6 ms·

While the WSJ does mostly excellent reporting on Google, I can't help but feel that their seemingly obsessive focus on Google over other stories is part of Rupe

by gman83 7y ago

While the WSJ does mostly excellent reporting on Google, I can't help but feel that their seemingly obsessive focus on Google over other stories is part of Rupert Murdoch's years-long vendetta against Google.

dredmorbius 7y ago
NYTimes have been on a similar kick, and you can find a general techlash across most media these days.
- jeromegv 7y ago
  Alternative viewpoint: tech has benefited from a free ride of "doing no evil" for a long time and they are now being overseen the way multi-billion dollar companies should be. If a service is so badly moderated that their customers can get scammed by fake companies regularly, doesn't that require some kind of reporting?
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    That was actually what I was suggesting, though apparently poorly. The techlash is well deserved and long overdue. WSJ and NYT are about as polar opposite as mainstream newspapers can get[1], both are exceedingly critical of at least Google, Facebook, and Twitter, if not all of FAANG and Silicon Valley. Not that Murdoch may not have his own specific axe to grind, and not to discount the spite that many traditional media publishers have over loss of ads revenues. ________________________________ Notes: 1. I'm not saying they're extremes of the spectrum. But within the mainstream they tend to define at least mainstream scope. And TV, radio, and online are a whole 'nother story.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  Techlash isn't something invented by the media. The media merely reflects the change in public opinion. In the SV bubble, people still think the world loves, envies, and adores them. For the most part, it does not. That tide turned long ago.
  - beauzero 7y ago
    Some would say that outside SV it really never came back after 2000.
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      I'd argue otherwise. Tech was derided largely as a scam following the dot-com bust. But then it seemed to be a general positive at least through about 2013. I'd pin the public shift to Snowden, 2013. This is all very subjective and squishy, of course.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Right, and I'm not trying to say it is. Tim Bray first called it out that I recall, in September of 2019: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2017/09/20/Tech-is-Evil https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2017/09/20/Tech-is-E... Though of course others have been critical for far longer. Yochai Benkler comes to mind, along with Eben Moglen, Bruce Schneier, and RMS.
reaperducer 7y ago
Or it could be that Google is one of the world's largest companies and is actively changing almost every facet of our lives, and so these sorts of things happen. If Google was a smaller business involved in a single industry, then your conspiracy theory might have merit. But it seems perfectly logical that as Big G's tentacles reach deeper into the lives of everyone on the planet that it's going to come under increased scrutiny.
- jeromegv 7y ago
  It's like people forget that they are multi-billion dollar companies, top 10 on the stock market. Of course we will talk about them, constantly. They have a huge influence on our economy, society, etc..

by gman83 7y ago

dredmorbius 7y ago

NYTimes have been on a similar kick, and you can find a general techlash across most media these days.

jeromegv 7y ago
Alternative viewpoint: tech has benefited from a free ride of "doing no evil" for a long time and they are now being overseen the way multi-billion dollar companies should be. If a service is so badly moderated that their customers can get scammed by fake companies regularly, doesn't that require some kind of reporting?
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  That was actually what I was suggesting, though apparently poorly. The techlash is well deserved and long overdue. WSJ and NYT are about as polar opposite as mainstream newspapers can get[1], both are exceedingly critical of at least Google, Facebook, and Twitter, if not all of FAANG and Silicon Valley. Not that Murdoch may not have his own specific axe to grind, and not to discount the spite that many traditional media publishers have over loss of ads revenues. ________________________________ Notes: 1. I'm not saying they're extremes of the spectrum. But within the mainstream they tend to define at least mainstream scope. And TV, radio, and online are a whole 'nother story.
reaperducer 7y ago
Techlash isn't something invented by the media. The media merely reflects the change in public opinion. In the SV bubble, people still think the world loves, envies, and adores them. For the most part, it does not. That tide turned long ago.
- beauzero 7y ago
  Some would say that outside SV it really never came back after 2000.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    I'd argue otherwise. Tech was derided largely as a scam following the dot-com bust. But then it seemed to be a general positive at least through about 2013. I'd pin the public shift to Snowden, 2013. This is all very subjective and squishy, of course.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Right, and I'm not trying to say it is. Tim Bray first called it out that I recall, in September of 2019: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2017/09/20/Tech-is-Evil https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2017/09/20/Tech-is-E... Though of course others have been critical for far longer. Yochai Benkler comes to mind, along with Eben Moglen, Bruce Schneier, and RMS.

reaperducer 7y ago

Or it could be that Google is one of the world's largest companies and is actively changing almost every facet of our lives, and so these sorts of things happen. If Google was a smaller business involved in a single industry, then your conspiracy theory might have merit. But it seems perfectly logical that as Big G's tentacles reach deeper into the lives of everyone on the planet that it's going to come under increased scrutiny.

jeromegv 7y ago
It's like people forget that they are multi-billion dollar companies, top 10 on the stock market. Of course we will talk about them, constantly. They have a huge influence on our economy, society, etc..