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Disclaimer: I work for Google and these views are only my opinion, etc. From my perspective, Google's goals are aligned with improving the world by offering in

Disclaimer: I work for Google and these views are only my opinion, etc. From my perspective, Google's goals are aligned with improving the world by offering information services. Search, Gmail, Maps, Translate, basically all of the Other Bets, etc.--it's easy to imagine that the people behind them are more concerned with impact on the world than on generating profit or consolidating Google's power. To me, Facebook has no such world-improving aspirations. The extent to which I'm aware of Facebook's attempt to improve the world was the initiative to bring free internet to India, which was perceived as a play to lock more people into Facebook. Plus, I keep seeing studies of how increased Facebook usage correlates negatively with peoples' moods, so Zuckerberg's evident goal of "get everyone on Earth on Facebook" feels gross. Things obviously aren't just this black and white, and both companies collect user data in order to generate buckets of advertising wealth (which, if you find disagreeable, probably biases you against both companies), but from a personal perspective, I'm quite happy working for Google while I don't think you could pay me enough to work for Facebook.

pnloyd 9y ago
A lot of people seem to default to a really cynical view of tech businesses. I share this same same sentiment with the parent comment where I feel like Google "has my back" and I know for certain there products do make my life easier. This guilty until proven innocent attitude that many people hold is getting kinda old. Giving them your data is the price you pay for their service. If this doesn't seem fair to you then find an alternative. Enough of this scary business. Maybe with the Equifax and Cambridge analytica incidents the broader public will start thinking about privacy more seriously. And in turn companies may start pushing privacy assurances as selling points. (Just reaching for a bit of optimism in these unnerving circumstances, I don't like it either)
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  >I share this same same sentiment with the parent comment where I feel like Google "has my back" and I know for certain there products do make my life easier. I've never understood how people can have such a religious-like faith in a corporation they have never seen the inside of and in which they know not a single person who works there. Gullibility perhaps? >This guilty until proven innocent attitude that many people hold is getting kinda old. Do you care at all about security? Because that is the fundamental assumption behind taking any security precaution whatsoever in life, whether it's putting a lock on your door or not trusting a faceless corporation with billions of the most detailed psychological profiles in history.
  - kimdcmason 9y ago
    .
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
      How is it a strawman?
      - jonathanyc 9y ago
        It’s definitely not. This guy’s comments are all him mis-applying logical fallacies and then saying peoples’ posts should be ignored. Ironic.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        jonathanyc 9y ago
        I’m reading the damn comments on TFA and replying to the horrible ones. And you think I am the one using ad hominems? Take your own advice and disengage.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
- Analemma_ 9y ago
  > A lot of people seem to default to a really cynical view of tech businesses. My response to this was that from 2005 to about 2015, most people defaulted to an overly rosy view of tech businesses. People like us may always have warned about privacy dangers and the like, but among ordinary people the "Google is my friend!" mentality was widespread and it seemed like no one ever grasped that these are businesses first and foremost. The current trend is merely the pendulum swinging the other way, and perhaps it might overshoot or already have done so, but the rose-colored glasses were never going to last forever. If you are in a tech business and this bothers you, I would gently suggest that you may have gotten accustomed to the overly cushy treatment and are now overreacting.
jimmies 9y ago
I don't have a Facebook account because I am not fond of them. But then, in Vietnam Facebook is big because it does two good things. First, it brings unofficial news to everyone -- you can follow political dissidents. In the past, people had to figure out to get over the firewalls to get to those sources of news. Second, it opens commercial niche retail channels for free to many people: You can find people selling really weird stuff online that you can't find anywhere. For now, it's still a net-positive for many people in the country and many political dissidents are happy to publish their voices on Facebook. Now with that in mind, Facebook compiled to the Vietnamese government's requests to put their servers in Vietnam (alongside with Google) [1]. The problem is, while Google was never blocked, in the past in Vietnam, Facebook was blocked (more precisely, blocked intermittently). I don't imagine it was hard for the government to block it completely. Let's be honest, no one will join a social network if it requires you to have a VPN to access it. Why wasn't Facebook blocked anymore, all out of the sudden? The whole buddy buddy/kowtow gesture of Zuckerberg to Xi didn't help my confidence and trust either. It's very chilling to see a person with little ethical compass like him to have such an enormous amount of power. I don't know what is more horrible, them turning in to the government the data of "dumb fucks" following dissidents' news and manipulating them, or people having to figure out how to access news via VPNs like it was in the past. At least, I know not every VPN providers give enough fucks about that country to comply with its government's request. Google was known to be kicked out of China for not complying. Can't say the same thing about Facebook. But then, I can't do anything about any of that stuff, so I might be ok with it. https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sggp.org.vn%2Fgoogle-va-facebook-dat-may-chu-o-dau-485349.html https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u...
knuththetruth 9y ago
