Google CEO Will Testify Before US House on Bias Accusations (reuters.com) 147
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee in November, following the midterm elections. He met with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other senior Republicans Friday to discuss accusations that Google is biased against conservatives (a charge the company has denied). From a report: "I think we've really shown that there is bias, which is human nature, but you have to have transparency and fairness," McCarthy said. "As big tech's business grows, we have not had enough transparency and that has led to an erosion of trust and, perhaps worse, harm to consumers." Alphabet's Google unit has repeatedly denied accusations of bias against conservatives. Pichai left the meeting without comment. Pichai wrote in an internal email last week that suggestions that Google would interfere in search results for political reasons were "absolutely false. We do not bias our products to favor any political agenda." [...] Asked if Republicans will push to break up Google, McCarthy said: "I don"t see that." He said the hearing will look at privacy, bias issues, China and other matters.
Why does google have to be bias free? (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe start with traditional media companies? Fox, CNN, etc?
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There is no such thing as "no political bias". Every stance and non-stance influences or reflects political issues. For example, having a 100% non-censorship position, such as allowing admitted Nazi's, pedophiles, terrorists, and Stalinists to say whatever they want, is a libertarian position, and thus a political decision. (There are different types and degrees of libertarianism, I should point out.)
"Politics" is just organized behavioral and social norms & rules. I suppose you could say you are agains
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Being "centrist" is what's commonly considered "non-biased" or "non-partisan". However, centrism is also a political position. (We need more of them; too bad they get no attention because they can't create drama. When was the last time you've seen a mob of "angry centrists"?)
We have shitloads of them in government. We call them "Democrats". There's only a handful of leftists among them.
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There's loads of pretty left in Democrats. Identity politics is a very left wing ideology, and it's pretty much endemic in the Democrats. Actually, I consider it their albatross, without that around their necks, and actually having a good hard look at things outside of that lens, I'd be more in agreement with you.
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It does seem there are more moderate Democrats than moderate Republicans in DC. GOP is better at gerrymandering, for one. (Or at least more willing to push it to embarrassing limits.)
Remember, ACA was mostly invented by a conservative think-tank. Republicans only "hated" it when a Democrat implemented it nation-wide. Anthropomorphic climate change is also a mostly centrist position. That 90%+ of climatologists would lie is a silly mass conspiratorial claim.
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Trollbot set to 11. Cool!
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You have companies like Fox that are clearly being run by the republican party. Party operatives with little to no media experience are division heads and operating officers in the company. They routinely lie and mislead on public airwaves. Their programming is routinely opinion based and often directed by GOP operatives. You can frequently catch their "news" reporters reading directly from statements provided by the GOP to all their members as if this information is coming directly from the reporter and no
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Oh I thought you were talking about CNN
Fox is actually pretty fair and balanced by comparison but feel free rave on.
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I have always been impressed by the nimble intellects possessed by the left.
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Looking at the US from the rest of the world it is clear that whatever the theoretical difference between the two parties that get into government they are both run by wealthy patronage. The hatred in the media between the two groups is highly amusing given that it is there to keep public attention away from the fact that the rich run America and the politicians are irrelevant. Fox news is full of blatant lies, that is statements that are factually untrue, CNN is full of complaints about violent acts by the
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Looking at the US from the rest of the world it is clear that whatever the theoretical difference between the two parties that get into government they are both run by wealthy patronage.
There was time when the Republicans were the party of rich people and the Democrats were the party of poor people. But, yes, these days, the Republicans are the party of horrible rich old men and the Democrats are the party of horrible rich old women. And poor people in the USA are taking it in both ends, so to speak.
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I think it comes down more to the issue of Google and a tiny minority of other Silicon Valley companies being effective monopolies, who actively seek to suppress competition to the point where it becomes almost impossible for a startup to effectively compete on an even playing field. Add to this that this handful of companies are exclusively headquartered in areas known for radically liberal politics and seem to be staffed overwhelmingly with liberal employees (with strong rumors of company cultures where c
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This has the very scary possibility turning a traditionally open internet into an internet that is now effectively controlled by a small group of monopolies who seem to be increasingly seeking to suppress conservative viewpoints.
