7 ms·

I work at Google. Google can be very conservative and risk-averse in following regulations, but ask far as I can tell Google is one of the least pro-government,

I work at Google. Google can be very conservative and risk-averse in following regulations, but ask far as I can tell Google is one of the least pro-government, pro-censorship, pro-regulations, pro-military corporations in the world.

CryoLogic 8y ago
There are hundreds of instances of Google censoring websites, YouTube channels and plus accounts that promoted political philosophies that did not agree with the company culture. I think by that metric Google is very pro censorship when it comes to their own social media platforms
- mavhc 8y ago
  Name 5
  - trumped 8y ago
    sometimes they do a "soft" censor and just push them down the search result list so that any casual user would never see them... but they also do some hard censoring.
  - dane-pgp 8y ago
    Is your point that Google haven't censored more than 5 times, or that Google mostly censors people who aren't famous/memorable and therefore it's hard to name 5? https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/816mzt/big_alphabetical_list_of_banned_youtube_channels/ https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/816mzt/big_alph... Perhaps you're saying that, if provided with a list of 5 examples, you would defend why Google chose to censor in those specific cases. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the details of all these cases to be able to pick 5 particularly controversial examples, but I still feel uneasy about the amount of power Google has to silence opinions it disagrees with.
    - agildehaus 8y ago
      Linking /r/conspiracy doesn't help your case.
      - standardcitizen 8y ago
        Is the information correct or incorrect? I’m not a massive fan boy if such kind of topics either. Often the crazy ones tell us research things that we often bypass. This is one of those times. I don’t agree with their messaging, but Alex Jones should be allowed. Again I completely whole heartily disagree with him, but we can’t be selective in this area. We’ve kind of validated him to some degree and made him much much bigger than before. There is a class of people who feel like they aren’t being heard or lied too. Yet we often use tactics to discredit them. I think this only embolden them. We can even discuss things, without doing the mental laziness of saying. I don’t wanna look at your source, because it’s x. Within universities, you can’t use one source, why would you think it’s ok now? You need supporting claims, if you disagree, than support it.. stop being mentally lazy.
        agildehaus 8y ago
        How exactly do you find a list of YouTube channels "correct" or "incorrect"? YouTube bans thousands of channels a day. It's their right to ban whomever they please and they likely didn't even give the channel owner a reason much less me. For all I know each one of those violated very reasonable terms. Where did this list even come from? Why are these channels special enough to make it to this list? My guess is the poster agreed with their content, or found news about their banning through various conspiracy-oriented websites. There's no reason whatsoever to think this list is interesting. There is, however, plenty of reason to think where it was posted is not worth my time.
        dane-pgp 8y ago
        The discussion has gone from "There are hundreds of instances of Google censoring ... YouTube channels ..." to "Name 5" to a list of dozens, to "YouTube bans thousands of channels a day", with different commenters making subtly different points at each stage. I think the original point was that Google has a policy of censoring people based on the (perfectly legal) political views that those people have. As you say, Google has the absolute legal right to censor people because of their political views, and presumably you think it is not a problem if they do so. So I don't think the interesting question is how many of the thousands of channels a day were banned for their unpopular political speech (nor is it interesting to know how special the channels on the r/conspiracy list are), but rather we should ask whether it is good for society if an entity as powerful as Google has this much editorial control over who is exposed to which ideas.
  - dzhiurgis 8y ago
    Bans Alex Jones from youtube (tbh fuck that clown) Fires the memo guy Complies to DMCA My favourite is Google officially comparing EU’s right to be forgotten law with russia’s anti gay propaganda law... cannot get lower than that.
    - IshKebab 8y ago
      So 2 then.
CryoLogic 8y ago
Here is just a small handful of YouTube channels censored based on their political views: According to Joe Adamic Amethyst AmericanEveryman animal farm Anti-School aplaintruth Arthur Koestler ashtonbirdie Back to the Constitution Barry Soetoro Blackstone Bombard’s Body Language Brave New World Charles Walton Charlton Colin Flaherty Crow777 Darkness at Noon David Seaman Defango Destroying the Illusion Dr. Jerome Corsi Dr. of Common Sense Dustin Nemos Edgy Sphinx Elliott Marxx Eric Dubay Factions of Freedom FAKE NEWS REPORT Free Radio Revolution Revived FromDeath2Life Gematrianator HowISeeTheWorld InTruthbyGrace Jake Morphonios Jay Myers Jim Marrs Joanne Steen Johnny Supertramp JYW420 Kalika from “For the People” Kearn Kearsy Kevin K Johnston Kinningan Lawarewolf Liberty Columnist Mag Bitter Truth Matrix Breakout Max Malone McFly There are many, many more. Regardless of your political views censorship of freedom of speech is a slippery slope. I found these with a tiny search for channels banned because YouTube didn't agree with them politically. Note: it appears some have been unbanned and others unbanned but demonetized.
- joshuamorton 8y ago
  I took a cursory look through those, and every one I looked at appeared to be claiming that Sandy Hook/Las Vegas/Anothy Bourdain's suicide/some other thing was fake and a conspiracy. Can you explain how "Sandy hook was faked and no children were killed" is a political view? Or how "Anthony Bourdain's suicide was faked for monetary gain" is somehow a political opinion?
  - CryoLogic 8y ago
    I never said I agreed with any of the channels or their content if you read my comment closely. I only against censoring freedom of speech and creating ideological echo Chambers.
    - uvatbc 8y ago
      Unless you want to claim that Google is now a tool of the Government (A), then your point of censorship and free speech are moot. (A): This extraordinary claim would require extraordinary evidence.
hedora 8y ago
Google has well-documented ties to the US state dept at the highest levels of both organizations. For example: https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ There are many allegations in there, but the most salacious one is that Schmidt’s girlfriend was illegally working for Hillary on State dept matters. (I believe they made audio recordings of the phone calls that prove this, but can’t find the shorter write up anywhere).
- hedora 8y ago
  Since the sibling posts are mostly right wing, and I only mentioned Hillary Clinton, here is a more bipartisan example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Cohen https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Cohen The CEO of Jigsaw (formerly Google Ideas) advised both Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton.
alecbenzer 8y ago
What's the actual legal argument here? What's the text of the regulation? Why does Google interpret it to mean this whereas Amazon and Microsoft don't?
influx 8y ago
Are you an official spokesperson for Google?

