dislike Trump? What the fuck is up with all this "you have to be in one of two buckets" mentality?

⬐ oriol16

I inferred he self-describes as liberal based on the vulgar language.

⬐ tkmo

Of course intense seething long term anger of this sort is usually indicative of cognitive dissonance (as liberals easily notice within groups like religious fundamentalists.) Apparently turning the mirror of objectivity on themselves is highly difficult though.

⬐ justaaron

But no, Google news is not ignoring or de-prioritizing their filth-cum-journalism.

I am obviously not their target reader, and yet my news.google.com feed contains plenty of Fox propaganda.

Google obviously has no qualms about a "moron tax"

sheesh, look at Youtube. it's full of alt-right tripe.

⬐ tkmo

Of course this thread is guaranteed to be an absolute shit show, but it's revealing the level of intense emotiveness shown by your post and the one before it, and most of all by the Google execs.

Were this directed at a tiny ideological fraction of the population it could be OK, but we are talking about give or take half of the voters of the USA, UK, Poland, Hungary, Austria, etc., etc.

And when Google has such a near monopoly on massive swathes of the web that is quite concerning.

⬐ threeseed

Not sure where you’re getting the numbers to back up your 50% claim. At most it is around 15% in UK, 30% in the US and somewhat higher in the Eastern European countries.

Alt right conservatism is not a mainstream ideology anywhere in the world. Nor will it ever the way things are going.

⬐ tkmo

In proper terms, perhaps, but things like Trump, Brexit, and strongly anti-immigrant, populist conservative, leaders like Salvini, Orban, etc., in Europe, are all generally placed in the same camp by the media.

Ultimately we are discussing the visible rage and despisement towards the winnning side of a national US election vote. That is incredibly concerning coming from a company as powerful as Google, and we know the same sentiment is shared across Hollywood and the mass media.

⬐ threeseed

The concern around Trump extends to close to 70% of the electorate according to recent polling. It isn’t isolated.

And given Trump’s anti-immigrant stance Google executives being immigrants themselves would have every right to voice their concern.

⬐ tkmo

Trump's stance is anti illegal immigrant which should not affect any Google execs.

Re: approval ratings, its a moot point. Trump has enjoyed generally similar approval ratings to Obama (at most single digit percentage points lower) and ultimately won a free and fair election in a first world Republic.

Having the leaders of a global monopoly megacorporation display this kind of disdain for the elected leader of the country and everyone who supports him, and (by implication) similar populist leaders across Europe (and their supporters), is extremely, deeply, disconcerting.

⬐ hef19898

Electorate college? Gerrymandering?

And I hope you are not seriously stating that a company cannot have political views opposed to the government? It's either a democratic election (to have a legitimate government) which implies different opinions regardless of majorites or not (so that nobody can oppose the government). You cannot have it both ways.

⬐ nailer

Google's executives are quite obviously not illegal immigrants. Pretending they're affected by tighter border controls is disingenuous.

⬐ nailer

'Alt right' is a vague term, and has been since Richard Spencer claimed it and regular conservative folk stopped using it.

Strong border controls are quite obviously supported by far more than 15% of the UK population (and I say that as an immigrant to the UK) - look at the Brexit vote.

⬐ hef19898

Just two things. First, any hatred directed any group regardless of size is simply not acceptable in a free, modern society as it would undermine democratic principles.

Second, in a free and modern society it is ok to have diametrical oppossed views to any other Group. Which is an integral part of Democracy.

Funny enough, there are always people, mostly with pretty radical views, that are severly infuriated by contrarian views. The other way round it is just fine.

⬐ maxehmookau

Brietbart is not journalism. It is a far-right propaganda outfit and its "work" has no place on a civilised forum such as HN.

⬐ nailer

Exactly how is this video 'far right propaganda'? The people talking are all Google executives. It's an hour long, there's no cuts or edits.

⬐ maxehmookau

This video is not. Linking to breitbart supports them financially. We should not do that.

I noticed that people have posted links to the video that Breitbart won't financially gain from.

⬐ TheAceOfHearts

IMO, the link should be updated to point to the original source. The Verge article adds no value to the discussion:

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

⬐ jsoc815

Don't think it's allowed. I just tried to post it only to learn that someone else also tried; post is dead.

