26 ms·
Criticizing Google got me fired
- tptacek 9y agoIt's a weird situation for a number of reasons. Schmidt is clearly culpable, but it also seems to be the case that New America was existentially dependent on Google-derived funding.
- dman 9y agoThe interesting generalization of that question is that after > 10 years of an ad fueled boom who else is existentially dependent on Google?
- CryoLogic 9y agoMillions of web based businesses relying on ads served by Google adwords.
- tptacek 9y agoRight, and when Google uses its clout in online ads to starve businesses that criticize Google, it'll be a clearer, less fraught story. Here, though, New America is dependent on charity from Google. Google doesn't donate to every think tank in Washington, just the ones it agrees with or has something to gain from.
- cwyers 9y ago"I bit the hand that fed me. It stopped feeding me. That's how eating out of someone's hand works."
- ErikVandeWater 9y agoIf Google admitted it was their propaganda arm then he would have no right to complain. But since they never did, it behooves Google to fund their outcomes regardless of whether their research benefits/harms Google.
- mulmen 9y agoHow so? Why would it benefit Google to fund outcomes that harm Google. How can a harm be a benefit?
- joeyo 9y agoWhy should Google expect funding a non-profit would benefit them? They get the tax-write-off precisely because it benefits The People first and Google second, if at all.
- gertef 9y agoNo, you are confusing charity with non-profit. Not every non-profit is a charity. Example: the NFL, a non-profit that serves its taxpaying members. A non-profit is an organization that exist not to generate revenue for its owners, so the owners don't pay tax -- the members or beneficaries do, under regular tax laws. Google pays taxes on its profits generated via the activity of the nonprofit.
- tarboreus 9y agoHypothetically, letting some anti-Google rhetoric through might legitimize an otherwise supportive stance. Say I'm 80% evil and I fund a think tank. The think tank's reputation was 100, and now it's 60 with regard to statements about me because my funding it makes it seem biased. If it published a story that says I'm actually 4% evil, then it gets a reputation boost, I'm not looking as bad as I actually am, and I'm well positioned to let the organization do positive spin when I really need it. I would say that Google and similar orgs actually usually do this. But Google and Amazon are getting really, really nervous when people talk about monopoly. If anti-trust comes back into vogue, and it could possibly, then it's an existential threat for these empires. They have to carefully manage their carrots and sticks on this issue, and with this one they went with the stick.
- nadim 9y agoBest comment in the thread. What other outcome do people expect? This guy is just trying to sell a book.
- nadim 9y agoBest comment in the thread. What other outcome do people expect? This guy is just trying to sell a book.
- notatoad 9y agoThis was my reaction - It is my understanding that "think tanks" are essentially a nice name for lobbying organizations. A google funded lobbyist being fired for criticizing the company he is paid to lobby for doesn't seem out of the ordinary. Not that i think it's good, but it sounds like a perfectly normal event given the current state of western politics. Or am i mistaken and think tanks are usually politically neutral pure-research organizations?
- tptacek 9y agoThink tanks are rarely neutral; they're generally organized around a set of ideological principles. New America isn't really a pro-Google lobbying organization, except in the sense that by shackling themselves financially to Google, they've rendered themselves incapable of criticizing Google even when Google contravenes their principles. As a lobbying strategy it would be a little like Google trying to take financial control over Cato or Heritage, not to get those think tanks to spew pro-Google stuff, but to ensure that the primary conservative and libertarian voices in Washington were unable to criticize Google. (Cato's relationship with the Koch brothers gets similar criticism). It's definitely fraught! But New America isn't a victim here.
- mulmen 9y agoEven if they are politically neutral why would the think tank expect to be funded by the target of their criticism? If they are truly neutral why would they not seek out diverse funding sources?
- tarboreus 9y agoThe idea is that sources are interested in funding BECAUSE they might be criticized. That's when they actually get something out of it. Not a lot of actual altruists in the world, and if they exist, they're funding NGOs that deal with clean water or hunger or something less abstract, at least in the aggregate.
- francisofascii 9y agowell, they are "supposed" to be non-partisan with policy proposals based on objective research
- sigi45 9y agoAdblock and than i need a subscription? no.
- mulmen 9y agoI'm curious, how do you propose they pay their costs? If you are unwilling to look at ads why is it unreasonable for them to ask you to pay a subscription?
- sigi45 9y agoJust to be clear: I will not subscribe to every single newspaper just because an article got linked on hn.
- mulmen 9y agoThat's not a very good answer. Do you think one newspaper should allow you to read their work because you subscribe to another? If you don't want to subscribe just turn off the adblocker. They're giving you the choice.
- mykeliu 9y agoJust to play devil's advocate, I wonder if it would be possible to sustain WaPo from Amazon's revenue stream, and what impacts that could have on ostensible and de facto journalistic integrity.
- m-watson 9y agoNot really addressing the heart of your question but WaPo is owned by Bezos and his holding company not Amazon. So they would not really have a great reason to siphon off Amazon's revenue stream.
- mulmen 9y ago1) WaPo is not owned by Amazon. 2) That would create a clear conflict of interest. This post is an example of what can happen when you have only one source of funding which you may need to criticize.
- _sdegutis 9y ago> Big businesses can threaten free speech when they accumulate too much power. For Google, that moment has come. This feels like a bit of an exaggeration in this situation, no? I mean, some states have at-will employment where they can just fire you for any reason they want. And if you're doing things that are actively working against them, of course they're going to want to part ways with you. And even in states without that, I'm sure there's some clause in their contract that says "if you speak out against us we have the option of terminating you." That's not really a free speech issue at that point, right? Their free speech isn't being hindered or taken away at all. Rather, a business is making business decisions based on your speech, which happen to effect you. EDIT: to clarify, I'm all for the world getting more ethical. I was just kind of arguing a semantic: free speech is mostly known for being a civil liberty, and Google technically isn't restricting that in this case.