Google is helping the government drone people, Schmidt was the head of the Defense Innovation Board, they sell surveillance services to police departments, Google Shopping was on autopilot until a couple of weeks, making money off selling bump stocks and other gun mods to people. I'm not trying to be rude, but I think you have to take a very narrow and convenient view of Google to end up thinking your employer is any "better" than Facebook (who I otherwise agree is awful). https://theintercept.com/2018/03/06/google-is-quietly-providing-ai-technology-for-drone-strike-targeting-project/ https://theintercept.com/2018/03/06/google-is-quietly-provid... http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/04/05/silicon-valley-beware-big-five/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/04/05/silicon-valley-be... https://thebaffler.com/latest/oakland-surveillance-levine https://thebaffler.com/latest/oakland-surveillance-levine https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/967509077591867392?lang=en https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/967509077591867392?lang=...
anarazel 9y ago
OTOH, google's ad-models have thoroughly broken models of financing reporting that wasn't as reliant on clickbait to even get seen. While surely not the sole culprit, the need to create engagedness at all cost has increased polarization and also has a mental health cost. Youtube is serving as a major driver of different forms of radicalization (ISIS, alt right, etc). I'm not saying that you should resign. But I do think we all have the tendency to not evenly attempt to assuage technology risks. Partially there's an attention bias towards specific concerns (e.g. free speech / censorship), partially a negative attention bias towards things that pay our bills.
gdwatson 9y ago
Google's idea of improving the world is hardly apolitical. Consider the YouTube rule changes on firearms -- whether or not they improve the world is going to depend on your views, but Google is surely throwing its weight around in a political way.
- snowpanda 9y ago
  Or the fact that Google has a doodle for every single holiday people never heard about, but of course skipped the Easter doodle. Yeah very apolitical indeed /s
- hcnews 9y ago
  Only in the US can actions regarding firearms be considered a political move. (Most of) Rest of the world sees it as a safety issue and is happy to give away their firearms.
  - gdwatson 9y ago
    The U.S. has a somewhat different take from much of the world on several civil liberties issues, including freedom of speech and freedom of religion. As an American I'm quite proud of that fact.
    - hcnews 9y ago
      Proudness is quite an unimportant emotion when the betterment of human society is at stake. In fact, there are tons of examples where proudness leads to blindness (most probably close to 100% of the time). I personally explicitly try not to be proud of anything to avoid any oversight. Anyways, its interesting to see how people frequently forget about progress and hold on to old ideas. They forget the importance of continuously fixing problems. They also forget that usually the solution to a problem is usually the simplest one (especially one that's been proven).
    - Paradigma11 9y ago
      And yet some guys flew 2 planes in a building complex and you got the patriot act.
jonathanyc 9y ago
Come on. It’s getting kind of ridiculous how many Google employees are showing up in these discussions saying “oh, if you work at Facebook, you’re horrible! but people at Google are really trying to make the world a better place.” I turned down a job offer from Facebook because after a lot of thought I decided I couldn’t work at such a company. I didn’t even apply to Google because Google’s attitude towards privacy and data collection is just insane. Does the average person with an Android phone really know their location is being uploaded minute by minute to Google? Was asking if they want to “make Android better” really a good faith effort to obtain consent? > From my perspective, Google's goals are aligned with improving the world by offering information services. Search, Gmail, Maps, Translate, basically all of the Other Bets, etc.--it's easy to imagine that the people behind them are more concerned with impact on the world than on generating profit or consolidating Google's power. > To me, Facebook has no such world-improving aspirations. Again, come on. Clearly most Facebook employees and most Google employees are not evil moustache-twirling sociopaths. As grating as it can sound, Facebook’s stated goal of “connecting the world” is at least as valuable as “offering information services,” your idealized version of Google’s goal. Let’s be realistic. I don’t think people should work at Google or Facebook, but I know that there are lots of factors that can go into choosing where to work, so I am hesitant to publicly say “haha, you couldn’t pay me enough to work at Facebook/Google!” Seeing Google employees saying exactly that about Facebook is just laughable.
- dnomad 9y ago
  You keep repeating this falsehood: > Does the average person with an Android phone really know their location is being uploaded minute by minute to Google? It doesn't seem like you have any idea how Google actually captures user's location data. Not only does Google give you the full ability to control and delete your location data [1] but the data collection is not on by default (though applications like Maps will prompt for it) and the data is always anonymized when used and most importantly the data is never shared with commercial third parties (though I believe Google may make anonymized data available to researchers whose projects pass certain ethical checks). This data is used to drive projects like Maps and 'Popular Times' and real-time directions that people really, really like. So while you seem to want to paint Google as manipulating people to harvest their data and sell it to the highest bidder (what Facebook basically does) nothing could be further from the truth. Facts matter. I would personally say when it comes to handling user data Google is probably the most ethical and rigorous company in the world. I can't think of any other company that goes to such great lengths to protect user data as much as Goog does. It's been remarked many times that your data stored in Google's network is more secure than your data stored in NSA's network. Certainly you'll never see anything like private employees tracking their spouses using Google's data [2]. And here's the thing: Facebook is also pretty damn secure when it comes to user's data. Obviously they fucked up with their API but again I think a sober review of most American tech companies will show Facebook doing more to protect user data. You should be much more concerned with many of the fly-by-night websites that pump out fake news or sell cheap Chinese goods to people who don't know better. In fact it's these websites whose sole purpose is to suck up user data for profit. The real point here of course is that while it may feel good to bash Google and Facebook it is not the best use of energy. What the US needs is what the EU is doing: real privacy regulation with real teeth that applies to any organization whose site serves American citizens. But somehow I don't see that happening any time soon, right? [1] https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687?hl=en https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687?hl=en [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog/nsa-staff-used-spy-tools-on-spouses-ex-lovers-watchdog-idUSBRE98Q14G20130927 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog...
