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Press leaks during Google's all-hands meeting enrage insiders
- zorpner 8y agoMost of these people only know about the Dragonfly project because of previous leaks. I would agree that there are productive leaks, and unproductive leaks, but getting mad at leakers/the press in a general sense is shortsighted.
- gurumeditations 8y agoLoyalty to a super powerful organization whose only goal is more power and whose loyalty to you only extends as far as they can make money using you is a fool’s game. The person who feels like inciting mob hate towards someone who is telling truth to power is the same person found in all of the worst movements of destruction across the world and throughout history.
- gsnedders 8y agoWhile you might not owe the company loyalty, one can imagine being scornful towards those who might get rid of the openness within the company because it makes it harder to collectively oppose actions the company is taking (or talking about taking).
- humanrebar 8y agoThe Damore thing was basically leak of an internal conversation that was considered justified. Maybe the leaker thought the convention was arbitrary anyway.
- kemonocode 8y agoIt's less of a matter of loyalty towards Google and more of a matter of hubris from the leaker(s) and the people they've been working with. That's why people are angry. Had they not gotten so brazen as to put up in real time what was being said in the meeting, I'm sure the reaction would have been different. Of course, the powers to be at Google took the chance to turn sympathy towards themselves and are going to use it as an excuse from now on to be a tad less candid in these meetings.
- orionblastar 8y agoI remember way back when Apple had to fire people for leaking stuff to the news. Osborne had a problem like that had a new model being invented and someone leaked it so nobody bought the current model to fuel money to build the new model. Leaks can break a company.
- Guvante 8y agoHow can you be transparent about your plans if everything is leaked? The court of public opinion tends to not be reasonable and often things that people would get upset about can be corrected via internal discussions.
- thesagan 8y agoWell... being transparent makes leaks ok. Otherwise the discussion is private and/or not transparent. (Or at least not intended to be transparent.) Private discussions are usually not be transparent, otherwise the public court will judge. If Google wants to discuss sensitive issues at an "all hands meeting" then it better be prepared for leaks, otherwise they should stick to smoke filled rooms.
- Guvante 8y agoDifferent definition of transparency. I was talking within the organization. You can as a company allow information to flow within without it flowing out to the general public and this can be useful but it requires cooperation. > then it better be prepared for leaks Leaking something that was brought up questioned and resolved in a negative way is one thing. In contrast this was just live tweeting everything said. Bringing up complicated topics and having an honest discussion is hard when the whole of the internet is your judge.
- parent5446 8y agoDon't fool yourself. Google isn't some sort of cult. It's just common decency. One of the big reasons listed is that employees wanted to hear more about the China project, but it was cut short because of the leaker.
- rhizome 8y agoApologies to Voltaire or whoever, but "common $x is not so common."
- sureaboutthis 8y agoThis isn't about loyalty. It's about trust. And trust has been violated. Now one starts questioning the person they're sitting next to and a whole culture can be in upheaval.
- labbyz 8y agoACM Code of Ethics: Do no harm > A computing professional has an additional obligation to report any signs of system risks that might result in harm. If leaders do not act to curtail or mitigate such risks, it may be necessary to "blow the whistle" to reduce potential harm. However, capricious or misguided reporting of risks can itself be harmful. Before reporting risks, a computing professional should carefully assess relevant aspects of the situation. The irony is that the previous leak (which detailed a harmful IT system) was the cause of this very meeting (Googlers wanted to know more about the project they read about on HackerNews/The Intercept). Without that earlier leak, upper management wouldn't be forced to organize this open meeting. Though, I can fully understand getting angry and wanting to signal support. What this new leak made clear is that the supposed culture of openness at Google is a farce: "Brin reportedly denied having knowledge of the program until after news leaked and what Brin described as "this kerfuffle" erupted." So even one of the CEO's was left in the dark.
- skookumchuck 8y ago"Many people inside and outside the company consider government censorship to be a human-rights violation." It's right there in the US Constitution Bill of Rights.