- throwaway2048 9y agoThis comment seems to be conflating "morally right" with "legally permitted"
- vaishaksuresh 9y agoMorality also works both way right? If you bite the feeding hand, how are you morally right?
- leggomylibro 9y agoDepends on what else the feeding hand does with its time.
- 5ilv3r 9y agoEveryone knows that morality does not work that way. There is no 1:1 relationship between righteousness and being a provider.
- jgust 9y ago> If you bite the feeding hand, how are you morally right? Whistleblowing? You could argue you have a moral obligation to your fellow citizens. Not arguing, just offering an example.
- ProAm 9y agoThis is no different than criticizing your employer, don't be surprised when they fire you for that.
- jhawk28 9y agoCriticizing your employer is considered protected speech in the US. Edit: I stand corrected. "Some" forums of criticizing your employer may be considered protected. You may need a lawsuit to enforce that protection....
- pwthornton 9y agoIt's not. You can't just criticize your employer with impunity. Only a very narrowly tailored set of criticisms related to whistleblowing, labor practices and a few other areas are protected.
- spacemanmatt 9y agoFor the purpose of 1st amendment protection, you can criticize your employer with impunity. You can criticize the government with impunity, too. What most people mean when they talk about their freedom of speech is the privilege of speaking without losing their job. I find it to be a tragic if not fatal misunderstanding pervasive to discussions about speech.
- tj-teej 9y ago? What makes you say that. The 1st Amendment only states that the Govt cannot do anything to hinder free speech.
- sageikosa 9y agoProtected in that you cannot be prosecuted for it perhaps.
- flatline 9y agoThink tanks are a little different. It's closer to a professor getting fired for pursuing research that casts a bad light on a corporate donor to the school. What's the most troubling to me is not that this individual was fired, but his entire line of inquiry was ejected by Google.
- drpgq 9y agoMaybe he can get together with Damore and commiserate.
- hobo_mark 9y agoFrom the title I had initially assumed it was about the infamous memo. For anybody else who might get the same impression: it's a different story and it's actually worth reading.
- stretchwithme 9y agoIf it's a valid criticism of a significant issue, why would it be necessary for the target of a criticism to fund it? Surely there would enough injured parties who have a reason to fund it.
- mulmen 9y agoWhat if the significant issue is that the injured parties do not have the resources to speak? The validity of criticism should not be linked to economic power of the injured.
- stretchwithme 9y agoAnyone can voice a criticism. And ask others to assist. Ask. Not compel. You no longer have freedom of speech if you are forced to promote ideas you don't believe in.
- mulmen 9y agoI agree that the target of criticism should not be required to fund that speech and that the freedom of speech also applies to the right to not speak. My comment deals with your second sentence. > Surely there would enough injured parties who have a reason to fund it. You suggest that criticism is valid only if the injured have the economic power to speak. This is a dangerous way to determine validity because it forms a feedback loop where those with economic power suppress the speech of those without.
- spacemanmatt 9y agoThis is all inside the scope of private employment. Freedom of speech never entered into this equation.
- finkin1 9y ago> Corporations are geared to pursue their interests, and criticism is not in their best interest. Obviously we should condemn this behavior, but I can't say I'm surprised. It's good to see such a clear example of Google being unable to resist exerting its power to protect itself from criticism, but I can't help but imagine all of the instances of this that will never see the light of day. The reality is that our world is filled with greed and corruption and that's not going to change any time soon.
- busterarm 9y agoIt's not even about them being unable to resist. Schmidt is on record saying that he feels that their success is a function of/reward for doing what's morally correct and that the company should use its power to push their morality/ideology (and that the market will reward them if they're right or won't if they aren't). Thinking about this keeps me up at night.
- tahabi 9y agoCan you cite a source for this claim by Eric Schmidt?
- frogpelt 9y agoIs it automatically greed and corruption for Google to disagree and threaten to stop funding?
- Retra 9y agoWhy would you care whether corruption is 'automatic' or not? It's still corruption.
- mullingitover 9y ago"I and the entire Open Markets team were let go because it’s not in Google’s interest to finance criticism of its business model." Coming soon: Washington Post's scathing takedown of Amazon's business model.
- mulmen 9y agoIs the Washington Post a think tank now? Does Amazon own the Washington Post?
- r00fus 9y agoJeff Bezos owns the WaPo now.
- mulmen 9y agoJeff Bezos and Amazon are not the same person. This is an important distinction.
- jbenz 9y agoThe number one person in power at Amazon = the number one person in power at the Washington Post.
- mulmen 9y agoYes, Jeff Bezos. The implication that Bezos abuses his position to favor one organization over the other has no clear basis in fact. It is also not relevant to the story about Google taking action in Google's favor.
- vesinisa 9y agoYes, and neither are Eric Schmidt and Google.
- mulmen 9y ago
- zellyn 9y agoAre think tanks legally required to be impartial? Are they generally expected to be impartial? I was under the impression that funding a "Think Tank" was a way to funnel money into research, paper-writing, policy promulgation, etc. that favored your position. Are they something else?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- CorvusCrypto 9y agoI'd imagine that funding and investments are a way to pressure research to favor your stance as a company. While think tanks can operate under their own rules, as an investor you'd probably not want to spend more money if the result isn't helping you in some way. Phrased a different way I think technically it's not a requirement to follow your investors' goals, but it's pretty much a necessity so your hands are tied.
