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Remember when google was good and gave you "search results" as best it could instead of suggestions of things it thinks you might want? In those days the search

by harry8 3y ago

Remember when google was good and gave you "search results" as best it could instead of suggestions of things it thinks you might want? In those days the search results had a white background and appeared directly below the query input. The ads were over there on the right margin with a different background and clearly identified as ads. They used to brag about how good they were at giving you the address of something specific you were searching for with an "I'm Feeling Lucky" button. Linux nerds used to /like/ them. No really. Nowadays they're fully compromised by both money and politics and make the old days of microsoft look good. I see things like this :https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1673783596828569606 https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/16737835968285696... From a politician I don't particularly like or support fwiw and think "How dare they?" Google are fully evil.

hattmall 3y ago
Google search is unbelievable frustrating these days. And yeah the free speech concerns are very real. There needs to be a level of critical mass for any company that deals in communications where they are held to the same standards as the government. If >25% of the population uses your company for some form of communication censorship should be prohibited but of course we seem to be rapidly moving in a vastly different direction.
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  This sort of shallow minded statement always boils down to “but we should still censor the stuff I don’t like and of course I assume everyone agrees with me” Sorry but it’s obvious you’ve never worked on this issue. It’s not easy.
  - DasIch 3y ago
    It's far from shallow minded. In Germany that's actually how the law is interpreted. The theory is that under an indirect third party effect free speech becomes effectively limited, if large companies censor people. As a result they can be compelled not to do so within reason. For example, if a social media platform bans you, you can sue them and they have to show that they have sufficient reason and that they gave you opportunity to appeal etc. If they fail, they have to unban you.
    - pjc50 3y ago
      [citation needed]; case law or statute?
      - michaelt 3y ago
        The German legal system isn't a common law system - there is no case law.
      - DasIch 3y ago
        The german term you want to look for is "mittelbare Drittwirkung". On this particular topic there is an interesting case from the Bundesgerichtshof about facebook accounts that were banned. German press release: https://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/document.py?Gericht=bgh&Art=en&Datum=Aktuell&anz=1&pos=0&nr=117106&linked=pm&Blank=1 https://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/do...
    - johngladtj 3y ago
      Germany mandates censorship
    - tsunamifury 3y ago
      I disagree on many levels but sure that’s great for Germany, but German law isn’t the whole world.
  - tourmalinetaco 3y ago
    I find interesting that you’ve inserted that in, when they bring in the idea that these companies should actually be held accountable under the 1st Amendment. Probably one of if not the strongest codification of our right to freedom of speech in history. I’m not quite convinced you’ve worked on this issue before yourself. What is the solution you’ve been working on?
    - tsunamifury 3y ago
      Sorry for rolling my eyes a bit at this “what’s your solution?” Playground challenge. Anyone who has worked at f/m/a/g has worked on global application of local ideals and the user base each being enraged you don’t apply their local ideals globally. “Obviously the first amendment” is a great example of this.
      - tourmalinetaco 3y ago
        Don’t be sorry, I was already laughing at your “it’s obvious you’ve never worked on this issue” comment far before this, because I’m still not convinced you’re any more knowledgeable in this field. I’m well aware people get upset when companies outside of their culture don’t follow said culture to a tee. However, we are talking of a US company censoring US presidential candidates in a way directly contradictory to the laws they abide by. This is local ideals being applied to a local business, so excuse me if I’m a little less than sympathetic to the plight of Google dealing with an “enraged” foreign user base when they can’t even please a local one. Additionally, if your account is supposedly no longer active, due to an anti-censorship protest, why are you replying? And in a way that tries to sideline the problem of mass censorship by moving the problem to “but the people complain otherwise, they want this”?
        tsunamifury 3y ago
        Let me ask you. Why are you so confrontational about this. Why are you trying to do a bunch of “oh gotcha” style comments that sound sorta silly. I’ve worked in this in search quality and android. At a leadership level. I don’t anymore. That’s all. We don’t just think “hey the first amendment!” We think it terms of practical utility return for users and the company. While attempting to accommodate hyper fluid and often incoherent local requirements. That’s it. It’s not a grand conspiracy.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  > If >25% of the population uses your company for some form of communication censorship should be prohibited IRL, that kind of regulations exist all over the world but they don't tend to mandate no censorship, instead they mandate censorship in the name of national security. Unfortunately, the national security aspect is not exactly baseless. It all started with the Arab Spring, when the more authoritarian countries realised that they don't have control over the communications as they used to and the less authoritarian countries realised that foreign powers can curate the content their population sees(through fake accounts or owning the platform). Anyway, IMHO censorship should never be an option and to deal with issues of security we just need openness. That is, platforms with significant reach should be mandated to have open algorithm and verifiable data which can be investigated against faul play. For example, 3rd parties should be able to look into the recommendations and moderation actions of YouTube.