CryoLogic 8y ago

There are hundreds of instances of Google censoring websites, YouTube channels and plus accounts that promoted political philosophies that did not agree with the company culture. I think by that metric Google is very pro censorship when it comes to their own social media platforms

mavhc 8y ago
Name 5
- trumped 8y ago
  sometimes they do a "soft" censor and just push them down the search result list so that any casual user would never see them... but they also do some hard censoring.
- dane-pgp 8y ago
  Is your point that Google haven't censored more than 5 times, or that Google mostly censors people who aren't famous/memorable and therefore it's hard to name 5? https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/816mzt/big_alphabetical_list_of_banned_youtube_channels/ https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/816mzt/big_alph... Perhaps you're saying that, if provided with a list of 5 examples, you would defend why Google chose to censor in those specific cases. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the details of all these cases to be able to pick 5 particularly controversial examples, but I still feel uneasy about the amount of power Google has to silence opinions it disagrees with.
  - agildehaus 8y ago
    Linking /r/conspiracy doesn't help your case.
    - standardcitizen 8y ago
      Is the information correct or incorrect? I’m not a massive fan boy if such kind of topics either. Often the crazy ones tell us research things that we often bypass. This is one of those times. I don’t agree with their messaging, but Alex Jones should be allowed. Again I completely whole heartily disagree with him, but we can’t be selective in this area. We’ve kind of validated him to some degree and made him much much bigger than before. There is a class of people who feel like they aren’t being heard or lied too. Yet we often use tactics to discredit them. I think this only embolden them. We can even discuss things, without doing the mental laziness of saying. I don’t wanna look at your source, because it’s x. Within universities, you can’t use one source, why would you think it’s ok now? You need supporting claims, if you disagree, than support it.. stop being mentally lazy.
      - agildehaus 8y ago
        How exactly do you find a list of YouTube channels "correct" or "incorrect"? YouTube bans thousands of channels a day. It's their right to ban whomever they please and they likely didn't even give the channel owner a reason much less me. For all I know each one of those violated very reasonable terms. Where did this list even come from? Why are these channels special enough to make it to this list? My guess is the poster agreed with their content, or found news about their banning through various conspiracy-oriented websites. There's no reason whatsoever to think this list is interesting. There is, however, plenty of reason to think where it was posted is not worth my time.
        dane-pgp 8y ago
        The discussion has gone from "There are hundreds of instances of Google censoring ... YouTube channels ..." to "Name 5" to a list of dozens, to "YouTube bans thousands of channels a day", with different commenters making subtly different points at each stage. I think the original point was that Google has a policy of censoring people based on the (perfectly legal) political views that those people have. As you say, Google has the absolute legal right to censor people because of their political views, and presumably you think it is not a problem if they do so. So I don't think the interesting question is how many of the thousands of channels a day were banned for their unpopular political speech (nor is it interesting to know how special the channels on the r/conspiracy list are), but rather we should ask whether it is good for society if an entity as powerful as Google has this much editorial control over who is exposed to which ideas.
- dzhiurgis 8y ago
  Bans Alex Jones from youtube (tbh fuck that clown) Fires the memo guy Complies to DMCA My favourite is Google officially comparing EU’s right to be forgotten law with russia’s anti gay propaganda law... cannot get lower than that.
  - IshKebab 8y ago
    So 2 then.

