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I've been doing Twitter threads of Google's political giving for a while; they donate to a large number of terrible people. I try to single out politicians with
by idlewords 7y ago
I've been doing Twitter threads of Google's political giving for a while; they donate to a large number of terrible people. I try to single out politicians with records that are antithetical to basic values Google employees share, or that the company advertises (like its ostentatious committment to #pride), not just things I politically disagree with.
To head off some comments that always come up:
1. Like most corporate PACs, Google gives fairly evenly to politicians in both parties. I don't think donations to Democrats "cancel out" donations to indefensible figures like Scalise, or Nunes, any more than giving money to the NAACP cancels out a donation to the KKK.
2. Google's giving is not indiscriminate, but tactical and highly targeted. In particular, they don't just give to everyone across the board like the sugar lobby.
3. The dollar figures are small because they are capped by statute. At most, Google can give one politician $10,000 in an election cycle. This is absolutely dwarfed in size by Google's D.C. lobbying operation, which can't contribute directly to campaigns but finds many ways to be influential.
4. This money is donated by employees who opt in, but is allocated by the company. Googlers have no input into the targeting and timing of these donations; it's decided by the office of public policy.
5. An American corporation can do fine without a PAC. Apple and IBM don't have one. Microsoft won a giant Pentagon cloud computing contract while its political giving was suspended.
With that said, some further threads:
November 2019:
https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1197253535735267328 https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1197253535735267328
August 2019: https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1164031478897901573 https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1164031478897901573
June 2019:
https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1152245502361997314 https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1152245502361997314
April 2019:
https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1119751992597835776 https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1119751992597835776
- supercanuck 7y agoTl;dr Google will donate to whatever terrible person will further their interest and we only care because they pretended to not be evil a decade a go.
- blfr 7y agoGoogle's "don't be evil" clearly meant "don't become Microsoft." It was never a call for general moral betterment.
- serf 7y ago>Google's "don't be evil" clearly meant "don't become Microsoft." yeah, and look and what a good job they're doing -- user-agent discrimination like the good old IE days, and talk of ongoing anti-trust probes.
- blfr 7y agoThey are doing pretty well imho. They offer the world a massively popular open source mobile operating system, a massively popular open source browser, they seriously pushed user security with influence over practices, software, and Project Zero, and all their services work well with on my Linux systems. Yes, the monopoly and censorship stuff is very worrisome but on the tech side they are undeniably better than Microsoft.
- A_Parr 7y agoIf they do the same thing Microsoft did, but get away with it, they've clearly not become Microsoft.
- supercanuck 7y agoIt was about being trustworthy with people’s information.
- blfr 7y agoThis money is donated by employees who opt in Why do they opt in? If they wanted to donate to a politician, they always can. Why this setup?
- sandoooo 7y agoWhat's better for your average Google employee with unpopular opinions: 'Google donates to cause I don't like! Let's name and shame! Boooo!' 'Famous senior engineer at Google donates to cause I don't like! Let's name and shame! Boooo!'
- kenhwang 7y agoAnonymity? Instead of everyone knowing the exact person working at Google donated to a cause/politician, you only know there might be an employee at Google that did.
- idlewords 7y agoThe employee donors are a matter of public record; they're listed in each FEC filing.
- sandoooo 7y agoLet's say you win, and Google donates to causes you find worthy, and doesn't donate to causes you don't find worthy. This basically means you want Google to donate solely to the Dems and nothing for the Republicans, or at least greatly skew the ratio. And that would mean Google would be officially coming out as putting its grubby hands on the scale for the 2020 election. And since everything on the internet goes through Google, this means they get to play kingmaker. Is this the precedent you want to set? Is this the world you want to live in? Choose carefully.
- idlewords 7y agoIf I "win", Google dissolves its political action committee and no longer makes direct campaign contributions. I don't follow your argument.
- sandoooo 7y agoI doubt it. I notice you are only agitating against specific donations toward Republicans, rather than all contributions in general. What's the least-effort way for Google to avoid the bad publicity you are seeking to inflict? Stop donations to those specific people, obviously. And let the ratio of donations get skewed. I think you would find that this is the exact outcome that many people on 'your side' are hoping for.
- idlewords 7y agoRead the actual threads? I show examples of what I believe are indefensible donations, and end every one with a plea for employees to de-fund the PAC in its entirety. I can't help it if we're in a polarized environment where the Democratic party doesn't elect climate denialists, homophobes or white nationalists to office too. Maybe next year.
- sandoooo 7y agoI'm sure you have very good reasons to believe the things you do. It doesn't change the consequences of your actions.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- inimino 7y ago> terrible people Shaming someone for a specific vote on a specific bill (taken out of context; surely you're aware that people vote against bills for all kinds of reasons) and "terrible people" and bringing up the KKK is exactly the kind of character assassination we expect from the shallow partisan media outlets that are destroying the possibility of political discourse. I would have expected better from you.