hcnews 9y ago
I think one of the key points that has come out of the discussions in the last year or so is that the general public cannot trust Google or Facebook or any organization to keep its best interest at heart. Their needs to be better targeted government regulation that is designed by a impartial third-party and serves the best interests of general public. The worst thing we could get out of the computer revolution is the majority of the world becoming scapegoats for a few people living in Bay Area.
hacknat 9y ago
Okay, get off your moral high ground. Google is an advertitizing company. I fail to see how they are any different than a broadcast network or Facebook for that matter. You put out a product and make money off of ads. “Information services to make the world a better place” are you really serious? Does everyone at Google drink the Kool-Aid this hard? You know who should be proud of themselves for working at a company that doesn’t make money off of people’s private information, and is actually creating cutting edge technology and services that people just pay for? Amazon. Amazon has made the world a better place than Google and Facebook put together.
CaptSpify 9y ago
> From my perspective, Google's goals are aligned with improving the world by offering information services. Search, Gmail, Maps, Translate, basically all of the Other Bets, etc.--it's easy to imagine that the people behind them are more concerned with impact on the world than on generating profit or consolidating Google's power. I completely believe that the people behind them are more concerned with impact than on generating profit or consolidating Google's power, but good intentions only get you so far. Google is still abusing it's power, whether that is the goal of the people behind it or not. Google could build those systems in a way that protects their user's privacy, but choose not to, simply because they are optimizing for profit, rather than for empowering their users. Most people aren't scared of the intentions of the good people at Google, it's that Google clearly has too many people with bad intentions in the mix as well, based on the actions that the company takes as a whole.
zombieprocesses 9y ago
> From my perspective, Google's goals are aligned with improving the world by offering information services. Ah yes. From "Don't be evil" to "Improve the world"? Who asked google to "improve" anything? > To me, Facebook has no such world-improving aspirations. Which is why they are being attacked. They are neutral. > Plus, I keep seeing studies of how increased Facebook usage correlates negatively with peoples' moods The same applies to google. The more you use youtube/google/google news/etc, the more depress you are. This also translates to news media itself. > so Zuckerberg's evident goal of "get everyone on Earth on Facebook" feels gross. Google is even worse. Censorship + agenda peddling + discrimination + google has far stronger monopoly on people's attention and far more information. No offense, but I wouldn't work for either google or facebook. Both are terrible for society and freedom and mental health.
- Ivoirians 9y ago
  I'm not saying Google handles everything correctly. My comment was meant as an explanation as to why one person has a positive perspective of Google and a negative perspective of Facebook. Obviously if someone thinks Google is destroying the world, they're going to want to change my opinion/as many positive opinions of Google as possible, and I respect that even if I disagree. To respond to your points quickly: I'd rather support a company with a moral stance I agreed with than one that was neutral. I think news media in general has a problem with sensationalism/optimizing-for-clicks/echo chambers, but I don't perceive that Google is particularly bad as an news aggregator. I think a lot of complaints about Google/Youtube overlook that most policy decisions about removals/demonetization are driven not by politics or agendas, but by advertisers, without which Google/Youtube would not exist. (And again, if you disagree and believe that targeted advertising is itself a net bad for the world, oh well.) Personally, I think viewpoint polarization and the internet's enabling of echo chambers is the biggest problem facing the world. I know Google is often accused of making the problem worse, but I don't agree. Google News, for example, won't stop showing me Fox/Breitbart articles, even though they have to have enough data on me to know I'm super far-left. Anyway, I did some searching (on Google, ha), but can't find any articles linking Google/Youtube usage to mental health problems, so I'd be interested if I'm wrong. The only one I remember seeing said Youtube had a positive effect on mental health. (https://www.psychalive.org/worst-mental-health-instagram-facebook-youtube/ https://www.psychalive.org/worst-mental-health-instagram-fac...)
Fins 9y ago
Pretty much every major company has a mission statement about "improving the world" in some way. Can't really think of any that says that their goal is to cheat, lie, and steal to hasten the coming of the Brave New World. If you seriously think that "people behind them are more concerned with impact on the world than on generating profit" then I have a bridge to sell. Oh, and shareholders would like a word with you, too. There's nothing wrong with generating profit, and I would trust people motivated by profit fart more than ones motivated by the whole "making the world a better place" -- the latter tend to be genocidal maniacs -- but for companies that's exactly what they are supposed to do, generate profit. It just would be nice if they were a bit more transparent about how they do it, whether Facebook, or Google.