- r00fus 8y agoWell, Human Rights are supposed to be a) transnational, b) inalienable c) an inherent trait of being "human". Therefore more important/vital, yet given the transnational nature, also less difficult to "enforce".
- labbyz 8y agoThere is also the pledge by Google to not build AI weapons. A censored search engine is a gray PSYOP weapon. > Psychological operations (PSYOP) are planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.
- mirimir 8y agoSure, but that doesn't apply to China. And neither does it apply to the EU, regarding "the right to be forgotten". Personally, I'd rather see something like Google that operated outside all jurisdictions, and was entirely uncensored. And not advertising driven. But so it goes.
- skookumchuck 8y agoIt applies everywhere if you believe what the Declaration of Independence says about certain rights being "inalienable".
- mirimir 8y agoHuh? Let me get this straight. You argue that these US documents apply in China? That's quite the claim. Believers in the proto-US fought a war against England over those issues, after all. And that ain't gonna happen in China.
- skookumchuck 8y ago> The person or people who shared the information with The Times gave Pichai and Brin an excuse to stop discussing anything substantive about China at the meeting Of course. Just like any press release would be run through the lawyers before going out the door. Can't have a frank discussion with an Omarosa in the room. I wouldn't be surprised if the next such meeting requires all phones to be left outside the door.
- trung1trung2 8y agoIt's outrageous that this information, which is indisputably a matter of national importance and public policy, is being kept secret to begin with. Google leadership should be testifying before Congress, not acting faux-outraged that their machinations aren't being kept secret by the peons.
- staticautomatic 8y agoIf it is true that, following the display of the subject tweets, "all the momentum and sympathy swung in the direction of management," then the so-called leaks are actually of benefit to Google. "Where I come from, that means you're about to steal a mirror."
- tareqak 8y agoThat's an excellent point: they get a lot of potential benefits 1. A business reason to not divulge sensitive details about any projects in future meetings. 2. Employee support for 1. 3. Actually being able to keep employees in the dark about this Google Search in China endeavor. Now, the questions that present themselves are: 1. Was the leak planned to have that effect? 2. Was the leak planned and/or executed by one or more members of Google's management team?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- MrLeap 8y agoI've managed to write 15 pages on a topic this aligns with over the last few weeks. The thesis is that Feudalism never went away, it just transitioned from kingdoms to corporations. Putting ramparts and a moat around your primogeniture home owner's association lost to the advantages afforded by consolidation of production and trade. The traditions, structures and expressions of human nature have changed very little. I'm sure this is probably some high octane confirmation bias, but this story just sings to me about what I've been writing about. The landed members in this council meeting are outraged that one of their own is ignoring the duties of their vassalage. Is anything sacred when peasants who aren't even in your kingdom can listen in on your chancellors, stewards and spymasters? To the landed of the realm, this is a legitimate affront to the value of your titles! That's casus belli if I ever heard of it. I wonder how many employees are trying to rainbow table the journalist.
- CLGrimes 8y agoI am very interested in reading as well. Is it handwritten?
- MrLeap 8y agoI typed it, with my hands. So far it's 15 pages, 8800 words. I'm worried that once I fill in the blanks and edit, my #1 supporter CLGrimes will be gone and I'll be skewered in the e-court of e-opinions. Can I count on you to wait for me?
- madengr 8y agoGovernment censorship is bad, but YouTube censorship is just fine. Many hypocrites.
- duxup 8y agoIf I censor something on a site I own... is that the same as government doing it?
- yacn 8y agoNo that's you curating the platform you own to conform with the terms of service you laid out when users signed up. Which is exactly what happened w/ the alex jones stuff, it was always against youtube's ToS.
- sidlls 8y agoEver hear of privately owned public spaces? At what point does a medium of communication with wide enough adoption (perhaps to the point of being a de facto monopoly) merit consideration for the same regulations as apply to those?