- pjc50 3y ago
  > If >25% of the population uses your company for some form of communication censorship should be prohibited Looking forward to the unlimited hardcore porn era on daytime TV. (obviously you're going to reply "well that should still be censored, it's just that people should be allowed to say the fourteen racist words and not the seven dirty words, because those are different categories of thing that I refuse to examine")
  - msm_ 3y ago
    What's wrong with hardcore porn on daytime TV? I mean I wouldn't watch that channel (but I don't watch TV anyway), but some people maybe would. Right now they can open porn website any time of the day, so what's the difference? Actually, is porn even really disallowed on TV in your country, or just nobody wants it?
    - VWWHFSfQ 3y ago
      I just laugh at the idea because it's getting us closer to full on Idiocracy where we all just dwell in our little state-owned cubicle apartments and every channel is porno or monster trucks knock at the door > Later! batin'. but do whatever you want I guess
    - pjc50 3y ago
      > is porn even really disallowed on TV in your country, or just nobody wants it? It's pretty heavily regulated on broadcast TV in the UK, to a silly extent; including hassling the much more liberal Dutch regulator https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-17297090 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-17297090 and censoring a TV station merely advertising a porn site https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0028/46891/obb248.pdf https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0028/46891/o... (on the grounds that since it's a paid service it counts as "teleshopping" like QVC) The UK makes periodic ineffectual attempts to censor it off the internet.
  - Georgelemental 3y ago
    > because those are different categories of thing that I refuse to examine Let me examine them for you: Freedom of expression is the right to express any opinion. Pornography is not an opinion, and therefore there is no free-speech right to it. Beliefs like "race X is inferior" are opinions, and therefore protected (though threats like "kill all X," and actions like discrimination, are not). The manner in which speech is expressed can be restricted—"your honor, I blew up the Twin Towers to express my belief that the US is the great Satan, it was free speech" won't fly in court. But these restrictions must be neutral to the content of the speech. There is one additional restriction commonly considered to apply to free expression: the government is allowed to criminalize lying (saying something you know is untrue). Defamation, fraud, false advertising, etc can be regulated. The US Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio) is a good example of how the boundaries of free expression work. > The Court held that the government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action". Specifically, the Court struck down Ohio's criminal syndicalism statute, because that statute broadly prohibited the mere advocacy of violence. If I say "politician X deserves to be killed," that's protected speech because I'm expressing an opinion. If I say, "look, politician X is in the room with us, get him!" I am going beyond opinion, and the government can punish me for breaking the law.
bdhe 3y ago
I'm not sure I see the connection between Google search integrity and Youtube choosing to or not choosing to host a video from a conspiracy theorist who thinks that "Wi-Fi opens your blood brain barrier" and whose candidacy is propped up by far-right Bannon types. Why bring him up (surprising?) if you don't particularly like him (not surprising).
- primax 3y ago
  Because he has the right to express his views and be judged by the listener.
  - labster 3y ago
    Google should provide access to his views as an indexer, not as a publisher.
    - xboxnolifes 3y ago
      The search engine, yes. The video platform, no.
  - KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
    YouTube is private platform. They can take down the video because they think his fingernails are too long or his shirt is ugly if they so choose to.
    - blibble 3y ago
      at the point it's an effective monopoly things should be treated differently
      - yunohn 3y ago
        It’s really not, it’s trivial to host videos on the web. YouTube additionally exposes it to millions of eyeballs for free.
eastbound 3y ago
Google is evil but Microsoft owns every new monopoly: - LinkedIn, - GitHub, - OpenAI, - And the 50% monopoly that O365 is, The evil is that they can use AI to generate startups: They have both business plans and code. Imagine starting an O365 spreadsheet with Copilot and being suggested how much you should spend on ERP or HR or AWS, because so many startups fed the AI before yours. Imagine competing with startups who have this information. It’s extremely hard to avoid Microsoft products, such as Gh which is the reference over competitors. Google is evil but I’d still trust them more because they seem fairly incompetent with AI (or even ads).
- onion2k 3y ago
  The correct business term for a "50% monopoly" is "not a monopoly".
  - alangibson 3y ago
    Monopoly, despite the plain meaning of the word, does not mean "literally one seller." It means that a seller holds a commanding position in the market. Depending on the market, 50% could be enough to lead the rest of the sellers around by the nose.
- flakeoil 3y ago
  You forgot Windows which is bundled with every Laptop sold even if the user does not want it. And the scary part with Microsoft is not how much share they have in each individual part, but that they have a big part of almost every field in computing. Cloud servers, cloud storage, OS, search, AI, Video conf, team chat, web browser, office tools, PC hardware, Tablets, ERP, gaming HW, gaming SW, developer tools, developer frameworks, compilers, ad network, education, IT security and the list goes on. And they cross sell and force you to use all the other crap if you already use one or two of it.