Not surprised, but think it's a little weird because the leaking of the video seems like a point for discussion of something happening in the company, SV, etc., maybe?

Maybe Dang (or someone other minder) will be kind enough to explain.

⬐ itbeho

It’s worthy of a discussion in my mind. There are a few articles in the news this week about Google trying to influence the election in Clinton’s favor. And yet she still lost. Perhaps Google isn’t as influential as they think?

That being said, Google executives are not elected representatives of the American people and they subvert the voter’s will at the risk of regulation that will likely be worse for them and their customers.

⬐ dragonwriter

> That being said, Google executives are not elected representatives of the American people and they subvert the voter’s will at the risk of regulation that will likely be worse for them and their customers.

Google executives and Google as such have the Constitutionally protected right to attempt to influence elections by lawful means, and regulatory retaliation for such activism is exactly what the First Amendment exists to protect against.

(It's kind of ironic that the people arguing that Google should be regulated for advocating against the current administration and the Party behind it often think that the rules preventing churches from retaining their tax-code subsidy while actively campaigning for candidates should be abolished, as they assume those would be likely, on balance, to advocate for that party.)

⬐ dang

That site has been banned on HN for years. We're happy to make exceptions for specific cases where there's a substantive post, though, like this one.

⬐ savethefuture

Good exception. Off-topic: Is there a list of banned websites and is it public?

⬐ dang

Yes. Well, a hashtable.

It's not public, but it wouldn't be hard to approximate from public data.

⬐ shmulkey18

> It's not public

Why not?

⬐ None

None

⬐ jsoc815

Ah, thanks for explaining.

⬐ ihatethem

I don't see how private citizens discussing their political views is "substantive", there is nothing remotely controversial in that footage, this is just fodder for partisans.

⬐ dang

You've repeatedly created accounts with a propaganda agenda for Google. You've been doing it for years. We've banned you before, and I've banned this account. Doing this is abusive regardless of what company you're promoting or what your motive is.

Would you please stop? HN is for curious humans to exchange thoughts in community. Few things undermine curiosity or community more. We frequently ask users not to accuse each other of astroturfing or shilling without evidence, but when we do find evidence—and there's a lot of it in this case—we go from tolerant to severe pretty quickly.

(All: this is not about the thread topic, politics, or Google in general—only a malignant kind of forum abuse. I hesitate to post it in an already-controversial thread, but the data are so clear that I decided not to wait.)

⬐ ihatethem

I don't know what you're talking about.

⬐ zawerf

Off-topic:

You're implying that you have an admin UI that lets you see all our other logins? (matched on IP or cookies I guess?) Or did you do a one-off query just for that guy?

Since YC applications are attached to HN accounts, do you guys check comments made on alt accounts too?

Tracking is useful for moderating but I want to confirm that I can treat my throwaways as throwaways.

⬐ nkurz

I don't know what dang's answer will be, but why would you assume that you are allowed or encouraged to treat your "throwaways as throwaways"?

The written FAQ doesn't exactly encourage them: "Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create them routinely. On HN, users should have an identity that others can relate to. "

Separate from dang's moderator tools, you might also note that there are strong claims that textual analysis can reliably associate related accounts even without inside information: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17944348

⬐ zawerf

The no-throwaway rule is probably to prevent people from making a new account for every comment.

I am not at that level of paranoia yet, but I do rotate my accounts once a year to avoid accumulating too much information under one username. This is usually enough to prevent stylometric analysis. So I just need to worry about people with access to HN database/logs/moderation tools, assuming HN itself never gets compromised.

I guess I just want some reassurance that the tracking is being done responsibly and is considered privileged information only used as needed to keep the site working (moderating is pretty fair) and nothing else. Bonus points if the session logs aren't kept forever (something something GDPR compliance?).

⬐ None

None

⬐ lanestp

I have to ask, why a site like Breitbart which has broken a lot of substantive stories would be banned? I’ve seen less credible left leaning sites on HN. I’m hoping there is a really good reason because right now I am concerned.

⬐ None

None

⬐ sdenton4

Well, let's see what Wikipedia has to say about Breitbart's history...