- spacemanmatt 9y agoThere is nothing special about a think tank. They're just some people who write position papers for money. It's 1st amendment protected activity. That's right, the best I have to say about it is, it's not illegal.
- beepboopbeep 9y agoOnly thing a company owes you is what is in your contact and vice versa. I don't understand what people don't get about this. If you criticize the government and get thrown in jail, that's a violation of free speech. But If you complain about your employer then they can fire you. If you don't like your employer, you can leave. That's how it works. End of story. The guy is publishing an article in a major news publication about his experiences during all of this. His free speech is quite obviously not being suppressed.
- ErikVandeWater 9y ago> End of story. And he has the right to complain about being fired. End of story.
- sageikosa 9y agoI can complain about going out in the rain and getting wet. End of story.
- monus 9y agoWhat is the point of think tanks then? Just get paid by companies and do their propaganda but expect people to believe your thoughts are free because it's a "non-profit"?
- EpicEng 9y agoWell, that's a good question for the think tanks. I imagine they always want more funding, so they reach out to corporations, and ultimately find themselves in conflict. I'm sure they'd argue that, without the corporate money, they wouldn't exist in the first place. Catch 22.
- thomastjeffery 9y agoThe crux of the issue he is describing is not that his speech rights are being violated, but that Google has the power to fire him from a company that is not part of Google. And that Google used that power in reaction to his speech. > If you don't like your employer, you can leave. That's how it works. End of story. And go where? Another similar company, right? While that isn't what happened in this specific situation, this guy brings up a valid point about monopolies: If you work for a company, and that company is a monopoly, you can't just leave, because you have literally nowhere else to go. Therefore that company has control over your speech without violating your constitutional rights. That is one of many reasons we should be concerned about the centralization of power Google/Alphabet has acquired. > The guy is publishing an article in a major news publication about his experiences during all of this. His free speech is quite obviously not being suppressed. His speech clearly was suppressed. Just because he found a new outlet for it does not mean anything to the contrary.
- suzzer99 9y agoThat corporate and individually funded think tanks have any impact on actual policy is troubling all by itself. It's just a fancy way of lobbying.
- balls187 9y agoThis feels less about Google, and more that Eric Schmidt is a petty, little man.
- oh_sigh 9y agoYes, petty in the same way that uou are pretty when yoi fired the painter you hired to paint your house when he starts to replace your roof.
- balls187 9y agoThat comparison doesn't make any sense. Eric Schmidt didn't hire Barry Lynn. New America did. Perhaps a better analogy: The same way I would be petty, if I fired a painter I hired, because he showed up with wearing a Colin Kaepnernick Jersey and my neighbor the police officer, who lets me borrow his lawnmower, was furious.
- oh_sigh 9y agoStill doesn't seem petty. You have a long standing relationship with your neighbor, and care about him. You don't have much of a relationship with the painter.
- spacemanmatt 9y agoA better analogy: Your boss' boss is also your boss.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y agoOne of the aspects of this I'm most interested in is when Google started donating to New America. It seems obvious to me that Google is giving money to political organizations in exchange for influence and that both parties here share blame. But if Google started giving money to New America and Eric Schmidt joined the board knowing that New America was funding an anti-monopoly group then I think that makes Google and Eric look a lot worse. How many think tank papers have been quietly shredded because the author didn't have the courage Barry Lynn did?
- radicaldreamer 9y agoThe whole think tank industry is like this. This is one of the main reasons why things like single payer don't have the intellectual backing of rigorous white papers and advocacy -- there isn't a whole lot of money to be made for corporations lowering the cost of healtcare.
- cwyers 9y ago> there isn't a whole lot of money to be made for corporations lowering the cost of healtcare. I don't know if that's true. There are a lot of companies that would save money if healthcare was cheaper -- pretty much every company in America is a health-care consumer. It's just that benefits are diffuse and the downsides of lower-cost health care are concentrated.
- aaronblohowiak 9y agolarge firms would lose talent to smaller firms.
- digikata 9y agoThen the smaller firms could be acquired. As it is, because of the slowing new-company generation, large firms have been getting fewer and fewer options. Small firms can take risks to create new products and processes which can then be acquired and taken up and expanded by large companies. Generally its much more difficult for a large company to do that creation part in-house. So insufficient small firms end up affecting the large-firm capability in the end.
- pythonistic 9y agoI could argue that Mr. Lynn is crying "sour grapes" over this, but he also came very close to a point Bryan Lunduke made recently about Google[1]. Google has the power to stop people using their products from making a living, and a collapse or compromise of Google's infrastructure would cause untold economic harm to the nation and world. If Google as an "information provider" fails (search, email, telecommunications, DNS services, cloud services, etc.) a lot of other businesses stop or collapse. A healthy economy is a lot like a healthy ecosystem: some parts are weaker, some will fail when stressed, but allowing the system to react naturally to inputs will likely result in a better outcome. But when you encourage a monoculture, single stresses can result in a complete collapse[2]. We're experimenting with establishing monocultures in our economies with potentially even more impact than those of the 19th and 20th centuries (like Standard Oil) that inspired the anti-monopoly regulation and legislation: if Samsung were to shut down tomorrow, what would be the impact on the Korean, regional and world economies? An all-powerful Google that can't accept criticism or action to "trim it back" to preserve the overall economy represents a danger and Mr. Lynn was right to point this out. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwzJlvx4ndk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwzJlvx4ndk [2] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/04/the-worlds-most-popular-banana-could-go-extinct/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/04/the-w...
- noir_lord 9y agoFunnily enough I mentioned Standard Oil in relation to Google and Facebook on here the other day, I'd read some terrible Clive Cussler novel that had Rockefeller as a character and that sent me of to read more about him.