  - andylynch 3y ago
    This first point is less true than it use to be; Microsoft's desktop market share has been declining for years and is driven by the corporate market, where the bundling I think is less relevant since it's mainly enterprise licences, and customers are buying hardware to run Windows apps anyway. For people buying their own laptops, Macs in particular are really strong competitors, if not dominant depending on the region.
janalsncm 3y ago
People talk about how the US is the only country with truly “free” speech. But they should ask themselves how free are they really if keeping a job means not saying the wrong things publicly and having healthcare means having a job. I think this is a reality that neither Twitter mobs nor American exceptionalist conservatives want to admit. If you believe all people deserve healthcare, then that includes people you might like to punish by contacting their employer. And for free speech to actually be free, one of the consequences of that speech should not be to lose healthcare.
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  That’s the whole American kayfabe in a nutshell: create a boogeyman out of state power, while allowing businesses to stomp all over everyone. You have a greater right to free speech (in the absolute sense) in most European workplaces than you do in the US because your boss can’t take away your kids’ medical care because he doesn’t like some remark you made about politics or whatever.
  - zpeti 3y ago
    Still, having speech censored at the company level is at least one step more decentralised than a government with the police and an army behind it. It’s also much easier to change job than change country.
    - johannes1234321 3y ago
      For country leadership there are still elections, while flawed, in the U.S. Over Google the people don't have much of a say. (The country can create legislation to steer it in a direction etc.) And then internationally ...
      - zpeti 3y ago
        People underestimate how responsive companies are to feedback, especially from customers, much much more responsive than governments. And again, you can switch jobs much easier than countries. The entire current censorship issues are because of a small group of very organised people who want to enforce their worldview on the world. It's not views held by the majority, but companies still comply as they'd rather do that than fight. But have a look at what happened to Bud light, they are in serious trouble because of one advertising deal. They changed their tune extremely quickly. This doesn't really happen with governments.
hinkley 3y ago
Someone here asserted that DoubleClick bought Google with Google’s money. But that was 2008 and that timeline doesn’t sound particularly convincing to me. But something changed for sure.
- ethbr0 3y ago
  That was the root of Google's evil, but they would have gotten there anyway. Afaik, it wasn't McDonnell Douglas/Boeing, where DoubleClick executives metastisized their culture in Google. It's just... Google realized it's way more profitable to serve ads to the entire internet than do anything else. Advertising is the black hole at the center of the Google galaxy, and over time all businesses bend towards profit centers. And so absent strong leadership to the contrary, Google has slid inch by inch, small decision by small decision, closer to it.
  - deelowe 3y ago
    Google was never really interested, culturally, in making money. The ads thing sort of happened by accident. Then when double click was acquired, they were quarantined within the company so as not to pollute the real work swes were doing. Eventually, executive changes happened and the board demanded more profit. Ads were easy so they got integrated everywhere instead of burdening the busy engineers with having to figure out how to monetize their products. This led to ads taking over the entire company over time.
    - LanceH 3y ago
      > Google was never really interested, culturally, in making money. People find it really easy to say money isn't the important thing when they are rich. But see that wealth challenged and their behavior changes very quickly (with some exceptions, of course). Google may have had ideals, but they were still a company filled with directors and managers and employees who weren't rich (enough) yet. They weren't paid off from the initial rainfall of money. They were going to use all tools at their disposal. It is no surprise it happened, even if the founders weren't too concerned with money (which I don't believe).
BLKNSLVR 3y ago
> Remember when google was good and gave you "search results" as best it could instead of suggestions of things it thinks you might want? In those days ... "in those days" - is that they key to this argument though? Has Google evolved to what the majority want? Ie. "stuff" rather than "information" Are we, on HN, in an echo chamber? Curious people, on the fringes, still wanting information whilst our "normal" peers are just interested in breaking their previous weekly Amazon delivery record? Maybe Google are serving their customer base. We're just not it anymore.
devjab 3y ago
