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Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
21–30 of 304 posts
Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#22I caution against latching onto the title and making assumptions. The bulk of the content is analyzing where the current censorship position came from and the conclusion is for Google to be more open with their stance and also be more equal with applying it.
As for the why:
Why the shift toward censorship?
- User Demands
- before, In the absence of rules, bad behaviour thrived
- now, Appease users, maintain platform loyalty
- Government Demands
- before, Governments were unhappy to cede power to corporations
- now, Respond to regulatory demands, maintain global expansion
- Commercial Demands
- before, It’s impossible to neutrally promote content and info
- now, Monetize content through its organisation, increase revenues
- before, Advertisers were wary of unintended placement and endorsement
- now, Protect advertisers from controversial content, increase revenues
Don’t take sides
Police tone instead of content
Enforce standards and policies clearly
Justify global positions
Explain the technology
Improve communications
Take problems seriously
Positive guidelines
Better signposts
“[Richard] Spencer doesn't get to be a verified speaker; Milo gets kicked off, but I know
plenty of pretty abusive feminist users or left wing users,
expressing themselves in exactly the same way
that the right is being penalised for,
who are permitted
to perform certain kinds of speech. That’s going to get Twitter intoRe: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#23The watermark makes it really annoying to read, but unless it gets refuted by Google, it has to be real, right? (That's how these things work these days...?)
The Breitbart watermark makes me very suspicious, I would treat it as probably worthless until we see more reliable sources.
They're definitely not the most reputable news source and many of their opinion pieces definitely step into fake territory, but I think outright falsifying an entire document like this would be a very extreme move, even for them.
Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Breitbart watermark makes me very suspicious, I would treat it as probably worthless until we see more reliable sources.
Why? It's no different from the logo on a TV network news video feed. It's just a news agency trying to make things painful for competitors trying to steal a story without credit. If not for Breitbart being censored (fitting this story...) by Hacker News, the original article might have been linked: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/10/09/the-good-censor-le...
So basically HN is subverting copyright laws because of misguided moderation principals.
Way to go.
Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#25The underlying premise of this, if real, is that these companies and their centralized platforms ought to exist. "Never expect a man to understand something his salary depends upon him not understanding" and all that.
Well, given that it's done by Google employees of course they'll want to continue to wield their power. For example, they mention "regulation" as a punch-line, IOW, the assumption is that regulation of any form is bad.
Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#26I caution against latching onto the title and making assumptions. The bulk of the content is analyzing where the current censorship position came from and the conclusion is for Google to be more open with their stance and also be more equal with applying it. As for the why: Why the shift toward censorship? - User Demands - before, In the absence of rules, bad behaviour thrived - now, Appease users, maintain platform…
Yeah, honestly I don't think Breitbart and similar can really play this as negative for Google when it acknowledges many actions have been taken even against right wingers unfairly and encourages "Don't take sides" as a top point.
The biggest thing to complain about would probably be the title... they couldn't have picked a worse title.
Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Breitbart article states: "Responding to the leak, an official Google source said the document should be considered internal research, and not an official company position." So I suppose that's confirmation of authenticity (sort of). The article can be found here: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/10/09/the-good-censor-le...
So where's the video? Or was that censored too?
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.
Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#28The presentation seems quite balanced. Probably not the spin that Breitbart was hoping for.
I agree, assuming that it's real. (Which, considering Breitbart's history, could not be the case.)
Breitbart wouldn't benefit from faking it. If they did fake it, they would have made it look much more unbalanced whilst justifying more censorship.
Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#29I just finished skimming the whole thing—did Google just trick Breitbart into publishing propaganda for them? (I'm reminded of the Valve "employee handbook.")
Not really. It'll have the same result as literally every other revelation in the media.
The side completely, 100% opposed to any restrictions on speech (including "policing tone" as outlined in this presentation) will see this as corporate meddling in people's expression.
The side that supports speech regulation will see this as a structured plan to curb the kind of speech that's considered "harmful" or whatnot.
This presentation doesn't contain anything outside the current ideological dichotomy, no original or unorthodox thoughts or ideas.
Re: Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship”
#30Underpinning the whole question of censorship;
“Under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, tech firms have legal immunity from the majority of the content posted on their platforms (unlike ‘traditional’ media publications). This protection has empowered YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Reddit to create spaces for free speech without the fear of legal action or its financial consequence.”
Censoring content is suspiciously like editorializing content, and steps social media a lot closer than they want to being publishers and not platforms.
Proceeding with censorship seems to carry the risk of losing immunity under Section 230.