pnloyd 9y ago

A lot of people seem to default to a really cynical view of tech businesses. I share this same same sentiment with the parent comment where I feel like Google "has my back" and I know for certain there products do make my life easier. This guilty until proven innocent attitude that many people hold is getting kinda old. Giving them your data is the price you pay for their service. If this doesn't seem fair to you then find an alternative. Enough of this scary business. Maybe with the Equifax and Cambridge analytica incidents the broader public will start thinking about privacy more seriously. And in turn companies may start pushing privacy assurances as selling points. (Just reaching for a bit of optimism in these unnerving circumstances, I don't like it either)

wu-ikkyu 9y ago
>I share this same same sentiment with the parent comment where I feel like Google "has my back" and I know for certain there products do make my life easier. I've never understood how people can have such a religious-like faith in a corporation they have never seen the inside of and in which they know not a single person who works there. Gullibility perhaps? >This guilty until proven innocent attitude that many people hold is getting kinda old. Do you care at all about security? Because that is the fundamental assumption behind taking any security precaution whatsoever in life, whether it's putting a lock on your door or not trusting a faceless corporation with billions of the most detailed psychological profiles in history.
- kimdcmason 9y ago
  .
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
    How is it a strawman?
    - jonathanyc 9y ago
      It’s definitely not. This guy’s comments are all him mis-applying logical fallacies and then saying peoples’ posts should be ignored. Ironic.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        jonathanyc 9y ago
        I’m reading the damn comments on TFA and replying to the horrible ones. And you think I am the one using ad hominems? Take your own advice and disengage.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
Analemma_ 9y ago
> A lot of people seem to default to a really cynical view of tech businesses. My response to this was that from 2005 to about 2015, most people defaulted to an overly rosy view of tech businesses. People like us may always have warned about privacy dangers and the like, but among ordinary people the "Google is my friend!" mentality was widespread and it seemed like no one ever grasped that these are businesses first and foremost. The current trend is merely the pendulum swinging the other way, and perhaps it might overshoot or already have done so, but the rose-colored glasses were never going to last forever. If you are in a tech business and this bothers you, I would gently suggest that you may have gotten accustomed to the overly cushy treatment and are now overreacting.