I don’t think Google is evil. I also don’t think they were ever “good”. I think they are mostly just caught in a world where they have become the worlds largest advertising company but their primary platform is turning out to be less valuable. Yet because they are an advertising company they struggle to sell any products that aren’t advertisement. I spent a long time in the Danish public sector, and if you don’t know this, the EU public sector is a billion dollar industry in terms of selling cloud services, and Google was never really an option. Which is sort of silly when you look at the tech. They had Office365 before it was cool, but because they couldn’t/wouldn’t guarantee privacy concerns they were never really able to sell it outside of education. So Microsoft casually strolled along and now dominate the market completely. Google has firebase (I think it’s called) which is arguably one of the best backends for 95% or the applications that I’ve seen build in the Danish public sector, and it’s used for 0% of them because Google never understood that what Microsoft sells to IT departments in non-tech enterprise organisations isn’t tech, it’s support. When something goes wrong with Azure, your CTO can tell the organisation that they are getting hourly updates on the situation directly from Redmond. When something goes wrong with Google Cloud, your CTO can use the same chat-bot you and I can, despite the multi-million budget difference. I think the most interesting part was how Amazon entered the market with a Google mentality, but then when AWS kept loosing to Azure they figured out why and are now even more compliant to what EU enterprise wants than even Microsoft. I mean, Azure still can’t completely live up to every aspect of the GDPR in terms of who services Azure global, AWS has been compliant since around 2020. I still remember how around 2018-2019 we went from taking with whatever Amazon support you and I probably talk to, to having a sales representative call us and get us hooked up with all sorts of compliance officers. Mean while Google sort of got even worse. I mean, Google actually managed to do really well in education. At least here in Denmark, but “big Google” once again got in the way. This wasn’t for lack of trying by Google education, they have this really great team of people, and I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be for them to have “big Google” stomp on all their decade long efforts by not giving things like Chromebooks and Google education better privacy tools for kids. I think it’s the same story for search. Search is a business for them and over the years the MBAs have focused too much on profits and too little on products. Fair enough, things like social media has made things harder. I mean, the reason you and I type “Reddit” in to our google searches isn’t only because Google got played by SEO, it’s also because people started putting their thoughts into social media instead of running blog wheels and using smaller forums. I hope Google pulls around. I don’t think they are more evil than Microsoft. As an enterprise worker I love Microsoft, they sell you support and they listen to your business needs, and all those privacy invasive tools they are pushing these days are disabled in enterprise. But they aren’t doing it because they are “good” they are doing it because that is how you sell licenses. I do think their cloud dominance may get challenged as Azure pricing a keep rising and alternative options get cheaper, but who’s going to compete with Microsoft on Office365? But as a personal user, have you used the basic windows 11? It literally has commercials in your operating system, and since Windows 10 they have been “pre-installing” stuff like Minecraft and whatever that popular mobile game they own is called. And that is in their paid product, at least google search doesn’t charge you money on top of their advertising. As an anecdote I think it was also interesting to see how Apple became very enterprise “unfriendly”. They owned education before google swooped in, and one of the primary reasons Apple lost initially was because they wouldn’t let IT departments “enroll” (sorry I’m not sure what “owning” the device and OS is called in Operations terms) their devices, which meant schools couldn’t block students from doing what they wanted. That’s since been fixed, but Apple is still what I’d call enterprise “unfriendly”. That works for Apple though, they obviously have a business strategy that’s doing well. But Google doesn’t similarly have one now that the floor is sort of falling out from under a lot of these “pay with your privacy” services.
pwdisswordfishc 3y ago
> make the old days of microsoft look good No, they don’t.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  Microsoft was "evil" in the as a FOSS hacker or competitor sense. Google are evil in the as a human sense. Facebook and Google are way worse than MS ever was, and sadly MS seems hell bent on joining their club with Windows 10+. By default Windows now spy on the user and shoves algorithmically manipulated "news" (propaganda) down their throat on the former start menu.
  - nologic01 3y ago
    One can only rationally extrapolate that the next iteration of so-called "big tech" will be the final nightmare. The conditions for that outcome are getting ripe, with the near elimination of cash and the control of official digital identity the main change drivers.
    - rightbyte 3y ago
      Imagine having your driver ID revoked randomly because some Google ML thought your driving patterns were suspicious ... Ye. Neither cash nor ID is something we need "big tech" to solve. IDs being a problem in the first place is a US and third world problem anyways. Just like Uber solved a US only problem (medallion monopoly and shortage).
mschuster91 3y ago
> Nowadays they're fully compromised by both money and politics and make the old days of microsoft look good. The problem is that Big Money entered the Internet... Eternal September just with companies. I'd say even an entity the size of Google gets dwarfed by the amount of people and money that is out to defeat them. You have everything from scammers looking to find victims for malware, unscrupulous people shilling penis enlargement and other questionably legal/useful/toxic "supplements", to Russian and Chinese propaganda aiming to destabilize our societies, and North Korean and Iranian hackers looking for funds for their nuclear programs. IMHO the solution is to follow the money and punish bad actors instead of trying to hotfix the effects: get China, NK, Iran and Russia off of the public Internet, sanction Turkey and India until they close down their scam callcenters, and get the domestic helpers of all the criminals (e.g. money mules) arrested. It is completely inexcusable that people like Pierogi of Scammer Payback have to do the job instead of the police tackling all the cybercrime. Remove the financial incentive for SEO spam and other cybercrime and watch the Internet get better on its own.
- selimco 3y ago