CryoLogic 8y ago

Here is just a small handful of YouTube channels censored based on their political views: According to Joe Adamic Amethyst AmericanEveryman animal farm Anti-School aplaintruth Arthur Koestler ashtonbirdie Back to the Constitution Barry Soetoro Blackstone Bombard’s Body Language Brave New World Charles Walton Charlton Colin Flaherty Crow777 Darkness at Noon David Seaman Defango Destroying the Illusion Dr. Jerome Corsi Dr. of Common Sense Dustin Nemos Edgy Sphinx Elliott Marxx Eric Dubay Factions of Freedom FAKE NEWS REPORT Free Radio Revolution Revived FromDeath2Life Gematrianator HowISeeTheWorld InTruthbyGrace Jake Morphonios Jay Myers Jim Marrs Joanne Steen Johnny Supertramp JYW420 Kalika from “For the People” Kearn Kearsy Kevin K Johnston Kinningan Lawarewolf Liberty Columnist Mag Bitter Truth Matrix Breakout Max Malone McFly There are many, many more. Regardless of your political views censorship of freedom of speech is a slippery slope. I found these with a tiny search for channels banned because YouTube didn't agree with them politically. Note: it appears some have been unbanned and others unbanned but demonetized.

joshuamorton 8y ago
I took a cursory look through those, and every one I looked at appeared to be claiming that Sandy Hook/Las Vegas/Anothy Bourdain's suicide/some other thing was fake and a conspiracy. Can you explain how "Sandy hook was faked and no children were killed" is a political view? Or how "Anthony Bourdain's suicide was faked for monetary gain" is somehow a political opinion?
- CryoLogic 8y ago
  I never said I agreed with any of the channels or their content if you read my comment closely. I only against censoring freedom of speech and creating ideological echo Chambers.
  - uvatbc 8y ago
    Unless you want to claim that Google is now a tool of the Government (A), then your point of censorship and free speech are moot. (A): This extraordinary claim would require extraordinary evidence.

hedora 8y ago

Google has well-documented ties to the US state dept at the highest levels of both organizations. For example: https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ There are many allegations in there, but the most salacious one is that Schmidt’s girlfriend was illegally working for Hillary on State dept matters. (I believe they made audio recordings of the phone calls that prove this, but can’t find the shorter write up anywhere).

hedora 8y ago
Since the sibling posts are mostly right wing, and I only mentioned Hillary Clinton, here is a more bipartisan example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Cohen https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Cohen The CEO of Jigsaw (formerly Google Ideas) advised both Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton.

alecbenzer 8y ago

What's the actual legal argument here? What's the text of the regulation? Why does Google interpret it to mean this whereas Amazon and Microsoft don't?

influx 8y ago

Are you an official spokesperson for Google?