- interstitial 9y agoJust as long as it's not big tobacco or big oil paying for research, right?
- dghughes 9y ago"Don't be evil" is still in the Google code of conduct. Legal as Google's demand was it seems to qualify as evil or at least unethical.
- calbear81 9y agoExcept for the definition of "evil" is pretty grey. If Google believes that their worldview is the "good", then people who challenge that viewpoint are necessarily harming the good and therefore shutting them down would not be evil at all.
- AndrewKemendo 9y agoI and the entire Open Markets team were let go because it’s not in Google’s interest to finance criticism of its business model. It’s as simple as that. Right. Where's the scandal here? If you don't want someone or some company to have monetary power over you, then don't take money from them. I understand that it's not so simple, but at the end of the day this can't be surprising. To wit...his prefacing comment says a lot: No think tank wants to appear beholden to the demands of its corporate donors. Operative word being - appear. In fact they all are beholden, of course, you just want to make sure not to appear to be.
- akgerber 9y agoThe scandal is that most of the policy research in the US is funded by supposedly-neutral think tanks which are funded this way— which means new laws will usually be designed to serve the big interests that fund think tanks.
- dcre 9y agoThis is it. So many people appear unable to understand criticism at a structural level. As long as every individual or corporation is acting as you'd expect them to act given the conditions they're in, we're supposed to throw up our hands. But of course we don't have to do that. We can note the various reasons things work this way — growing monopoly power, tax laws governing nonprofits, lobbying regulations — and figure out how to change them.
- AndrewKemendo 9y agoNot to sound glib but that's nothing new and everyone in the research world knows that. The only new thing here is that it's a public story involving Google.
- anigbrowl 9y agosupposedly-neutral think tanks Who told you they were supposed to be neutral? The only thing I expect from a think tank is reproducibility of results, if they are making claim to an objective result.
- 9y ago
- throwawaymaroon 9y agoburn them down, burn it all down, dance in the flames, death to all of us rather than the continuance of corporate reign
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- cat199 9y agoSooo... if anyone at google wants to make the 'I feel lucky' link for 'streisand effect' go to this article, that would be a great easter egg.. just saying..
- clarkevans 9y agoRegarding concentration of corporate power and economics, Nick Hanauer was on the 1A yesterday [1] and had relevant commentary. He also brought up problems with inequality a few years ago [2] and last month [3]. [1] http://the1a.org/shows/2017-08-30/zillionaire-to-other-zillionaires-pay-up http://the1a.org/shows/2017-08-30/zillionaire-to-other-zilli... [2] http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014 http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchfork... [3] http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/18/to-my-fellow-plutocrats-you-can-cure-trumpism-215347 http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/18/to-my-fell...
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y agoHe also has a TEDx talk that says just as much.
- abandonliberty 9y agotl;dr for all you commenters not reading the article: Barry worked for "New America, a think tank and civic enterprise committed to renewing American politics, prosperity, and purpose in the Digital Age." He criticized Google, a significant patron of the think tank, and got fired when Eric threatened to pull funding. This has little to do with at-will employment and much more about the impact of having most research privately funded in a capitalist environment.
- spacemanmatt 9y agoIf you justify capitalism, this entire story is mundane. I am surprised to hear so much complaint about a private employment termination. I guess it's just the sound of so many bubbles popping. It's like no one knew how think tanks work.
- gbacon 9y agotl;dr: Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
- hibikir 9y agoI used to buy videogames at a Gamestop next to my neighborhood supermarket. At one point, they had an employee that seemed to love to make unnecessary negative comments about my taste in games. It's a manager's prerogative to fire the employee for providing a bad customer experience, just like it was mine to just get my games somewhere else. Ultimately donors are think tank customers, and this is all perfectly fine: A world where I am forced to go to the same store, or a Gamestop manager has to tolerate an employee that tries to deter people from buying non-microsoft products, is probably worse than one where someone on a think tank has to measure what they say. There's learnings to had here though: The case of a think tank relying on very few donors is no different than a B2B startup that relies on a single enterprise company: You have a tremendous risk, the funding can disappear at any time, and for any reason. Anything other than diversification puts you at risk, and it's not really the customer's fault if you put yourself in a very weak position. This also affects far bigger fish, like media companies and even legislators. And that's why we should have care when it comes to both media consolidation, or mechanisms where very few people can have a very big influence in the outcome of an election. But it's not as if we live in a world where the only way to have a think tank that produces policy proposals is to clear everything with Google.
- etjossem 9y agoThe retail example is an oversimplification. When the consumers of a company's product are also its primary source of revenue, nobody is under any illusions about who that company is responsible to. You are the person most impacted by Gamestop's customer experience, and you are also the main way Gamestop makes money. Your satisfaction is paramount, so it makes total sense for a company to fire people who don't deliver. Similar example: there's nothing irresponsible about insisting your public relations firm writes you a flattering press release, because everyone understands that a press release is paid for by the company it concerns. A think tank is a different sort of animal. The donor is not the main entity impacted by the policy proposals the think tank produces. Just like a responsible media outlet must have a notion of journalistic integrity, or a legislator's office should feel beholden to its constituents, a think tank has a responsibility to provide sound policy advice to its readers. You can take the position that "think tanks do not have any level of responsibility to the people who consume their policy proposals" but I certainly would not follow you there. Policy institutes present themselves as rigorously data-driven nonprofits and write with an impartial air. If criticism / negative results are known to lead directly to a loss of funding, then it is disingenuous for the think tank to present itself as impartial, and I would consider it compromised. We tend to solve this problem with regulatory agencies that represent the impacted consumer (and not the source of revenue), though I would note that this is the very solution the author was fired for praising.
