“oopsie I accidentally wrote the hit piece of the year about my competitor and it turned out to be a lie! Tee hee silly me what even is journalistic integrity?”
This article was a smoking gun. Google is scummy but this was shocking. And it was a fucking lie? I actually hope Google goes after wired. That’s not justice against Google that’s malpractice.
I’ll never understand corporate apologists that live to defend the billion dollar companies ruining the Internet. Google is an ad company, but you can’t believe they’d alter search queries to sell ads? How could you possibly trust Google after they’ve been caught illegally sniffing people’s Wi-Fi with their Google Maps vehicles, spying on kids in school with Chromebooks and destroying incriminating documents in a federal court case to hide their actions?
Just because they’ve done some things wrong doesn’t mean they have done everything that’s wrong. I would rather base my criticism on companies (or people or ideas) on true facts.
That means sometimes there’s an uncomfortable situation where an otherwise evil organization isn’t always evil in every situation, and that is ok.
Isn’t greed inherently evil? Google takes it to a new level as they aren’t only a greedy corporation, but a military contractor embedded into the military industrial complex. So, when the US gets involved in a conflict Google profits and they control the flow of information through their search and video platform monopolies. They remove content critical of US military intervention, not to protect national security, but their profits from the defense sector.
In order to make a claim like that you need two different evidences: one showing that they did remove content critical of the US and one showing that they removed it because they intended to use the removal to make more money
This is the first you’ve heard about Google/Youtube censoring people or altering search queries? It must have been a decade ago when they removed Kodi from autocomplete because “it was used by pirates.” Even when I disagree with the people they remove, which is most of the time, I am still uncomfortable with a for profit corporation like Alphabet Inc having that much power to decide what people can and cannot see in addition to manipulating search results.
Nearly every content creator I follow talks about not being about to talk about certain issues for fear of being canceled. That’s censorship, maybe not Chinese style putting you in jail, but it’s still corporate censorship. Google has plenty of defense contracts, as well as contracts with other government agencies. Their previous CEO now leads the Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) and they work with the defense department on AI and robotics.
A company as untrustworthy and clandestine as Google will make it difficult to connect some dots, but corporation are legally structured to always act in accordance with shareholder interest and Google legally has the right to remove whatever content it wants as a private company. Of course they remove, alter or censor results and content in order to increase profits, their CEO is legally required to act in this way to fulfill the mandate of their position.
I’ve certainly seen and heard of Google modifying results or puting punishments on users because they broach topics that violate their terms of service.
I will absolutely agree that the rules of their ToS are heavily determined by the desires of advertisers and written laws.
But just because they may restrict the content based off of advertiser’s wishes or because they are legally required to do so doesn’t mean that Google is in bed with the government and willing to do anything to prop up the government’s power so they can keep making money from them.
That’s a really big and important jump you can’t just hand wave away just because a company as large as Google works with the government on some things. That’s just conspiracy theory and detracts from the very real, evidence based criticisms we can and should be focusing on.
Would Google lie to their advertisers? Not in a way that Legal would consider lies, that’s their bread and butter they’re fucking with. They’re already in hot water because some websites figured out ways to get ad revenue marked as “100% seen by a human” playing in popunders and hidden players, which is probably why Google wants to expand their remote attestation bullshit.
Google altering search queries is well known and documented, even for advertisers. The big claim was that Google was doing it to defraud their customers (not their users).
Google’s WiFi sniffing wasn’t illegal as far as I know, at least according to the American FCC. I’m not sure what the deal is with Chromebooks (I think they’re about as intrusive as their Microsoft competition?) but you’re right about their destroying evidence being terrible. I’m sure they’ll get fined to hell and back once this commission is done.
However, sensationalist lies will only work in Google’s favour, as it can use the slander of publications like these to demonstrate the heavy impact of the antitrust case which could in turn lower their actual fines.
“oopsie I accidentally wrote the hit piece of the year about my competitor and it turned out to be a lie! Tee hee silly me what even is journalistic integrity?”
This article was a smoking gun. Google is scummy but this was shocking. And it was a fucking lie? I actually hope Google goes after wired. That’s not justice against Google that’s malpractice.
I’ll never understand corporate apologists that live to defend the billion dollar companies ruining the Internet. Google is an ad company, but you can’t believe they’d alter search queries to sell ads? How could you possibly trust Google after they’ve been caught illegally sniffing people’s Wi-Fi with their Google Maps vehicles, spying on kids in school with Chromebooks and destroying incriminating documents in a federal court case to hide their actions?
Just because they’ve done some things wrong doesn’t mean they have done everything that’s wrong. I would rather base my criticism on companies (or people or ideas) on true facts.
That means sometimes there’s an uncomfortable situation where an otherwise evil organization isn’t always evil in every situation, and that is ok.
Isn’t greed inherently evil? Google takes it to a new level as they aren’t only a greedy corporation, but a military contractor embedded into the military industrial complex. So, when the US gets involved in a conflict Google profits and they control the flow of information through their search and video platform monopolies. They remove content critical of US military intervention, not to protect national security, but their profits from the defense sector.
In order to make a claim like that you need two different evidences: one showing that they did remove content critical of the US and one showing that they removed it because they intended to use the removal to make more money
This is the first you’ve heard about Google/Youtube censoring people or altering search queries? It must have been a decade ago when they removed Kodi from autocomplete because “it was used by pirates.” Even when I disagree with the people they remove, which is most of the time, I am still uncomfortable with a for profit corporation like Alphabet Inc having that much power to decide what people can and cannot see in addition to manipulating search results.
Nearly every content creator I follow talks about not being about to talk about certain issues for fear of being canceled. That’s censorship, maybe not Chinese style putting you in jail, but it’s still corporate censorship. Google has plenty of defense contracts, as well as contracts with other government agencies. Their previous CEO now leads the Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) and they work with the defense department on AI and robotics.
A company as untrustworthy and clandestine as Google will make it difficult to connect some dots, but corporation are legally structured to always act in accordance with shareholder interest and Google legally has the right to remove whatever content it wants as a private company. Of course they remove, alter or censor results and content in order to increase profits, their CEO is legally required to act in this way to fulfill the mandate of their position.
I’ve certainly seen and heard of Google modifying results or puting punishments on users because they broach topics that violate their terms of service.
I will absolutely agree that the rules of their ToS are heavily determined by the desires of advertisers and written laws.
But just because they may restrict the content based off of advertiser’s wishes or because they are legally required to do so doesn’t mean that Google is in bed with the government and willing to do anything to prop up the government’s power so they can keep making money from them.
That’s a really big and important jump you can’t just hand wave away just because a company as large as Google works with the government on some things. That’s just conspiracy theory and detracts from the very real, evidence based criticisms we can and should be focusing on.
Would Google lie to their advertisers? Not in a way that Legal would consider lies, that’s their bread and butter they’re fucking with. They’re already in hot water because some websites figured out ways to get ad revenue marked as “100% seen by a human” playing in popunders and hidden players, which is probably why Google wants to expand their remote attestation bullshit.
Google altering search queries is well known and documented, even for advertisers. The big claim was that Google was doing it to defraud their customers (not their users).
Google’s WiFi sniffing wasn’t illegal as far as I know, at least according to the American FCC. I’m not sure what the deal is with Chromebooks (I think they’re about as intrusive as their Microsoft competition?) but you’re right about their destroying evidence being terrible. I’m sure they’ll get fined to hell and back once this commission is done.
However, sensationalist lies will only work in Google’s favour, as it can use the slander of publications like these to demonstrate the heavy impact of the antitrust case which could in turn lower their actual fines.