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Google exec responds to Project Veritas video about bias

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Re: Google exec responds to Project Veritas video about bias

#11

Post by fcarraldo »

a_tractor wrote: post #9
Crontab wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the Planned Parenthood hatchet job.

You call that a "hatchet job" after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, through an independent forensics review, found[0] the videos to be "authentic and not deceptively edited?" The case involved the Texas Health and Human Services Commission decision to terminate the state’s Medicaid provider agreements with PP affiliates across the state, based in large part on those very videos. The Fifth Circuit affirmed that de…

This ruling by the 5th Circuit, which is controversial itself, has nothing to do with James O’Keefe or Project Veritas. O’Keefe’s attempt at smearing Planned Parenthood took place much earlier and was thoroughly discredited. The videos referenced in this case, by the “Center for Medical Progress”, have also been called into question, and a single victory in a circuit court appeal does not make them factual.

Re: Google exec responds to Project Veritas video about bias

#13

Post by FakeComments »

> Google has repeatedly been clear that it works to be a trustworthy source of information, without regard to political viewpoint. In fact, Google has no notion of political ideology in its rankings.

This is blatantly untrue, and theres evidence of Google editorializing all of their products: search rankings, answer boxes, YouTube feeds, etc.

Google willfully allows the biases of their staff to influence products. As do most tech companies and media companies.

There’s been a clear purge of conservative voices, a further pressuring (eg, demobilization and other such tactics), a bias in what is considered hate speech or other rule violations, and a clear bias in the internal behavior — including firing the moderator of their Republican mailing list. [0]

Her claims Mr Pichai denies it are equally flat — of course he does, because if it turns out that Google’s editorialization over the past couple years violated their safe harbor status, the company is likely already bankrupt from his error.

Google displays about 350 billion videos a year; 250 million instances of commercial copyright, at minimum statutory damages, is greater than the entire assets of Google.

[0] This guy: https://medium.com/@mikewacker/googles-outrage-mobs-and-witc...

Re: Google exec responds to Project Veritas video about bias

#14

Post by pen2l »

mrosett wrote: post #10

I'm no fan of James O'Keefe, but some of the direct quotes are much more incriminating than this response makes them out to be: > “Elizabeth Warren is saying we should break up Google. And like, I love her but she’s very misguided, like that will not make it better it will make it worse, because all these smaller companies who don’t have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump sit…

[flagged]

Re: Google exec responds to Project Veritas video about bias

#16

Post by jeromic »

Google has removed the original video from youtube over a "privacy claim" and have disabled responses on this medium post.

It makes it hard to give Google the benefit of the doubt when their stance seems to be "stop talking about it", instead of addressing the content of the video.

Re: Google exec responds to Project Veritas video about bias

#18

Post by jeromic »

captainredbeard wrote: post #15

It would be nice if she’d elaborate on the comments she made, particularly where the “imprecise” language was —- what was she trying to say at the dinner? There were many long runs of commentary without opportunity for deceptive editing.

“Elizabeth Warren is saying we should break up Google. And like, I love her but she’s very misguided, like that will not make it better it will make it worse, because all these smaller companies who don’t have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation, it’s like a small company cannot do that.”

“We all got screwed over in 2016, again it wasn’t just us, it was, the people got screwed over, the news media got screwed over, like, everybody got screwed over so we’re rapidly been like, what happened there and how do we prevent it from happening again.”

I think it's clear what she meant, but Google doesn't want to deal with the legal or social ramifications of being politically non-neutral.

Re: Google exec responds to Project Veritas video about bias

#19

Post by neonate »

jeromic wrote: post #12
rosterface wrote: post #2

For context, this is the report she’s talking about: https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/06/24/insider-blows-whis...

The hn thread is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20269756

There was a larger discussion in another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20264543

Re: Google exec responds to Project Veritas video about bias

#20

Post by UncleMeat »

jeromic wrote: post #16

Google has removed the original video from youtube over a "privacy claim" and have disabled responses on this medium post. It makes it hard to give Google the benefit of the doubt when their stance seems to be "stop talking about it", instead of addressing the content of the video.

Given that she has already gotten threatening messages, that seems like a reasonable response. The primary responsibility should be to the safety of the employee.
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