So it seems like the attitude that unfettered business is good and reglation is bad is only up to the point where it affects conservatives.
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Even striving to be without bias can itsself be a form of bias. It's the sort of bias that leads to, for example, giving equal air time and respect to the medical establishment and an anti-vaccination campaigner. The producer can be satisfied that they have given both sides equal treatment and as such are demonstrating no bias, but the picture the audience puts together is still inaccurate.
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I mean, you can "No True Scotsman" if you like, but there are definitely biased news sources and unbiased ones.
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OK, so let's hear it. Which are the unbiased news sources? Just give us a couple of names.
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the New York Times, the Economist, the Washington Post, the BBC.
CNN isn't biased, but I don't think it's very good.
But go ahead, insist (without evidence) that those are horrible. Just please, if you do, supply backup.
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the R's are at their worst time in history, with the worst president ever known to mankind; they are desparate to deflect and to try to keep their base happy.
there is no other reason. none. grandstanding is a fucking waste of time when real shit has to be dealt with. but like I said, they don't want to have light shine on their bad shit, so they change the subject whenever they can.
basically, this specific thing is 'waaah! you are hurting our base's feelings!'. yeah, well, grow a pair of balls, you fuc
Re: Why does google have to be bias free? (Score:1)
"the worst president ever known to mankind"
Why do you hate the American working class?
Meanwhile... (Score:2, Insightful)
Communists are openly discussing terrorist acts on Twitter and not one shit is given,
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:4, Insightful)
I support deplatforming all extremists. Nazis and commies alike.
Deplatforming is a euphimism for silencing. I support freedom of speech.
Re: Meanwhile... (Score:2)
Hey, just because Google is now openly evil, doesn't mean ALL Googledouches are necessarily in favor of censorship. Maybe shillden means what he says. If all we can agree on is freedom of speech - then let agree on freedom of speech. That's a good start.
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Deplatforming is a euphimism for silencing.
Nope. Nobody's being silenced because they've been kicked off of one particular platform. There's tons of other places to share one's views than the big ones. Sure, less people will see them, but so what?
I support freedom of speech.
In that case, you should support sites' right to not carry some kinds of speech. Otherwise you're forcing them to provide a soapbox, and that's just as wrong as silencing someone.
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I support deplatforming all extremists. Nazis and commies alike.
Deplatforming is a euphimism for silencing. I support freedom of speech.
No it isn't.
Nowhere does the freedom of speech mean that you're entitled to whatever platform you like and however you like it... If people are telling you to go away, that is them exercising their right to free speech.
And yes, the fewer Nazis or Racists out there, the better.
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Nowhere does the freedom of speech mean that you're entitled to whatever platform you like and however you like it
Certainly not. But deplatforming doesn't mean that no one is obligated to give you a platform, it means mobs rising up to forcibly reverse your invitation to speak, merely because some of them might be offended.
And yes, the fewer Nazis or Racists out there, the better.
I certainly agree. But I disagree that violent suppression of their political speech is either necessary or effective.
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I support deplatforming all extremists. Nazis and commies alike.
Quite a lot of people define 'extremist' as anyone who disagrees with them.
Some of them even define 'extremist' as anyone who even feels differently that they do.
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what makes him dangerous exactly? He's only dangerous to people pushing competing yet equally broken conspiracy theories (patriarchy/wage gap/non-binary/affirmative action etc).