- throw2016 9y agoThis is more proof if needed of how damaging most think tanks are to public discourse and the incestuous relationships that prop them up. They are very much part of the regulatory capture framework in operation around power centres. It seems as easy as adopting highly deceptive orwellian sounding names and shamelessly pushing agendas while pretending to be independent. Consumers and citizens end up paying for all this subterfuge in increased end user costs and are basically paying for organized attempts to mislead them.
- mmagin 9y agoHave "think tanks" ever been anything but a big political circle-jerk?
- ABCLAW 9y agoHeck of a lot of Dog wagging here over whether or not Google could legally apply the pressure they did. The answer is yes, they could. Great. The issue isn't whether or not they could. It's whether or not they should be in a position to do so - is the concentration of power required to apply such pressure healthy for society as a whole? It is worth noting that at the time of me making this comment, this is not a single point arguing directly that such concentration is healthy or beneficial.
- icebraining 9y agoBut is the concentration of power really at play here? According to sources, New America got $21M total from Google since '99. From their funding page, they got at least $16M from other sources last year alone. Are they really so dependent on Google?
- ABCLAW 9y ago>But is the concentration of power really at play here? Yes. The executive chairman of the corporation they receive ~%20 of their revenue from called and told them to get rid of the guy. The guy was gone in two days. This isn't a grey area. [Edited revenue figure]
- icebraining 9y agothey receive >%50 of their revenue Do they? What's the source of that?
- ABCLAW 9y agoMisread your comment! Oops. I jumped into New America's filed 990 papers and the number at a first estimate is around 20%. But I haven't added in any personal donations by Eric Schmidt. Perhaps more importantly omitted is the fact that he is the chairman emeritus of the organization.
- fauigerzigerk 9y ago
- megous 9y agoIt's like some Jewish organization funding Nazis and then being surprised (and angried!) that [Nazis] bit the hand that fed them. It's somewhat incomprehensible. Perhaps people assume that Google funded this org because of the ideas it spread, and not for some profit motive, or for some outcome. So now it seems it was never about the ideas. I mean, the left is for anti-monopoly laws, therefore that something like this might happen should have been pretty clear. So it's either stupidity on part of Google, or perhaps they fund such organizations in order to have control over them. (invisible hand of self-censorship, because money)
- Clubber 9y agoThis is the article in a nutshell. Google funds anti-monopoly think tank. Anti monopoly think tank writer praises the EU for fining Google for being anti competitive, Schmidt gets guy fired by threatening to withdraw funding. I know that's just his side of the story, but it doesn't look great for the think tank or the Google. If you didn't know it already, think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine. Shortly after my group published a statement praising the European Union for fining Google for violating antitrust standards in June of this year, I was contacted by Anne-Marie Slaughter, the president of New America, who said that Eric Schmidt, Google’s parent company’s executive chairman, was furious about the statement. Schmidt, she said, was threatening to pull his name and substantial funding from New America in retaliation.
- noir_lord 9y ago> think tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine. Yep and they go back in one form or another centuries possibly millenia, right back to when kings used to pay people to justify why they owed less money to the catholic church.
- dmlorenzetti 9y agothink tanks are a euphemism for propaganda machine I call them "thought tanks" exactly because all the thinking has been done well before any particular question gets asked.
- kazinator 9y agoThe past tense form (and also past participle) of to think is glaringly ambiguous against the noun thought, suggesting that thought might be going on. I humbly suggest the alternative thunk tank. The bad grammar eliminates suspicions of thought and as a bonus, it rhymes with drunk tank. "I thinked and thinked real hard and real long till I couldn' think a nuthin' I ain't already thunk. So I then I passed on the remainin' reckonin' on to the fine folks in the thunk tank."
- planteen 9y agoI like that. So true. It usually seems the conclusion is also decided before much thinking goes on as well.
- binthere 9y agoLet's do a thought experiment: Imagine if a company had enough power to inject money into all of the major media outlets, to the point where they depend on this company to stay alive. Now, if this company threatens to pull the money out if the media outlet says anything that goes against it, the company will effectively have control over the opinions of all major media channels. This is obviously not acceptable in a society that considers itself "free speech". It's free from legal consequences but when you shut opinions down due to "other consequences" you end up with the same result. A muted society.
- danschumann 9y agoLike that law that says you can't own more than x radio stations? But what if you don't "own" them, just fund them. I think we need to stretch the legal definition of ownership to influence.
- noir_lord 9y agoThe funny thing there is we worry about someone having enough money to exert soft power on the media while allowing Murdoch to control a huge chunk of the media market in the UK (and US...). He has far more control of the media than any single company could hope to buy indirectly (and it'd be cheaper to just buy it directly at that point I think).
- walshemj 9y agoWhy do you think Jeff Bezos brought the Washington Post - he saw how Rupert Murdoch works. Google should have brought the independent when it was up for sale cheap
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- gaius 9y agoGoogle might as well cancel all funding to think tanks now - because no-one will believe a single pro-Google word they say.
- mrguyorama 9y agoIf only we could be so lucky. Think tanks are often shown to be biased or otherwise "poisoned", but the average person will refer to and quote what they WANT to believe. Is it even possible for a group like a think tank to remain "clean"? How would they get their funding?
- gaius 9y agoThe RAND Corporation seem to be universally respected, how do they do it?
- dragonwriter 9y agoThe RAND Corp is a military long-range planning project that got separated from Douglas Aircraft to avoid conflict of interest that would jeopardise Douglas’s eligibility for contracts, and then took on a life of its own. It still does a lot of federal work ubder governments of both parties, and's kind of important to that that it's not seen either as an shill for a particular ideology or a shill for particular corporate interests. That is, while advancing particular viewpoints is the purpose of some think tanks and the financial interests of others, it's neither for RAND.