'Breitbart News Network (known commonly as Breitbart News, Breitbart or Breitbart.com) is a far-right[6] syndicated American news, opinion and commentary[7][8] website founded in mid-2007 by conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart, who conceived it as "the Huffington Post of the right."[4][9][10] Its journalists are widely considered to be ideologically driven, and some of its content has been called misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist by liberals and many traditional conservatives alike.[11] The site has published a number of falsehoods, conspiracy theories,[12][13][14][15][16] and intentionally misleading stories.[17][18]

'Breitbart News aligned with the alt-right under the management of former executive chairman Steve Bannon,[19] who declared the website "the platform for the alt-right" in 2016.[20] In 2016, Breitbart News became a virtual rallying spot for supporters of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.[11] The company's management, together with former staff member Milo Yiannopoulos, solicited ideas for stories from, and worked to advance and market ideas of, neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups and individuals.[21][22] After the election, more than 2,000 organizations removed Breitbart News from ad buys following Internet activism campaigns denouncing the site's controversial positions.[23][24][25][26]'

So... pretty low credibility. They break substantive stories when they're useful to their agenda, but also break false stories when they're useful to their agenda. I'm curious what you consider to be a 'less credible left leaning site'?

⬐ dang

Because most submissions have been off-topic or otherwise against the site guidelines. Same reason why we'd ban any site.

⬐ jidjjejdjd

Utterly bullshit.

HN is part of the liberal groupthink.

Fuck your lies you loser.

⬐ Domenic_S

Fair, I just posted the link I originally saw. And I can't update myself. Mods, feel free..

⬐ dang

OK, we changed to that from https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/12/17852502/breitbart-google....

⬐ codeonfire

Google has definitely jumped the shark with their political leanings. They have been sued for implementing hiring quotas and discriminating on race, sex, and age. You can read the complaint here https://www.scribd.com/embeds/372792998/content While Sergey seems to care about immigrants like himself, lgbtq, and women, he does not give a flying fuck about age discrimination, which is a legally protected class in America. Ultimately nothing lasts forever, and unfortunately there is some truth in right wing characterizations of Google. People stuck in the middle of the political spectrum, everyday non-racist people who are not part of any particular "group", have no party or supporters on either side.

⬐ jayd16

Your argument only makes sense if you think immigrants, lgbtq and women are not every day people.

⬐ codeonfire

Once you accept and identify as a label then you are no longer part of the middle. That is one of the main arguments against race quotas and affirmative action. It taints the whole idea of equality and neutrality.

⬐ codeonfire

Downvote for truth if you want. Got Karma to burn. Execs that say they want "diversity" want H1B slots for visa slaves. It was brought up in the linked video. 52:40 what they are really worried about. They don't care about equality. People want to flee BRIC nations and google wants cheap labor that can't quit their jobs.

⬐ jayd16

Identifying as a woman means you are not in the middle?

⬐ codeonfire

A woman that joins a company in mountain view that only hires women is the same as a man that joins a company in Manhattan that only hires men. Can't really say you are neutral after that.

⬐ in3d

My biggest takeaway is that Sergey Brin needs to stick to technology. The “boredom” explanation for Trump’s victory might be the stupidest one yet.

⬐ mrschwabe

For additional context, also note Eric Schmidt's consultant role which was revealed in HRC's leaked emails:

https://qz.com/823922/eric-schmidt-played-a-crucial-role-in-...

https://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-emails-google-eric...

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/37262

⬐ magicalist

Wow, he advised them to make a smartphone app and to use the cloud instead of spinning up their own servers. What a scoop.

⬐ mciak

When Schmidt was ousted, people speculated that it was in part due to his links to the candidate who lost

⬐ mikeyouse

There was essentially no new news in the hacked emails -- People had been reporting for years that Schmidt was supporting HRC's presidential bid, including forming a startup to help her with engineering talent:

https://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-workin...

⬐ akhilcacharya

He’s been a notable Democratic donor for a while - he even invited Obama to a talk at Google and asked him about how to sort a billion integers.

⬐ lamarpye

I have meet people that believe Obama knew how to do it.

⬐ mrschwabe

Well it is a confirmation a paid arrangement was in place, which is actually big deal.

Anyone paid to consult or render services for that campaign should be under intense scrutiny.

⬐ mikeyouse

They are.. which is why they have dozens of entries in the FEC's disbursement database since June 2015:

https://www.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?two_year_transaction...