jimmies 9y ago

I don't have a Facebook account because I am not fond of them. But then, in Vietnam Facebook is big because it does two good things. First, it brings unofficial news to everyone -- you can follow political dissidents. In the past, people had to figure out to get over the firewalls to get to those sources of news. Second, it opens commercial niche retail channels for free to many people: You can find people selling really weird stuff online that you can't find anywhere. For now, it's still a net-positive for many people in the country and many political dissidents are happy to publish their voices on Facebook. Now with that in mind, Facebook compiled to the Vietnamese government's requests to put their servers in Vietnam (alongside with Google) [1]. The problem is, while Google was never blocked, in the past in Vietnam, Facebook was blocked (more precisely, blocked intermittently). I don't imagine it was hard for the government to block it completely. Let's be honest, no one will join a social network if it requires you to have a VPN to access it. Why wasn't Facebook blocked anymore, all out of the sudden? The whole buddy buddy/kowtow gesture of Zuckerberg to Xi didn't help my confidence and trust either. It's very chilling to see a person with little ethical compass like him to have such an enormous amount of power. I don't know what is more horrible, them turning in to the government the data of "dumb fucks" following dissidents' news and manipulating them, or people having to figure out how to access news via VPNs like it was in the past. At least, I know not every VPN providers give enough fucks about that country to comply with its government's request. Google was known to be kicked out of China for not complying. Can't say the same thing about Facebook. But then, I can't do anything about any of that stuff, so I might be ok with it. https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sggp.org.vn%2Fgoogle-va-facebook-dat-may-chu-o-dau-485349.html https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u...

knuththetruth 9y ago

Google is helping the government drone people, Schmidt was the head of the Defense Innovation Board, they sell surveillance services to police departments, Google Shopping was on autopilot until a couple of weeks, making money off selling bump stocks and other gun mods to people. I'm not trying to be rude, but I think you have to take a very narrow and convenient view of Google to end up thinking your employer is any "better" than Facebook (who I otherwise agree is awful). https://theintercept.com/2018/03/06/google-is-quietly-providing-ai-technology-for-drone-strike-targeting-project/ https://theintercept.com/2018/03/06/google-is-quietly-provid... http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/04/05/silicon-valley-beware-big-five/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/04/05/silicon-valley-be... https://thebaffler.com/latest/oakland-surveillance-levine https://thebaffler.com/latest/oakland-surveillance-levine https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/967509077591867392?lang=en https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/967509077591867392?lang=...

anarazel 9y ago

OTOH, google's ad-models have thoroughly broken models of financing reporting that wasn't as reliant on clickbait to even get seen. While surely not the sole culprit, the need to create engagedness at all cost has increased polarization and also has a mental health cost. Youtube is serving as a major driver of different forms of radicalization (ISIS, alt right, etc). I'm not saying that you should resign. But I do think we all have the tendency to not evenly attempt to assuage technology risks. Partially there's an attention bias towards specific concerns (e.g. free speech / censorship), partially a negative attention bias towards things that pay our bills.

gdwatson 9y ago

Google's idea of improving the world is hardly apolitical. Consider the YouTube rule changes on firearms -- whether or not they improve the world is going to depend on your views, but Google is surely throwing its weight around in a political way.

