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It's the "without evidence" claim that got this flagged. On a daily basis, major news organizations anonymously source articles but don't put "without evidence"

It's the "without evidence" claim that got this flagged. On a daily basis, major news organizations anonymously source articles but don't put "without evidence" unless it conflicts with their political narrative. There is plenty of evidence that tech has a bias.

throwaway5752 7y ago
That's the headline that Reuters gave it. What specific evidence do you have the Reuters has an institutional bias that makes it into the editorial process resulting in a headline? Without going into the particulars of your response, it is irrelevant in this case. What is at issue is that the president accused Google of a crime. Tech may have a bias, so then it should be possible to follow the law and charge Google with a crime and submit evidence for the case. Don't you understand how serious it is for the president to extrajudicially threaten people with prosecution? Side note: it is a useful tool of extremists to accuse specific members of the majority of "bias". The tech community is large and diverse, and is mostly representative of society on the whole.
- insickness 7y ago
  > What specific evidence do you have the Reuters has an institutional bias that makes it into the editorial process resulting in a headline? Trump's tweet references the former Google engineer who claims that Google has an anti-conservative bias. > The tech community is ...mostly representative of society on the whole. That is absolutely not true on so many levels. People who work in tech tend to be young, wealthy, live in cities, lean liberal, etc. That's like saying farmers or policemen or doctors tend to be mostly representative of society as a whole. Not true.
  - throwaway5752 7y ago
    The idea that a single (fired for cause) Google engineer is reliable evidence for a claim of this magnitude is ridiculous. Please find some hard data on tech demographics to support your data. Also, realize that is beside the point. Even if everyone in tech is an enormous liberal who tilts the scales against conservatives at every opportunity, then producing hard evidence of this massive conspiracy shouldn't be as elusive as it has been. Absent that data, it is grossly irresponsible for a sitting president to threaten a company with prosecution for a matter in which they are so grossly conflicted.
    - insickness 7y ago
      We could get into a long, drawn-out discussion about whether the evidence is flimsy or not, but the fact of the matter is that it is evidence. End of story. The title didn't say, "Flimsy evidence," it said "No evidence." It's grossly incompetent of the media to misrepresent story after biased story as "evidence" and then attach a "without evidence" to the president's words just because they don't like the narrative. > Please find some hard data on tech demographics to support your data. You're the one that made the claim that tech demographics represent the general population. You're the one who needs to prove the claim.
      - throwaway5752 7y ago
        I think the ship has sailed on this being drawn out. Since this post is flagged and unlikely to get further attention, I will indulge a bit more nested discussion than I would otherwise, though. I think you mean, "accusation". Google is accused of having bias. Evidence would constitute something that shows that the accusation is true. Since we are already parsing a headline, I'm going to have to be pedantic that "evidence" has specific meaning. It has common meaning, too, but I think I can lean on the president's own words: "All very illegal" puts this firmly in the judicial context. If the accusation was made under oath, under the penalty of perjury, then it could be considered evidence. Let me tell you this: if technology is a growing field and is difficult/increasingly requires specialized education it is going to have young and educated people on the whole. Furthermore, it has more immigrants and is more urban. If you correct for those factors (and a few others) you are going to find that tech is more conservative than you would otherwise expect. And tech demographics in SV is different than in Austin is different than in Minneapolis. On the whole the differences are much smaller than most people would believe. ps - while I disagree with you, I don't appreciate that you are being downvoted. I upvoted all your replies to try to counter that, and I would appreciate if people would resist the urge to reflexively downvote opinions they disagree with (which discourages discussions like this, which in my opinion, has been perfectly cordial)

throwaway5752 7y ago

That's the headline that Reuters gave it. What specific evidence do you have the Reuters has an institutional bias that makes it into the editorial process resulting in a headline? Without going into the particulars of your response, it is irrelevant in this case. What is at issue is that the president accused Google of a crime. Tech may have a bias, so then it should be possible to follow the law and charge Google with a crime and submit evidence for the case. Don't you understand how serious it is for the president to extrajudicially threaten people with prosecution? Side note: it is a useful tool of extremists to accuse specific members of the majority of "bias". The tech community is large and diverse, and is mostly representative of society on the whole.

insickness 7y ago
> What specific evidence do you have the Reuters has an institutional bias that makes it into the editorial process resulting in a headline? Trump's tweet references the former Google engineer who claims that Google has an anti-conservative bias. > The tech community is ...mostly representative of society on the whole. That is absolutely not true on so many levels. People who work in tech tend to be young, wealthy, live in cities, lean liberal, etc. That's like saying farmers or policemen or doctors tend to be mostly representative of society as a whole. Not true.
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  The idea that a single (fired for cause) Google engineer is reliable evidence for a claim of this magnitude is ridiculous. Please find some hard data on tech demographics to support your data. Also, realize that is beside the point. Even if everyone in tech is an enormous liberal who tilts the scales against conservatives at every opportunity, then producing hard evidence of this massive conspiracy shouldn't be as elusive as it has been. Absent that data, it is grossly irresponsible for a sitting president to threaten a company with prosecution for a matter in which they are so grossly conflicted.
  - insickness 7y ago
    We could get into a long, drawn-out discussion about whether the evidence is flimsy or not, but the fact of the matter is that it is evidence. End of story. The title didn't say, "Flimsy evidence," it said "No evidence." It's grossly incompetent of the media to misrepresent story after biased story as "evidence" and then attach a "without evidence" to the president's words just because they don't like the narrative. > Please find some hard data on tech demographics to support your data. You're the one that made the claim that tech demographics represent the general population. You're the one who needs to prove the claim.
    - throwaway5752 7y ago
      I think the ship has sailed on this being drawn out. Since this post is flagged and unlikely to get further attention, I will indulge a bit more nested discussion than I would otherwise, though. I think you mean, "accusation". Google is accused of having bias. Evidence would constitute something that shows that the accusation is true. Since we are already parsing a headline, I'm going to have to be pedantic that "evidence" has specific meaning. It has common meaning, too, but I think I can lean on the president's own words: "All very illegal" puts this firmly in the judicial context. If the accusation was made under oath, under the penalty of perjury, then it could be considered evidence. Let me tell you this: if technology is a growing field and is difficult/increasingly requires specialized education it is going to have young and educated people on the whole. Furthermore, it has more immigrants and is more urban. If you correct for those factors (and a few others) you are going to find that tech is more conservative than you would otherwise expect. And tech demographics in SV is different than in Austin is different than in Minneapolis. On the whole the differences are much smaller than most people would believe. ps - while I disagree with you, I don't appreciate that you are being downvoted. I upvoted all your replies to try to counter that, and I would appreciate if people would resist the urge to reflexively downvote opinions they disagree with (which discourages discussions like this, which in my opinion, has been perfectly cordial)