  This is the first time I read about Turkish scam Callcenters. Do you have any resources to find out more?
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    Sure. Indian callcenters mostly target English-speaking countries (most notoriously the US, which is where Scammer Payback, Jim Browning and other scambaiters are as well), Turkish callcenters target German-speaking countries. Damages have been estimated to the tune of at least 100 million € a year in 2017 [1], a single gang that did get in front of a court in 2022 was suspected to have made over 120 million € [2]. Others don't just limit themselves to callcenter scams, they have "fake policemen" to physically take cash from victims [3]. [1] https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/telefonbetrug-wie-die-callcenter-mafia-millionen-euro-erbeutet-a-1221993.html https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/telefonbetrug-wie-die... [2] https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/hohe-haftstrafen-fuer-internationale-bande-von-callcenter-betruegern-a-a50b0fd0-8da0-43a6-b16c-db7def1c7eb7 https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/hohe-haftstrafen-fuer... [3] https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/bande-von-callcenter-betruegern-in-der-tuerkei-festgenommen,TJOa6hR https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/bande-von-callcenter-be...
coldpie 3y ago
Not providing a megaphone to conspiracy theory nutjobs is a good thing, actually. We need a lot more of that, and I choose to give my business to platforms that have those kinds of policies, and not to those that don't. YouTube booting RFK Jr from their platform gives me better feelings about YouTube.
- hbn 3y ago
  Well it's a good thing Google always has and always will have the correct ideas about who the nutjobs are. I'm so glad the gatekeepers for the only meaningful platforms where you can get ideas in front of people always have our best interests in mind and wouldn't ever censor ideas that are bad for the bottom line of payment processors.
  - coldpie 3y ago
    RFK Jr is a long-time, well-known conspiracy theory whacko. This isn't some questionable edge case, hosting his content is straight up unquestionably providing a megaphone for harmful public health misinformation. The only reason for feeling otherwise about RFK Jr is if you're unfamiliar with him, or are deep in the hole yourself.
    - roelschroeven 3y ago
      Isn't he a heavy anti-vaxxer? Or am I confusing him with someone else?
    - hbn 3y ago
      Yeah he seems like an idiot. Don't care. We need to protect the ability for people to say crazy and unpopular things or the power will be abused to censor people who aren't crazy, just unpopular. Which is already happening. Ignaz Semmelweis was persecuted in the medical community for his insane idea that doctors working in maternity wards should wash their hands and he later died in a pysch ward from his mental breakdown over it. If it happened today he would have been banned from YouTube too. We're not post-science, in 2020 people were ridiculed and banned from social media for saying covid came from a lab and that's a pretty accepted theory now. I'm sick of only hearing popular opinions that are run by as brand-friendly from banks and payment processors. I want to hear from people who say things that aren't popular.
manuelabeledo 3y ago
> I see things like this :https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/16737835968285696 https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/16737835968285696... I'm actually OK with this. YouTube is a private platform. You don't get to force them to host anything, same way as traditional broadcasters don't give voice to every nutcase out there. Most would be outraged if NBC hosted talks about public health with shamans and science deniers. What's the issue with YouTube acting the same way?
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  Considering you immediately moved to relating him to a “nutcase”, it sounds more like you’re fine with it because you agree with who they’re censoring, and not the actual ethics of allowing a platform with 75% market share censor people for legal content.[0] The cries of “private platform” only go so far when you’re an effective monopoly on the space. Especially when you opaquely censor legal content, while keeping millions of illegal videos up with ads. And to reiterate, the issue is blatant: defending an effective monopoly like YouTube, who has such a tight stranglehold on information, is incredibly dangerous. Even if you don’t disagree with them now, authoritarians rarely stop finding people to target. https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/online-video--12/youtube-market-share https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/online-video--12/youtu...
  - manuelabeledo 3y ago
    > it sounds more like you’re fine with it because you agree with who they’re censoring... Yes, I agree that harmful pseudoscience should not have any room in the mainstream. That is essentially what I suggested on the last sentence in my original comment. > The cries of “private platform” only go so far when you’re an effective monopoly on the space. YouTube is not a monopoly. A monopoly is not established when something is too popular, otherwise any dominant technology company would effectively be a monopoly, e.g. would Twitter be a monopoly in the microblogging space? Was Tesla a monopoly on EVs? Being more popular than anyone else does not make them a monopoly. It would be trivial for this guy to find another space, as he did when he published his BS on Twitter. Even more, it is trivial to open a website and spout all the pseudoscience there. He is playing the victim because it plays great among his followers. I will worry about this when authoritative information about important topics gets removed from all platforms at the whim of one or two companies, buying and bullying a hundred others. Lastly, that hypothetical 75% market share does not account for Facebook Video or TikTok. TikTok has ~90 million monthly active users, compared to ~230 million of YouTube, that alone invalidates the claim.