The patriarchy isn't a conspiracy theory, it's a sociological theory. Affirmative action benefits the racists by letting them see that the brown people are human too. I have more complicated thoughts about the other things, so that would take more involvement in this comment than you deserve. But what makes him dangerous is that he says bullshit that makes his frothing fanboys do things that can hurt people. It doesn't really matter if he knows he's making it up or not, he's encouraging his followers to end
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Patriarchy is a social theory, not a scientific one (the two are extremely different). Some of them are more valid than others, and the analytical backing for "patriarchy" is extremely lacking, and predominant only in a very left ideology. Some social hypotheses have led to the deaths of millions.
They're interesting as philosophical debating points, but the problem is that people are taking a largely philosophical exercise with very limited frames of reference and treating it as axiomatic across wider fra
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I'm pretty much a centrist. Both left and right have the better ideas from time to time
You see to me that should not be "I'm a centrist" and more of "I'm not a complete idiot". Even if yu lean fairly far to the left or right and you have a braing attached you should be able to see that the other camp has worthwhile ideas sometimes and your own camp sometimes has really stupid ideas.
It's a sad indictment of the level of discourse that "centrist" is now associated with "willing to consider multiple alternativ
Having been on Google + (Score:2)
for at least what? Three presidential elections? I have no doubt Google adjust "trending" and "may interest" you to try to swing votes towards Democrats. An article with three reshares and a +12 does not equal trending enough to come across the feed of a active, been elected to office, following groups of my interest Libertarian. I was making meme's about how Obama and Romney were practically the same guy, far left things do not by any means fit my "interest". In the current day it's pretty clear I'm n
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G+ has so far faithfully shown me everything from everyone I am following, unlike Facebook. I follow The Free Thought Project there for example, even though I am not a libertarian or anarchist, because he helps me keep tabs on government misdeeds. And he's got source links so I can go read the original story and decide what I think for myself.
If so, then what? (Score:2)
Technically Google would not be violating any laws even if they were intentionally politically biased. They are a private company, and private entities can publish any bias they want (barring direct causes of violence or defamation of non-celebrities). We see this with Fox News, for example.
As a hypothetical, what if the CEO directly admitted to having a biased service? What would GOP then do? Anti-trust is about the only remedy in the existing legal bag. But outside of that, GOP's most likely prize would j
Maybe the AI is trying social engineering (Score:3)
How do you know that Google's AI hasn't already turned sentient, decided that the world would be better off if everyone were liberal, and started social engineering as a result>?
California Bias (Score:3)
By the standards of San Francisco and San Jose they all agree they are fair and showing what all their friends agree is 'True."
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Google isn't anti-conservative. For 99.999999% of search results, their algorithms work simply on the facts presented.
"And reality has a well-known liberal bias."
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Nope. There is a leak of some internal meeting where the employees were fretting over Trump like decent non-deplorable people, and even one where some employees discussed intentionally biasing search results, but zero evidence that the bias made it into the final product. Unless you count hiding factually incorrect conspiracy nonsense as "bias." It would be fair to say that Google is "biased" against post-truth nonsense.
With all the bad aspects of Google, it's this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, Kevin McCarthy (R) , this is important? Of course it's not, more pointless politicking. And Pichai decides to show up to this one and skip the other hearings because he also knows it's a show. No threat of any action (see 1st Amendment). As many have said, there are plenty of other company boardrooms where there were celebrations after Trump won...who's digging into the Disney Corp records, or AT&T or Verizon, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, the list is endless. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Oh, and how about all you fiscal conservatives fix the debt/deficit problem first then deal with your pet projects once that's all wrapped up.
Vote the John Kasich & Jeff Flake ticket in 2020
Correlation != Causation (Score:1)
Just because they're upset (Score:2)
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Republican's can't seem to grasp the idea that just because a lot of Google employee's were upset by the results of the election that it doesn't mean that they've changed their product.
Everything republicans accuse others of doing is really a confession of what they would do if given the opportunity.
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it's their company and they're not hiding behind common carrier.
I'm sure if they were showing bias against gays or women, you'd be fine with it too, right?