- shp0ngle 9y agoCan you criticise Amazon or Jeff Bezos on wapost?
- nvarsj 9y agoErr who cares? It's irrelevant to TFA and has been discussed ad nauseam.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jondubois 9y agoThink tanks should be funded by governments and they should liaise with industry in an impartial, academic way. Any corporation which tries to fund a think tank should be accused of bribery or corruption.
- spacemanmatt 9y agoYou will be glad to learn about knowledge oriented institutions known as universities. The state funds many of them.
- gbacon 9y agoIs it your position that elected officials; appointed clerks, ministers, and magistrates; and academics are entirely impartial with zero self-interest? Are we ruled by detached philosopher-kings?
- outside1234 9y agoWe see now that "Do no evil" was a sham and a cover story, for in fact, doing evil.
- spacemanmatt 9y agoand Microsoft is neither micro nor soft. This is not a deep observation.
- gojomo 9y agoRelated questions: Should pseudonymous commenters in threads like this disclose if they, in fact, work for Google? Should downvoters? (I've sometimes noticed mildly Google-skeptical comments here sinking in a rush of downvotes, without refutation, and wondered to what extent Google's sheer size suppresses certain discussions.)
- bspringstead 9y agoIf its a reasonable thought and opinion it shouldn't be shot down as something rude. it's your choice to say what you want
- arca_vorago 9y agoThe other angle about Google (and others like Facebook) is the hidden and incestious relationship it has with certain government subfactions. Inqtel always comes up, but that's just the surface of a likely much deeper well. With that in mind, moves like this have a much more sinister tint.
- jotjotzzz 9y agoHave we ever imposed antitrust laws since the early 2000s (Microsoft)? These laws have not caught up with the Internet age, gigantic corporations like Google and Amazon have been expanding freely spreading quickly, they are too big to fail at this point.
- bspringstead 9y agoI used to buy video games at a Gamestop next to my neighborhood supermarket. At one point, they had an employee that seemed to love to make unnecessary negative comments about my taste in games. It's a manager's prerogative to fire the employee for providing a bad customer experience, just like it was mine to just get my games somewhere else. Ultimately donors are think tank customers, and this is all perfectly fine: the world where I am forced to go to the same store, or a Gamestop manager has to tolerate an employee that tries to deter people from buying non-Microsoft products, is probably worse than one where someone on a think tank has to measure what they say. There's learnings to had here though: The case of a think tank relying on very few donors is no different than a B2B startup that relies on a single enterprise company: You have a tremendous risk, the funding can disappear at any time, and for any reason. Anything other than diversification puts you at risk, and it's not really the customer's fault if you put yourself in a very weak position. This also affects far bigger fish, like media companies and even legislators. And that's why we should have care when it comes to both media consolidation, or mechanisms where very few people can have a very big influence on the outcome of an election. But it's not as if we live in a world where the only way to have a think tank that produces policy proposals is to clear everything with Google.
- euyyn 9y agoWithout the weird formatting: > I used to buy video games at a Gamestop next to my neighborhood supermarket. At one point, they had an employee that seemed to love to make unnecessary negative comments about my taste in games. It's a manager's prerogative to fire the employee for providing a bad customer experience, just like it was mine to just get my games somewhere else. Ultimately donors are think tank customers, and this is all perfectly fine: the world where I am forced to go to the same store, or a Gamestop manager has to tolerate an employee that tries to deter people from buying non-Microsoft products, is probably worse than one where someone on a think tank has to measure what they say. > There's learnings to had here though: The case of a think tank relying on very few donors is no different than a B2B startup that relies on a single enterprise company: You have a tremendous risk, the funding can disappear at any time, and for any reason. Anything other than diversification puts you at risk, and it's not really the customer's fault if you put yourself in a very weak position. > This also affects far bigger fish, like media companies and even legislators. And that's why we should have care when it comes to both media consolidation, or mechanisms where very few people can have a very big influence on the outcome of an election. But it's not as if we live in a world where the only way to have a think tank that produces policy proposals is to clear everything with Google.
- bhhaskin 9y agoGoogles growing influence in the world is darn right scary. They are a private company so they can do what ever they want (i.e. they could delist & censor anything the author writes) and claim free speech. If they wanted to they could wipe someone's online identity off the face of the web.
- tryingagainbro 9y agoJust a private army is missing to complete them. Essos maybe? IMO, no company should be this powerful. Let's not forget that Google also bought off quite a few shameless professors during the FTC investigation. http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2017/07/13/google-favorable-research http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2017/07/13/google-favorable-r...
- stillhere 9y agoI don't think the founders could have envisioned this when they wrote the Constitution. What happens when corporations have more power than the government? I would imagine that back in the 1700s the government was the most powerful potential free-speech limiting enemy. However, we can't really tell every private company to allow all free speech because it leads to all sorts of problems. What are we supposed to do? This are fraught with many legal, technical and moral concerns and I hope we can all come together with an acceptable solution.
- akras14 9y agoI used to think that Sundar Pichai was pushing all questionable things at Google. I now realize that roots of the problems may be deeper.
- bitmapbrother 9y agoIf this person expected any other result from his ridiculous action then he was delusional. If my salary is funded by Google and I publically publish a celebratory post congratulating the EU for fining Google then I fully expect to be fired.
