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Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

nytimes.com

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Re: Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

#221

Post by kobeya »

matt4077 wrote: post #169
Chaebixi wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Alphabet's is "Do the Right Thing" For the shareholders, of course. Does anyone else even matter?

Isn't this, like, cynicism completely decoupled from reality? Google invests a lot of money and time in a myriad of projects with altruistic motivation. Google summer of code, $100 Million per year for non-profits, OSS releases such as tensorflow or Chrome, google.org and on and on. Of course you can say that this is motivated by PR objectives. But then you're creating a situation where they couldn't do anything righ…

They're not going to invest in things that might disintermedate themselves.

Re: Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

#222

Post by waisbrot »

659087 wrote: post #176
otakucode wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Schmidt was pretty clear in his book that he believes his business success is an indicator of virtue, and that he believes he should use Google and his wealth to intentionally seek to manipulate modern culture. It's a disturbing notion and I've never understood why people weren't more concerned about it. If every significant avenue of communication used by people is controlled and censored by a group, no matter who i…

> Schmidt was pretty clear in his book that he believes his business success is an indicator of virtue, and that he believes he should use Google and his wealth to intentionally seek to manipulate modern culture. It's a disturbing notion and I've never understood why people weren't more concerned about it. Google proved that all you need is a colorful logo and a stupid catch phrase ("Don't be evil") to get people to…

> Google proved that all you need is a colorful logo and a stupid catch phrase ("Don't be evil") to get people to treat you as an infallible, altruistic entity - regardless of the fact that your actions tell a completely different story.

I don't think the logo or catch-phrase have much to do with it. Google's search engine was orders of magnitude better than anything else when it came out (that's how they won the market) and they've used their dominance of the web to improve their search to the point where the search box can read your mind. That is why people treat them as good -- because "morally good" and "usefully good" are difficult to separate.

You see Apple users (and maybe Linux users?) as religious zealots and assume they must have been tricked by a pretty logo or some CS hazing ritual. What's actually going on is that they're reacting to one very positive experience (maybe along some dimension that you don't care about) and following the human inclination to extrapolate that experience to the whole product/company.

Re: Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

#223

Post by ocdtrekkie »

mhermher wrote: post #190
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, bear in mind, the US and the EU effectively can only mandate how Google operates as long as it does business there. So both the US and the EU have the ability to demand Google be broken up, but it will be up to Google, as an international entity, whether they want to leave the territory that orders it or comply to the extent that the regulator in a sovereign territory is appeased. See also, the recent Canadian…

That is not really a valid option. No source, but I'm sure a very very large proportion of Google revenue comes from the US and EU. They would comply if required to. There is no way they would leave those markets.

It depends. Being forced to split into multiple companies which can't collude would also crater their revenue. Presumably, the amount of revenue loss from being split into different companies would be weighed against the amount of revenue loss from losing a continent. Either one would be devastating.

While I knew Google would never sacrifice the EU market to avoid this fine and some changes in search behavior, Google might sacrifice their EU business if it meant the end of Google as we know it. (Aka, they were ordered to break up.)

Of course, the main reason they functionally can't leave the US over a policy decision is that their headquarters and the vast majority of their senior talent all live there, and they would have very little left if they tried to move out of the US.

Re: Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

#224

Post by ballenf »

guelo wrote: post #207
ex3xu wrote: post #175

I recently picked up a book called, "No Wall Too High", the translated man who escaped from a Chinese labor camp under Mao Zedong. In this book, during his time in a re-education camp in Lijiang, the author relates seeing the story of Yang Shukang -- a man whose crime was simply writing a letter to the central leadership in Beijing saying that two thousand people had starved to death in his town of Jiuhe during the g…

Give me a break. Nobody is even censoring anybody's speech here. The real evil here is the lobbying organization itself. Corporations and billionaires buying our politicians and distorting the public debate is a much bigger threat than some lobbyist's freedom to argue against his boss's interests.

Since the think tank has tax exempt status, it is indirectly subsidized by the government both in terms of their operating expenses being lower and in Google's tax offsetting writeoff. Which is why churches and think tanks occasionally lose (or are threatened with losing) their tax exempt status if they make political/commercial statements.

I think a case could be made that the firing reveals the org for what they are: more of a PR firm than a think tank.

I'd guess all their messaging on the guy's "separation" was around avoiding triggering an IRS audit more than anything else. Although losing Google's patronage might actually cost them more than losing tax exempt status, losing the status would likely mean Google would stop funding as they'd lose the tax write-off. So, losing tax exemption would basically be a death knell.