No I would not (Score:2)
That said, I'm not opposed to extending protected class status to political beliefs. But remember all those factory owners who fired pro-Obama people? Or how about Amazon attacking Unions? Better get ready for a whole new world of lawsuits against right wing targets if you protect political beliefs.
If I may go off the rails for
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I thought the whole idea of progressivism was to build a classless society. You can't do that when you're arbitrarily drawing lines around groups of people based on arbitrary, supposedly irrelevant attributes, then deeming them oppressed or oppressor based on those attributes.
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That's right. I trying to point out that hypocrisy.
You thought wrong (Score:2)
Don't take this the wrong way, but you're probably getting your ideas of progressivism from right wing hit pieces. It's not an exaggeration to say the media has a strong, right wing, anti-progressive bias. They're all owned by billionaires, so it's not surprising. Go watch Secular Talk, Aronra and look up the Justice Democrats.
Actual progressives stand for a lot
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Actually, you're half correct. The Christian right operated(s) much like the progressive left does today.
Both love big government and large institutions, which allow them to impose blasphemy laws, morality policing, witchhunts etc on as many as possible, in as many life contexts as possible. Progressives have their own form (eg hate speech/'check your privilege'/rape hysteria) and target different groups, but functionally they are the same. Both have proven themselves divisive, oppressive, illiberal power
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for some mind numbing reason we act like the right wing are not in charge of this country, even though they control every branch of every government in the country.
I know what you mean, but there's a whole class of left wing people in senior managerial roles, in addition to the legal and other professional fields.
I have two good friends (a couple), one works as a business consultant and one has senior job with a healthcare company. They both of MBAs, live in an upscale suburb in a house with an in-ground swimming pool. And they are both liberal as hell.
I think it's super ironic to sit in their in-ground pool with them, drinking top shelf liquor, and listen to them t
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These people are the useful idiots. They will be the first to go when the purges start.
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because those are protected classes. You can't choose to be gay or a women. You _can_ choose your political beliefs. Hence we protect those classes and not political beliefs.
Really ?
Need to talk to Bruce Jenner, he's so heroic / sarcasm
Or Richard Raskin nee Renee Richards (who in his autobiography said growing a beard suppressed his transgenderism)
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Protected class is an arbitrary bounded set. You can't choose to be born male, straight or with any genetic predisposition towards identifying with a political grouping, and there do seem to be genetic components at play.
To create "protected classes" is to draw arbitrary boundaries around what you're going to "protect" (i.e. you're actually saying "It's fine, even virtuous, to attack these groups which are the inverse set of this" based on an entirely political construct).
Protected class should be "human"
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I suspect that the real angle behind this is a veiled threat of the government considering these platforms to be monopolies, in which case they probably would lose some of their freedom to discriminate on the content that th
If we're going to look at the motives for this act (Score:2)
But I'm just a partisan hack, what the hell to I know? AmIRig
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I suspect that the real angle behind this is a veiled threat of the government considering these platforms to be monopolies
I think it's much less sophisticated than that - Governments become upset when access to facts becomes painless for citizens.
When Trump claims the "highest number in history" watched his State of the Union, a quick Google search proves he's lying. When the government says breach-of-ethics allegations against the head of the EPA are "lies" a quick Google search proves they are in
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There's no need to regulate them. They can run things how they want.
But there is bias there. It's mostly due to human nature and people preferencing what they believe and living in the social and idealogical bubble they're living in, rather than anything too overt. Google employees, journalism graduates, government bureaucrats and much of social science academics have in common that they demonstrate their political opinions in hard numbers by donating 90% to Democrats, so it's not like there is a big secret
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I'd be interested to hear what others think are news outlets which avoid bias.
I, like most people, read & watch news for two reasons, Anonymous Coward: Facts, and analysis.
Facts are straightforward: "Russia meddled in the American election."
Analysis from experts at reputable news agencies like The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, PBS and The Economist tell me why Russia meddled in the American election - What Putin's goals are, what the endgame is, and what the geopolitica