⬐ notaboutdave

> People didn't vote for our person! Change the algorithms!

This is so corrupt and manipulative it makes me sad.

⬐ akhilcacharya

I’m fascinated by the parallels between the fascination with this leaked all hands and the external interest in the interns cultures of elite universities and the like - is the implication that Googleplex and Harvard Yard share a similar space in our culture now?

⬐ iamjk

The video won't load on Chrome for me, but it works on Safari. Is this Google's doing?

⬐ rsj_hn

I went on Breitbart's site and it loads fine in chrome. Also, Google returns it as a top search result. So, credit where credit is due.

⬐ liftbigweights

I see an hour old post on the frontpage with 6 votes. This story has more votes in less time and is not on the frontpage. I think this is a far more important news story than "The Known Known".

Edit) So this tech related story is off-topic but the "known known" an explicitly political and off-topic post is not.

⬐ jarsin

I submitted this way earlier today and got some message from the site I had never seen before that it was already submitted but it did not show it to me like it usually does, and it was nowhere to be found.

I think this guy got it through because he did not use the original Breitbart link.

My recent fox story about google got the silent ban as well.

⬐ ocdtrekkie

You can turn your "show dead" setting in your profile to "yes" to see these. Some domains are automatically marked dead on submission, usually sites with a strong bias or who rarely break their own news. As dang noted elsewhere in this thread, this story is notable and worth sharing, so it's a worthy exception.

Users with enough karma can vouch for dead stories as well and make them visible, but since the dead pile is super spammy, most users don't bother to look in there.

⬐ dragonwriter

> This story has more votes in less time and is not on the frontpage

And probably more flags.

> I think this is a far more important news story than "The Known Known".

It's also a very likely to be seen as an off-topic political story.

⬐ woodruffw

For those interested in watching the video without feeding into Brietbart's ad/engagement numbers, I've mirrored it here: https://yossarian.net/google.mp4

⬐ woodruffw

As a notice (since the original post is too old to edit): I'm going to take that URL offline within the next 12 hours. Hopefully by then it'll be mirrored in enough other places.

⬐ mirror_mirror

I'm not positive I've done this correctly, but I tried uploading it to IPFS. If someone could let me know if that works, I'd appreciate it.

QmX5wjpMyWrtwHQnJ6L8BMAnUGgxwJqnoLbTCJbmWD1gqG - 720p

QmNPNYTMD95vc6PZtH5QFgLTj22cNkWm6TTCi7YGKY3kD3 - 270p

⬐ curtis3389

I've never tried to download something this big via IPFS, but navigating to https://ipfs.io/ipfs/<hash> seems to just hang

⬐ mirror_mirror

Sorry. It looks like I made a mistake while publishing initially. It should be working now. I was able to at least verify the lowres version.

https://ipfs.tube/#QmNPNYTMD95vc6PZtH5QFgLTj22cNkWm6TTCi7YGK...

I may have to do some finagling, since I'm new to IPFS, and never have dealt with files this large on IPFS either.

Edit:

Looks like the highres version also should be working

https://ipfs.tube/#QmX5wjpMyWrtwHQnJ6L8BMAnUGgxwJqnoLbTCJbmW...

⬐ mirror_mirror

And in case my attempts were bungled, it's on a couple distributed YouTube alternatives as well, editorializing aside:

https://d.tube/#!/v/ironshield/40gf6ocf

https://www.bitchute.com/video/W2AYKFBRVQsE/

⬐ rphlx

Be wary of the legal implications. At minimum GOOG can probably claim copyright and do a DMCA takedown.

⬐ caffeinewriter

Here's an alternate mirror as well.

[link removed]

Edit: I'm removing my own copy, since I just realized I didn't set up a contact for that site, and I'd rather play it safe than sorry. Others have mirrored it, and one's on YouTube at present:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5gPdrlyc84

⬐ 0x8BADF00D

Why hasn’t anyone hosted it on YouTube yet? Serious question.

⬐ None

None

⬐ woodruffw

In my case, it was just easier to upload it to my own server.

⬐ xianb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5gPdrlyc84

people have, but who knows how long it'll last

⬐ 0x8BADF00D

Thanks for the link. YouTube has a better mobile UX for me.

⬐ toomuchtodo

"Removed by user"

⬐ None

None