The government subsidy issue also implies a degree of actual 1st Amendment speech implications. The power to tax is the power to kill/silence/stifle/etc. I don't want to overstate that point, but this may be one of the rare instances where the "censorship" cry carries at least a little validity.

Re: Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

#225

Post by [deleted] »

munificent wrote: post #183
CPLX wrote: post #15

This isn't a problem with Google, it's a problem with the establishment left in the United States. There's no genuine, credible anti-corporate voice in American politics. The reasons why are many, but of course they typically distill down to the incredible power of money to influence people, of which this is an example. The side-effects of there being no credible labor party in our political system manifests, in part…

Why is this not equally a problem with the establishment right in the United States? They aren't being a genuine, credible anti-corporate voice either. Or do they get off the hook because we just assume that there's no chance they would ever be that?

[deleted]

Re: Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

#226

Post by [deleted] »

matt4077 wrote: post #169
Chaebixi wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Alphabet's is "Do the Right Thing" For the shareholders, of course. Does anyone else even matter?

Isn't this, like, cynicism completely decoupled from reality? Google invests a lot of money and time in a myriad of projects with altruistic motivation. Google summer of code, $100 Million per year for non-profits, OSS releases such as tensorflow or Chrome, google.org and on and on. Of course you can say that this is motivated by PR objectives. But then you're creating a situation where they couldn't do anything righ…

[deleted]

Re: Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

#227

Post by quickben »

xienze wrote: post #165
otakucode wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Schmidt was pretty clear in his book that he believes his business success is an indicator of virtue, and that he believes he should use Google and his wealth to intentionally seek to manipulate modern culture. It's a disturbing notion and I've never understood why people weren't more concerned about it. If every significant avenue of communication used by people is controlled and censored by a group, no matter who i…

> and that he believes he should use Google and his wealth to intentionally seek to manipulate modern culture. It's a disturbing notion and I've never understood why people weren't more concerned about it. Because they're pushing the progressive agenda, so who in the media, government, or academia is going to stand in their way? As far as those parties are concerned, Google is doing what corporations "should" do.

What's so progressive about censorship and why are you glorifying it?

Re: Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

#228

Post by BeetleB »

ksk wrote: post #154
BeetleB wrote: post #134

There is really very little content in this article. It reads like a classic case of "Write an essay in N words" and you find yourself finishing at M The whole premise is a bit flawed - it's putting most of the blame on Google. When an "independent" organization takes on average $1M/yr from any entity, and structure themselves such that losing that money is a big concern, then they've played an equal role in this mes…

>The whole premise is a bit flawed - it's putting most of the blame on Google. The premise is that Eric Schmidt's displeasure lead to some people getting fired. I don't know how else you could make that argument without blaming Google when the entire argument is about blaming Google.

>The premise is that Eric Schmidt's displeasure lead to some people getting fired. I don't know how else you could make that argument without blaming Google when the entire argument is about blaming Google.

I'm not saying Google is not culpable. I'm saying they're no more culpable than the folks at the think tank who are dependent on Google.

If I run a business where I take in huge chunks of money from a company every year, and adjust my spending and budgets to rely on said money, then I stopped being independent.

In the business world, no one would have any sympathy for me if the company I relied on suddenly decided to stop supporting me. I put myself into this hole. Why is it any different here?

The think tank stopped being independent long before any of this happened. They are equal partners, and deserve an equal amount of blame. They are definitely not the victims here.

The problem isn't that Google is making negative overtures to them with an implied threat of defunding them in the future. The problem is that they shouldn't have been funding them in the first place. As such, it can easily be argued that dropping funding is the right thing to do.

Re: Google Critic Ousted from Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant

#230

Post by hwillis »

CPLX wrote: post #15

This isn't a problem with Google, it's a problem with the establishment left in the United States. There's no genuine, credible anti-corporate voice in American politics. The reasons why are many, but of course they typically distill down to the incredible power of money to influence people, of which this is an example. The side-effects of there being no credible labor party in our political system manifests, in part…

There's one anti-corporate idea that I've always thought was interesting but AFAIK isn't discussed by anyone: small-corporation libertarianism. In general libertarians are too concerned with government but almost all of them (plus neoliberals and many financially conservative folks) can agree that competition is at least one of their most important economic tenants. Competition is balanced against economies of scale etc. but those are totally level after you're making millions of a product.

It's just weird that there aren't at least some voices arguing strongly that super-large companies (not even conglomerates) like google or apple should be split up for economic growth.

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