- 5trokerac3 9y agoNot at all surprising if you've read When Google Met Wikileaks[0] That being said, how delusional do you have to be working in a political think tank and think it'll be ok to cheer a multi-billion dollar fine against your main financial contributor. This guy got pummeled by his own hubris. [0] - https://www.amazon.com/When-Google-WikiLeaks-Julian-Assange/dp/1944869115 https://www.amazon.com/When-Google-WikiLeaks-Julian-Assange/...
- squarefoot 9y agoA huge number of blogs and sites make money through Google (adwords etc), so technically they're funded also by Google. Does this mean that they cannot host any criticism against Google or risk being shut down?
- mikeash 9y agoWhy is this so interesting? They criticized a major customer and got fired. This would be distressing if it was a newspaper or scientific research organization or something, but I have no expectation that a "think tank" would have a hard wall between customers and output. Does it just come down to some people having a completely different idea of what a "think tank" is and why it exists?
- mulmen 9y agoI think this prompts an interesting conversation about corporate power to influence speech. Also, think tanks impact more than just the people funding them so the customer model doesn't fit as neatly.
- yahyaheee 9y agoPower always collects, while I disagree with this action from an idealist standpoint this is the way the world works currently. Frankly I would rather have Google grabbing up all the power than anyone else I can think of. I understand that they will become exceedingly corrupted, but we need them in charge right now. The world has serious problems and they are well poised to fix them.
- marlokk 9y agoOf course the powerful are the best poised to fix your problems. Freedom of speech is the only peaceful and equitable thing we have to incentivize them to do it though.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y agoMy issue with this is that even if Google is currently acting in the world's best interest(which is arguable with its recent blatant attempts to shape the direction of our culture), power eventually changes hands. Someone eventually will control Google that will exploit that power to the detriment of the country and the world.
- spacemanmatt 9y agoBy "recent blatant attempts to shape the direction of our culture" is it fair to assume you mean firing the man-child author of that manifesto? I was thinking that had much more to do with controlling their own culture than forcing it on anyone else. They didn't make that a public thing, it blew up on them.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago> firing the man-child author of that manifesto Please try to avoid inflammatory language, there's no reason to make this a flame war. We can discuss why we are right or wrong without attacking each other or other people. Yes, I was speaking of the manifesto. The fact that Google fired him instead of discussing why he was wrong for holding opinions that much of the Google workforce hold themselves shows that there is probably merit to his claim of an ideological echo-chamber. Google holds incredible global power to shape and control populations. Given that, it worries me to hear of an echo-chamber forming in a corporation so powerful.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- throw_critic 9y agoITT : a bunch of miserable hard nosed realist cum cynics masturbating to the idea that they're the only ones who understand what think tanks are. Guys, we fucking get it : you truly understand the ways of the world. You're collectively a goddamn intellectual tyrannosaurus. Golf claps to many infinities and beyond. Maybe for once we could move beyond banal observations about how the world is, and perhaps discuss how it ought to be and what can be done to make the human experience suck fewer balls.
- dang 9y agoBig discussion about this yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15131370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15131370
- EmTekker 9y agoOne should really read Julian Assange's views on Schmidt and Google's think tank. It seems like he got it right. Here's the link to the article: http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447 http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bduerst 9y agoJulian Assange also said he would turn himself in if Chelsea Manning was pardoned, which she was. Assange works for RT [1], and cannot be taken seriously, which is probably why you created a new account just to post that. [1] https://www.rt.com/tags/the-julian-assange-show/ https://www.rt.com/tags/the-julian-assange-show/
- EmTekker 9y agoI am not really a hardcore fan of Julian. I found out about his encounter with Schmidt only a few weeks back. and the views he expressed in the article manifested when the whole firing thing happened. So I just wanted to share that. Oh and I've been a long time Hacker News reader, but never posted comments. So I made a new account. There's nothing else to it.
- bduerst 9y agoThat's fine, but you should just know that Assange is a proven liar with ulterior motives. Whatever he says needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
- cjcole 9y agoInteresting read. "Schmidt arrived first, accompanied by his then partner, Lisa Shields. When he introduced her as a vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations—a U.S. foreign-policy think tank with close ties to the State Department—I thought little more of it. Shields herself was straight out of Camelot, having been spotted by John Kennedy Jr.’s side back in the early 1990s. ... Some time later Jared Cohen arrived. With him was Scott Malcomson, introduced as the book’s editor. Three months after the meeting Malcomson would enter the State Department as the lead speechwriter and principal advisor to Susan Rice (then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, now national security advisor). ... I knew little else about Cohen at the time. In fact, Cohen had moved to Google from the U.S. State Department in 2010. He had been a fast-talking “Generation Y” ideas man at State under two U.S. administrations, a courtier from the world of policy think tanks and institutes, poached in his early twenties. He became a senior advisor for Secretaries of State Rice and Clinton. At State, on the Policy Planning Staff, Cohen was soon christened “Condi’s party-starter,” channeling buzzwords from Silicon Valley into U.S. policy circles and producing delightful rhetorical concoctions such as “Public Diplomacy 2.0.” On his Council on Foreign Relations adjunct staff page he listed his expertise as “terrorism; radicalization; impact of connection technologies on 21st century statecraft; Iran.”" What I get from this is that Schmidt has (had?) very deep links into the US State Department. This was new to me so thanks.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- frogpelt 9y agoSo, let's consider why Google would fund an anti-monopoly think tank in the first place. It's so they can wield influence by using their dollars. It's similar to why rich people pay lobbyists. The lobbyist can pull strings with legislators that offset the millions of opinions of less-rich constituents. It makes sense from a purely business perspective.
- _mb 9y agoI'm confused why this story has so many upvotes... someone criticized a company then said company fires the person. BAU?