by harry8 3y ago

hattmall 3y ago

Google search is unbelievable frustrating these days. And yeah the free speech concerns are very real. There needs to be a level of critical mass for any company that deals in communications where they are held to the same standards as the government. If >25% of the population uses your company for some form of communication censorship should be prohibited but of course we seem to be rapidly moving in a vastly different direction.

tsunamifury 3y ago
This sort of shallow minded statement always boils down to “but we should still censor the stuff I don’t like and of course I assume everyone agrees with me” Sorry but it’s obvious you’ve never worked on this issue. It’s not easy.
- DasIch 3y ago
  It's far from shallow minded. In Germany that's actually how the law is interpreted. The theory is that under an indirect third party effect free speech becomes effectively limited, if large companies censor people. As a result they can be compelled not to do so within reason. For example, if a social media platform bans you, you can sue them and they have to show that they have sufficient reason and that they gave you opportunity to appeal etc. If they fail, they have to unban you.
  - pjc50 3y ago
    [citation needed]; case law or statute?
    - michaelt 3y ago
      The German legal system isn't a common law system - there is no case law.
    - DasIch 3y ago
      The german term you want to look for is "mittelbare Drittwirkung". On this particular topic there is an interesting case from the Bundesgerichtshof about facebook accounts that were banned. German press release: https://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/document.py?Gericht=bgh&Art=en&Datum=Aktuell&anz=1&pos=0&nr=117106&linked=pm&Blank=1 https://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/do...
  - johngladtj 3y ago
    Germany mandates censorship
  - tsunamifury 3y ago
    I disagree on many levels but sure that’s great for Germany, but German law isn’t the whole world.
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  I find interesting that you’ve inserted that in, when they bring in the idea that these companies should actually be held accountable under the 1st Amendment. Probably one of if not the strongest codification of our right to freedom of speech in history. I’m not quite convinced you’ve worked on this issue before yourself. What is the solution you’ve been working on?
  - tsunamifury 3y ago
    Sorry for rolling my eyes a bit at this “what’s your solution?” Playground challenge. Anyone who has worked at f/m/a/g has worked on global application of local ideals and the user base each being enraged you don’t apply their local ideals globally. “Obviously the first amendment” is a great example of this.
    - tourmalinetaco 3y ago
      Don’t be sorry, I was already laughing at your “it’s obvious you’ve never worked on this issue” comment far before this, because I’m still not convinced you’re any more knowledgeable in this field. I’m well aware people get upset when companies outside of their culture don’t follow said culture to a tee. However, we are talking of a US company censoring US presidential candidates in a way directly contradictory to the laws they abide by. This is local ideals being applied to a local business, so excuse me if I’m a little less than sympathetic to the plight of Google dealing with an “enraged” foreign user base when they can’t even please a local one. Additionally, if your account is supposedly no longer active, due to an anti-censorship protest, why are you replying? And in a way that tries to sideline the problem of mass censorship by moving the problem to “but the people complain otherwise, they want this”?
      - tsunamifury 3y ago
        Let me ask you. Why are you so confrontational about this. Why are you trying to do a bunch of “oh gotcha” style comments that sound sorta silly. I’ve worked in this in search quality and android. At a leadership level. I don’t anymore. That’s all. We don’t just think “hey the first amendment!” We think it terms of practical utility return for users and the company. While attempting to accommodate hyper fluid and often incoherent local requirements. That’s it. It’s not a grand conspiracy.
mrtksn 3y ago
> If >25% of the population uses your company for some form of communication censorship should be prohibited IRL, that kind of regulations exist all over the world but they don't tend to mandate no censorship, instead they mandate censorship in the name of national security. Unfortunately, the national security aspect is not exactly baseless. It all started with the Arab Spring, when the more authoritarian countries realised that they don't have control over the communications as they used to and the less authoritarian countries realised that foreign powers can curate the content their population sees(through fake accounts or owning the platform). Anyway, IMHO censorship should never be an option and to deal with issues of security we just need openness. That is, platforms with significant reach should be mandated to have open algorithm and verifiable data which can be investigated against faul play. For example, 3rd parties should be able to look into the recommendations and moderation actions of YouTube.
