4 ms·

I guess I'll say the quiet part loud. It is unusual for an investigation to have such an obvious partisan split, so much so that it is impossible not to conclud

I guess I'll say the quiet part loud. It is unusual for an investigation to have such an obvious partisan split, so much so that it is impossible not to conclude that the "anti-trust" case is a thin pretext for something else. It reeks of a type of partisan hackery we've seen every time a tech company is forced to testify before Congress. Baseless insinuation that tech companies are staffed by agenda driven liberals who tamper with search results and purge straight white male employees. This narrative is getting stale. Remember when Breitbart "leaked" that employee discussion from within Google the day after the election. Does anyone remember the grifter of the week who was "fired for being right leaning"? They find a new one for every hearing. A major part of the Republican movement is a culture war on us (the median hn reader) and they are scratching around for ways to use the justice system as a cudgel with which to beat us. The obvious subtext is "how dare those uppity elitist California liberals have any sway or economic success. We must drag then down by any means." Of course a case built on partisan hackery would implode on itself. Sound bites don't translate to sound arguments in court.

mhoad 6y ago
I agree with most of what you outlined there. The only thing I wanted to highlight was the antitrust arguments against tech and the culture war arguments are most certainly different things even though many of the partisans like to talk about each as though it was a single coherent argument. When I think about all of the people who stand to benefit by making these issues one and the same I am not exactly left with a group of people I would want to find myself defending.
Chris2048 6y ago
> Baseless insinuation that tech companies are staffed by agenda driven liberals who tamper with search results and purge straight white male employees Is this baseless? Was the Breitbart discussion not legitimate? or the google materials [1], or the github slides [2]? [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/ok-google-youve-been-served-1516044100 https://www.wsj.com/articles/ok-google-youve-been-served-151... [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/github-the-full-inside-story-2016-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/github-the-full-inside-story... edit: 2 mins in and already downvoted. Is this still a hacker discussion site, or just minimal linked-in..
- scohesc 6y ago
  There's probably a non-insignificant number of people working for Alphabet that browse this site, so don't be surprised. There's definite social media and search bias against more right-leaning content. After the 2016 election Google decided it needed to become "the good censor" against "fake news" and "false facts" - when they're really alternate viewpoints that the loud minority screams is harmful to society.
  - Chris2048 6y ago
    In this case I'm highlighting the "alternate viewpoints" that appear tolerated within these institutions; from the google link (here is a better link: https://outline.com/wSwEF7 https://outline.com/wSwEF7 ): “If you want to increase diversity at Google, fire all the bigoted white men” “by being a white male you are in a privileged class that is actively harmful to others.” and github: “this is not work for white folks to lead” “some of the biggest barriers to progress are white women” If these are fake news that should be dismissed or ignored, I'd like to see evidence of that given the power of such corps to be able to push these views. My suspicions is they aren't fake, so much as "not a big deal", in someone's opinion, that I probably don't agree with. I mean, if diversity (of race) is important for creating unbiased software e.g facial recognition, then a lack of diversity outside "liberal" perspectives should also lead to chilling outcomes (such as the above).
  - ksk 6y ago
    Its a win-by-default stance. Democrats embrace science, Republicans are anti-science; science is the truth, ergo dems good, repubs bad. QED. Ironically, I've had far more left-leaning friends who believe in crackpot stuff like aroma healing/acupuncture/chakra/spiritual/crystals nonsense. The most my rural side of the family can be accused of is having a more-than-healthy attraction to guns and hunting.. :)
lsaferite 6y ago
> culture war on us (the median hn reader) Out of curiosity, what _is_ the median hn user? I haven't seen any census on that.

mhoad 6y ago

I agree with most of what you outlined there. The only thing I wanted to highlight was the antitrust arguments against tech and the culture war arguments are most certainly different things even though many of the partisans like to talk about each as though it was a single coherent argument. When I think about all of the people who stand to benefit by making these issues one and the same I am not exactly left with a group of people I would want to find myself defending.

Chris2048 6y ago

> Baseless insinuation that tech companies are staffed by agenda driven liberals who tamper with search results and purge straight white male employees Is this baseless? Was the Breitbart discussion not legitimate? or the google materials [1], or the github slides [2]? [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/ok-google-youve-been-served-1516044100 https://www.wsj.com/articles/ok-google-youve-been-served-151... [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/github-the-full-inside-story-2016-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/github-the-full-inside-story... edit: 2 mins in and already downvoted. Is this still a hacker discussion site, or just minimal linked-in..

scohesc 6y ago
There's probably a non-insignificant number of people working for Alphabet that browse this site, so don't be surprised. There's definite social media and search bias against more right-leaning content. After the 2016 election Google decided it needed to become "the good censor" against "fake news" and "false facts" - when they're really alternate viewpoints that the loud minority screams is harmful to society.
- Chris2048 6y ago
  In this case I'm highlighting the "alternate viewpoints" that appear tolerated within these institutions; from the google link (here is a better link: https://outline.com/wSwEF7 https://outline.com/wSwEF7 ): “If you want to increase diversity at Google, fire all the bigoted white men” “by being a white male you are in a privileged class that is actively harmful to others.” and github: “this is not work for white folks to lead” “some of the biggest barriers to progress are white women” If these are fake news that should be dismissed or ignored, I'd like to see evidence of that given the power of such corps to be able to push these views. My suspicions is they aren't fake, so much as "not a big deal", in someone's opinion, that I probably don't agree with. I mean, if diversity (of race) is important for creating unbiased software e.g facial recognition, then a lack of diversity outside "liberal" perspectives should also lead to chilling outcomes (such as the above).
- ksk 6y ago
  Its a win-by-default stance. Democrats embrace science, Republicans are anti-science; science is the truth, ergo dems good, repubs bad. QED. Ironically, I've had far more left-leaning friends who believe in crackpot stuff like aroma healing/acupuncture/chakra/spiritual/crystals nonsense. The most my rural side of the family can be accused of is having a more-than-healthy attraction to guns and hunting.. :)

lsaferite 6y ago

> culture war on us (the median hn reader) Out of curiosity, what _is_ the median hn user? I haven't seen any census on that.