- dahoramanodoceu 9y agoEverything is political, even your choice of browser and web search. It's a common misconception in America that politics occur in those white marble palaces and that politics is something one does with their mouth and a phone. No. That is the representation, the socialization, of power. "Politics" as we call it is the regularization of power, but power dynamics occur more forcefully everywhere but there.
- iamleppert 9y agoJust look at the corporate double speak and their response: https://www.newamerica.org/new-america/press-releases/new-americas-response-new-york-times/ https://www.newamerica.org/new-america/press-releases/new-am... They even linked to e-mails in an effort to be more transparent but all I can see is more confirmation about what the author said as truth: https://www.newamerica.org/new-america/press-releases/interest-transparency-new-america-releases-email-correspondence-barry-lynn/ https://www.newamerica.org/new-america/press-releases/intere...
- jackcosgrove 9y agoI cannot believe people are defending Google and attacking the researcher. The argument goes, 1) he's a researcher for a think tank, so he's pushing an agenda and not trustworthy. 2) Google made a good business decision by cutting funding for research that goes against their agenda. So, for-profit enterprises can push agendas, but not-for-profit enterprises and the individuals who staff them cannot, because agenda-pushing would undermine the purity of their research. That's obviously a double standard, and one that favors the powerful over the weak. Silicon Valley has become morally repugnant, and Google is evil. I'm on the side of the little guy.
- harry8 9y agoAnd nobody commenting here works for google, has worked for google or hopes to. Not one comment. Because obviously they would be disclosing their interests. Wouldn't they? Disclosure: People commenting in favor of their employer without disclosing that fact sts me to tears.
- the100rabh 9y agoAt the risk of a downvote, let me try to understand the situation here, A gives money to B for research. B uses that money to fund C and C tells the world that A is shit and its destruction is to be celebrated. A is obviously furious and decides not giving money to B anymore. B decides to cut off ties with C to save funding from A. Now C cries fowl and A is super bad to try to cut off funding to B and C. I dont think I understand this world anymore
- necessity 9y agoGood.
- vproman 9y agoPeople seem to be confusing free speech (expression without interference by government) with the ability to say whatever you want without consequence. The pushback from the executive chairman is no less a form of free expression than the writings of the author. This doesn't mean I'm in favor of increasingly large corporations, but this article undermines the argument against massive corporations by presenting a motive that is easily dismissed.
- justinjlynn 9y agoA think tank isn't a tank for thinking in; it is a weapon that fires rounds made of thought.
- roadbeats 9y agoI'm very curious about if there are any Googlers who raise their voice about how Google is maintaining its monopolistic status.
- spacemanmatt 9y agoGoogle enjoys a classic natural monopoly. They had a category-winning search product when it mattered and their success has been built around that market lead. Microsoft has a long history of trying to tie them to monopoly abuse, for which Microsoft was sued by the DOJ. Not much has stuck in the U.S. but Microsoft has seen limited success in convincing (some argue lobbying or outright bribing) European officials to punish Google.
- gbacon 9y agoGoogle was created by a couple of grad students, a demographic not generally able to overcome hurdles of high fixed or startup costs. Attempting to slap the “natural monopoly” label on Google shows that the term is either meaningless or just bunk economics. Either way, it’s a useful foil in the ham fists of interventionists with a bad solution in search of problems.
- gourou 9y ago> Wherever you work, whatever you do, your livelihood and your liberties are every day more at risk as long as we allow a few giant corporations — especially in online commerce — to continue to extend their reach into and over the world of ideas. The last sentence is particularly interesting given The WaPo is owned by Jeff Bezos
- bspringstead 9y agoHypothetically, letting some anti-Google rhetoric through might legitimize an otherwise supportive stance. Say I'm 80% evil and I fund a think tank. The think tank's reputation was 100, and now it's 60 with regard to statements about me because my funding it makes it seem biased. If it published a story that says I'm actually 4% evil, then it gets a reputation boost, I'm not looking as bad as I actually am, and I'm well positioned to let the organization do positive spin when I really need it. I would say that Google and similar .orgs actually usually do this. But Google and Amazon are getting really, really nervous when people talk about monopoly. If anti-trust comes back into vogue, and it could possibly, then it's an existential threat for these empires. They have to carefully manage their carrots and sticks on this issue, and with this one, they went with the stick.
- triggermuch 9y agoIm going to openly state that i am not an expert in business dynamics but I have worked in a few industries that seem to have a system that, while being technically not being a monopoly or breaking laws (usually slowly carved into being legal or they are working at deregulating it to be that way) are doing really shady unfair scheming in order to have the dominating company. This is the goal of a capitalist model. so trying to make your company be the only option is a big success for the people that profit from that company. Its not good for innovation or society in the long term but in America that is the system that is there. This is why regulations have to get set up though, because a company (pretty much 94% of them) if just were allowed a "free market" will at all cost and no regard for what the negatives for society , will work to make a profit and get to a level where least amt of effort and cost bring in max profit to them. It's not evil or even always conscious it's just human nature. look at the millions of people that built the railroads and cities and slaved to make an empire for a small few as they die penniless and broke. Its not right or fair what Google did, but the dude saw someone talk smack and it not only hit ego but could cost profit, so he smacked back. There needs to be a different model altogether, not a shaming someone for doing what any of us would in that spot. As they say dont hate the player, hate the game. I am also not saying i have an answer to finding that model and i dont think with the current climate of tribalism, it's not going to happen until im old or dead. So if you dont like it, stop bitching and try and fix it. You do know that Karma isnt a real thing? some amazing people have nothing but crap happen to them all their life, others are disgusting pigs and have nothing but continued success. Yeah sucks, now buck up cuz google being a meany, is really not a news story. Go find a job creator to create the guy a job.