pjc50 3y ago
> If >25% of the population uses your company for some form of communication censorship should be prohibited Looking forward to the unlimited hardcore porn era on daytime TV. (obviously you're going to reply "well that should still be censored, it's just that people should be allowed to say the fourteen racist words and not the seven dirty words, because those are different categories of thing that I refuse to examine")
- msm_ 3y ago
  What's wrong with hardcore porn on daytime TV? I mean I wouldn't watch that channel (but I don't watch TV anyway), but some people maybe would. Right now they can open porn website any time of the day, so what's the difference? Actually, is porn even really disallowed on TV in your country, or just nobody wants it?
  - VWWHFSfQ 3y ago
    I just laugh at the idea because it's getting us closer to full on Idiocracy where we all just dwell in our little state-owned cubicle apartments and every channel is porno or monster trucks knock at the door > Later! batin'. but do whatever you want I guess
  - pjc50 3y ago
    > is porn even really disallowed on TV in your country, or just nobody wants it? It's pretty heavily regulated on broadcast TV in the UK, to a silly extent; including hassling the much more liberal Dutch regulator https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-17297090 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-17297090 and censoring a TV station merely advertising a porn site https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0028/46891/obb248.pdf https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0028/46891/o... (on the grounds that since it's a paid service it counts as "teleshopping" like QVC) The UK makes periodic ineffectual attempts to censor it off the internet.
- Georgelemental 3y ago
  > because those are different categories of thing that I refuse to examine Let me examine them for you: Freedom of expression is the right to express any opinion. Pornography is not an opinion, and therefore there is no free-speech right to it. Beliefs like "race X is inferior" are opinions, and therefore protected (though threats like "kill all X," and actions like discrimination, are not). The manner in which speech is expressed can be restricted—"your honor, I blew up the Twin Towers to express my belief that the US is the great Satan, it was free speech" won't fly in court. But these restrictions must be neutral to the content of the speech. There is one additional restriction commonly considered to apply to free expression: the government is allowed to criminalize lying (saying something you know is untrue). Defamation, fraud, false advertising, etc can be regulated. The US Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio) is a good example of how the boundaries of free expression work. > The Court held that the government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action". Specifically, the Court struck down Ohio's criminal syndicalism statute, because that statute broadly prohibited the mere advocacy of violence. If I say "politician X deserves to be killed," that's protected speech because I'm expressing an opinion. If I say, "look, politician X is in the room with us, get him!" I am going beyond opinion, and the government can punish me for breaking the law.

bdhe 3y ago

I'm not sure I see the connection between Google search integrity and Youtube choosing to or not choosing to host a video from a conspiracy theorist who thinks that "Wi-Fi opens your blood brain barrier" and whose candidacy is propped up by far-right Bannon types. Why bring him up (surprising?) if you don't particularly like him (not surprising).

primax 3y ago
Because he has the right to express his views and be judged by the listener.
- labster 3y ago
  Google should provide access to his views as an indexer, not as a publisher.
  - xboxnolifes 3y ago
    The search engine, yes. The video platform, no.
- KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
  YouTube is private platform. They can take down the video because they think his fingernails are too long or his shirt is ugly if they so choose to.
  - blibble 3y ago
    at the point it's an effective monopoly things should be treated differently
    - yunohn 3y ago
      It’s really not, it’s trivial to host videos on the web. YouTube additionally exposes it to millions of eyeballs for free.