snowpanda 9y ago
Or the fact that Google has a doodle for every single holiday people never heard about, but of course skipped the Easter doodle. Yeah very apolitical indeed /s
hcnews 9y ago
Only in the US can actions regarding firearms be considered a political move. (Most of) Rest of the world sees it as a safety issue and is happy to give away their firearms.
- gdwatson 9y ago
  The U.S. has a somewhat different take from much of the world on several civil liberties issues, including freedom of speech and freedom of religion. As an American I'm quite proud of that fact.
  - hcnews 9y ago
    Proudness is quite an unimportant emotion when the betterment of human society is at stake. In fact, there are tons of examples where proudness leads to blindness (most probably close to 100% of the time). I personally explicitly try not to be proud of anything to avoid any oversight. Anyways, its interesting to see how people frequently forget about progress and hold on to old ideas. They forget the importance of continuously fixing problems. They also forget that usually the solution to a problem is usually the simplest one (especially one that's been proven).
  - Paradigma11 9y ago
    And yet some guys flew 2 planes in a building complex and you got the patriot act.

jonathanyc 9y ago

Come on. It’s getting kind of ridiculous how many Google employees are showing up in these discussions saying “oh, if you work at Facebook, you’re horrible! but people at Google are really trying to make the world a better place.” I turned down a job offer from Facebook because after a lot of thought I decided I couldn’t work at such a company. I didn’t even apply to Google because Google’s attitude towards privacy and data collection is just insane. Does the average person with an Android phone really know their location is being uploaded minute by minute to Google? Was asking if they want to “make Android better” really a good faith effort to obtain consent? > From my perspective, Google's goals are aligned with improving the world by offering information services. Search, Gmail, Maps, Translate, basically all of the Other Bets, etc.--it's easy to imagine that the people behind them are more concerned with impact on the world than on generating profit or consolidating Google's power. > To me, Facebook has no such world-improving aspirations. Again, come on. Clearly most Facebook employees and most Google employees are not evil moustache-twirling sociopaths. As grating as it can sound, Facebook’s stated goal of “connecting the world” is at least as valuable as “offering information services,” your idealized version of Google’s goal. Let’s be realistic. I don’t think people should work at Google or Facebook, but I know that there are lots of factors that can go into choosing where to work, so I am hesitant to publicly say “haha, you couldn’t pay me enough to work at Facebook/Google!” Seeing Google employees saying exactly that about Facebook is just laughable.

dnomad 9y ago
You keep repeating this falsehood: > Does the average person with an Android phone really know their location is being uploaded minute by minute to Google? It doesn't seem like you have any idea how Google actually captures user's location data. Not only does Google give you the full ability to control and delete your location data [1] but the data collection is not on by default (though applications like Maps will prompt for it) and the data is always anonymized when used and most importantly the data is never shared with commercial third parties (though I believe Google may make anonymized data available to researchers whose projects pass certain ethical checks). This data is used to drive projects like Maps and 'Popular Times' and real-time directions that people really, really like. So while you seem to want to paint Google as manipulating people to harvest their data and sell it to the highest bidder (what Facebook basically does) nothing could be further from the truth. Facts matter. I would personally say when it comes to handling user data Google is probably the most ethical and rigorous company in the world. I can't think of any other company that goes to such great lengths to protect user data as much as Goog does. It's been remarked many times that your data stored in Google's network is more secure than your data stored in NSA's network. Certainly you'll never see anything like private employees tracking their spouses using Google's data [2]. And here's the thing: Facebook is also pretty damn secure when it comes to user's data. Obviously they fucked up with their API but again I think a sober review of most American tech companies will show Facebook doing more to protect user data. You should be much more concerned with many of the fly-by-night websites that pump out fake news or sell cheap Chinese goods to people who don't know better. In fact it's these websites whose sole purpose is to suck up user data for profit. The real point here of course is that while it may feel good to bash Google and Facebook it is not the best use of energy. What the US needs is what the EU is doing: real privacy regulation with real teeth that applies to any organization whose site serves American citizens. But somehow I don't see that happening any time soon, right? [1] https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687?hl=en https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687?hl=en [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog/nsa-staff-used-spy-tools-on-spouses-ex-lovers-watchdog-idUSBRE98Q14G20130927 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-surveillance-watchdog...

hcnews 9y ago

I think one of the key points that has come out of the discussions in the last year or so is that the general public cannot trust Google or Facebook or any organization to keep its best interest at heart. Their needs to be better targeted government regulation that is designed by a impartial third-party and serves the best interests of general public. The worst thing we could get out of the computer revolution is the majority of the world becoming scapegoats for a few people living in Bay Area.

hacknat 9y ago

Okay, get off your moral high ground. Google is an advertitizing company. I fail to see how they are any different than a broadcast network or Facebook for that matter. You put out a product and make money off of ads. “Information services to make the world a better place” are you really serious? Does everyone at Google drink the Kool-Aid this hard? You know who should be proud of themselves for working at a company that doesn’t make money off of people’s private information, and is actually creating cutting edge technology and services that people just pay for? Amazon. Amazon has made the world a better place than Google and Facebook put together.