- GW150914 8y agoConversely, if you’re prohibited from censoring on something you own, a means of your free expression has actually been limited. This is not a simple thing, and people who would have you believe that there is a single dogmatic “always right” answer are either naive or selling you something. Sometimes censorship is terrible, sometimes it’s acceptable, and most of the time it’s just complicated. I would support YouTube censoring a channel of child pornography, be against censoring a channel teaching people how to make hummus, and conflicted if they censor a channel showing people how to load custom shotgun shells. At the end of the day though, a video being downed from a private service doesn’t make it go away, for better or worse. It does make it harder for the average goon to find, unless they’re strongly motivated in which case they still find it. The ability of a private service, however large, to choose what the host also strikes me as reasonable, just as I have a choice to use them or not. We have a right to freedom of expression, not convenience of expression; it sort of feels like people arguing that 20 years ago, everyone should have had the right to get Simon & Schuster to publish their book, or they were being censored. The same facile arguments about “sort of a monopoly” could have been applied then, and they would have been ridiculous then too. So instead of a good debate we’re stuck with either slippery slope arguments which ignore the history of all countries other than the US, or dishonest arguments about the definition monopoly.
- skookumchuck 8y agoSeattle has an open-meetings law, where the City Council cannot conduct any substantive meetings that are closed to the public. Sounds like a good idea, right? The reality is, the meetings have devolved into events where the councilors engage mostly in political grandstanding for the press, and each faction shows up with with their activist signs, chanting, and yelling.
- nabla9 8y agoAnyone who starts to study how deliberative democracy works, discovers this quickly. Transparency and publicity in deliberative democracy does not mean that everything is just public and open discussion, because it just don't work. Most areas should be maximally public, like results of meetings, meeting agendas, who is attending, decisions and laws of course with very rare exceptions (personal privacy, ongoing criminal investigations, ...). But sometimes the meetings themselves should not be public to enable honest discussion and ideas. Just make sure that every party involved has a representation. Chatham House rule is often good choice when full privacy is not needed (you can talk about what was said, but not about who said what).
- pytyper2 8y agoRemove the cameras and only allow electors to attend. It's the tools and outsiders that cause this to occur, there are many thousands of cities around the country that have peaceful productive council meetings.
- windows_tips 8y agoElect new councilors. Have their shenanigans been televised?
- barry-cotter 8y agoDoesn’t matter if you elect new councillors. If the Council can’t hold a substantive meeting without the public present all meetings are electioneering. You can’t negotiate in public unless you are completely secure in your power. Any negotiation will involve setting out options, give and take that will anger some part of any coalition. If the meetings are public those angered people get to yell at the councillors and otherwise disrupt the negotiations, not just physically but by raising coalitions against proposed measures in almost real time. Obviously the various factions will have private meetings among themselves and have private meetings between representatives when they actually need to get things done or come to an agreement. This degrading of internal communications is pretty much the entire point of Wikileaks.
- meesterdude 8y agoThis is the modern equivalent of IBM providing technology to germany that allowed Nazis to persecute and kill Holocaust victims more efficiently. if googlers are more outraged by the leak than by google enabling censorship and violance against a populace, well... that reflects very poorly on our morals as a country. This sort of thing used to be "un-American" but capitalism and the quest for ever more money knows no such hubris. And lets be clear: it's not that google doesn't make enough money. they want to make MORE money. and that's why they're doing this. And in the end, it's not freedom of information, connecting the world or improving lives that matters to google, it's money. They are becoming increasingly desperate for new sources of revenue to appease their stockholder expectations, and throwing morals out the window is a great way to make a buck if you can get away with it.
- knuththetruth 8y agoIt’s of course totally beyond imagining that execs would plan such a leak to avoid further disclosure and sway favor to their side. Especially when they just lost to employee organizing on Project Maven and their entrance into the Chinese market is on the line...
- engi_nerd 8y agoI'm curious why Google is okay with doing more business in China, but they have moral issues doing business with the US Department of Defense?
- rmrfrmrf 8y agoCongrats to Google management for taking a play right out of Erdogan's playbook.
- sidcool 8y agoHold on, did someone say 'fuck you' to the face of Sundar Pichai in the all hands meeting?
- badlucklottery 8y agoThey addressed the "fuck you" to the anonymous leaker.
- sidcool 8y agoWho did? I didn't get the context.