CaptSpify 9y ago

> From my perspective, Google's goals are aligned with improving the world by offering information services. Search, Gmail, Maps, Translate, basically all of the Other Bets, etc.--it's easy to imagine that the people behind them are more concerned with impact on the world than on generating profit or consolidating Google's power. I completely believe that the people behind them are more concerned with impact than on generating profit or consolidating Google's power, but good intentions only get you so far. Google is still abusing it's power, whether that is the goal of the people behind it or not. Google could build those systems in a way that protects their user's privacy, but choose not to, simply because they are optimizing for profit, rather than for empowering their users. Most people aren't scared of the intentions of the good people at Google, it's that Google clearly has too many people with bad intentions in the mix as well, based on the actions that the company takes as a whole.

zombieprocesses 9y ago

> From my perspective, Google's goals are aligned with improving the world by offering information services. Ah yes. From "Don't be evil" to "Improve the world"? Who asked google to "improve" anything? > To me, Facebook has no such world-improving aspirations. Which is why they are being attacked. They are neutral. > Plus, I keep seeing studies of how increased Facebook usage correlates negatively with peoples' moods The same applies to google. The more you use youtube/google/google news/etc, the more depress you are. This also translates to news media itself. > so Zuckerberg's evident goal of "get everyone on Earth on Facebook" feels gross. Google is even worse. Censorship + agenda peddling + discrimination + google has far stronger monopoly on people's attention and far more information. No offense, but I wouldn't work for either google or facebook. Both are terrible for society and freedom and mental health.

Ivoirians 9y ago
I'm not saying Google handles everything correctly. My comment was meant as an explanation as to why one person has a positive perspective of Google and a negative perspective of Facebook. Obviously if someone thinks Google is destroying the world, they're going to want to change my opinion/as many positive opinions of Google as possible, and I respect that even if I disagree. To respond to your points quickly: I'd rather support a company with a moral stance I agreed with than one that was neutral. I think news media in general has a problem with sensationalism/optimizing-for-clicks/echo chambers, but I don't perceive that Google is particularly bad as an news aggregator. I think a lot of complaints about Google/Youtube overlook that most policy decisions about removals/demonetization are driven not by politics or agendas, but by advertisers, without which Google/Youtube would not exist. (And again, if you disagree and believe that targeted advertising is itself a net bad for the world, oh well.) Personally, I think viewpoint polarization and the internet's enabling of echo chambers is the biggest problem facing the world. I know Google is often accused of making the problem worse, but I don't agree. Google News, for example, won't stop showing me Fox/Breitbart articles, even though they have to have enough data on me to know I'm super far-left. Anyway, I did some searching (on Google, ha), but can't find any articles linking Google/Youtube usage to mental health problems, so I'd be interested if I'm wrong. The only one I remember seeing said Youtube had a positive effect on mental health. (https://www.psychalive.org/worst-mental-health-instagram-facebook-youtube/ https://www.psychalive.org/worst-mental-health-instagram-fac...)

Fins 9y ago

Pretty much every major company has a mission statement about "improving the world" in some way. Can't really think of any that says that their goal is to cheat, lie, and steal to hasten the coming of the Brave New World. If you seriously think that "people behind them are more concerned with impact on the world than on generating profit" then I have a bridge to sell. Oh, and shareholders would like a word with you, too. There's nothing wrong with generating profit, and I would trust people motivated by profit fart more than ones motivated by the whole "making the world a better place" -- the latter tend to be genocidal maniacs -- but for companies that's exactly what they are supposed to do, generate profit. It just would be nice if they were a bit more transparent about how they do it, whether Facebook, or Google.