eastbound 3y ago

Google is evil but Microsoft owns every new monopoly: - LinkedIn, - GitHub, - OpenAI, - And the 50% monopoly that O365 is, The evil is that they can use AI to generate startups: They have both business plans and code. Imagine starting an O365 spreadsheet with Copilot and being suggested how much you should spend on ERP or HR or AWS, because so many startups fed the AI before yours. Imagine competing with startups who have this information. It’s extremely hard to avoid Microsoft products, such as Gh which is the reference over competitors. Google is evil but I’d still trust them more because they seem fairly incompetent with AI (or even ads).

onion2k 3y ago
The correct business term for a "50% monopoly" is "not a monopoly".
- alangibson 3y ago
  Monopoly, despite the plain meaning of the word, does not mean "literally one seller." It means that a seller holds a commanding position in the market. Depending on the market, 50% could be enough to lead the rest of the sellers around by the nose.
flakeoil 3y ago
You forgot Windows which is bundled with every Laptop sold even if the user does not want it. And the scary part with Microsoft is not how much share they have in each individual part, but that they have a big part of almost every field in computing. Cloud servers, cloud storage, OS, search, AI, Video conf, team chat, web browser, office tools, PC hardware, Tablets, ERP, gaming HW, gaming SW, developer tools, developer frameworks, compilers, ad network, education, IT security and the list goes on. And they cross sell and force you to use all the other crap if you already use one or two of it.
- andylynch 3y ago
  This first point is less true than it use to be; Microsoft's desktop market share has been declining for years and is driven by the corporate market, where the bundling I think is less relevant since it's mainly enterprise licences, and customers are buying hardware to run Windows apps anyway. For people buying their own laptops, Macs in particular are really strong competitors, if not dominant depending on the region.

janalsncm 3y ago

People talk about how the US is the only country with truly “free” speech. But they should ask themselves how free are they really if keeping a job means not saying the wrong things publicly and having healthcare means having a job. I think this is a reality that neither Twitter mobs nor American exceptionalist conservatives want to admit. If you believe all people deserve healthcare, then that includes people you might like to punish by contacting their employer. And for free speech to actually be free, one of the consequences of that speech should not be to lose healthcare.

bugglebeetle 3y ago
That’s the whole American kayfabe in a nutshell: create a boogeyman out of state power, while allowing businesses to stomp all over everyone. You have a greater right to free speech (in the absolute sense) in most European workplaces than you do in the US because your boss can’t take away your kids’ medical care because he doesn’t like some remark you made about politics or whatever.
- zpeti 3y ago
  Still, having speech censored at the company level is at least one step more decentralised than a government with the police and an army behind it. It’s also much easier to change job than change country.
  - johannes1234321 3y ago
    For country leadership there are still elections, while flawed, in the U.S. Over Google the people don't have much of a say. (The country can create legislation to steer it in a direction etc.) And then internationally ...
    - zpeti 3y ago
      People underestimate how responsive companies are to feedback, especially from customers, much much more responsive than governments. And again, you can switch jobs much easier than countries. The entire current censorship issues are because of a small group of very organised people who want to enforce their worldview on the world. It's not views held by the majority, but companies still comply as they'd rather do that than fight. But have a look at what happened to Bud light, they are in serious trouble because of one advertising deal. They changed their tune extremely quickly. This doesn't really happen with governments.

hinkley 3y ago

Someone here asserted that DoubleClick bought Google with Google’s money. But that was 2008 and that timeline doesn’t sound particularly convincing to me. But something changed for sure.

ethbr0 3y ago
That was the root of Google's evil, but they would have gotten there anyway. Afaik, it wasn't McDonnell Douglas/Boeing, where DoubleClick executives metastisized their culture in Google. It's just... Google realized it's way more profitable to serve ads to the entire internet than do anything else. Advertising is the black hole at the center of the Google galaxy, and over time all businesses bend towards profit centers. And so absent strong leadership to the contrary, Google has slid inch by inch, small decision by small decision, closer to it.
- deelowe 3y ago
  Google was never really interested, culturally, in making money. The ads thing sort of happened by accident. Then when double click was acquired, they were quarantined within the company so as not to pollute the real work swes were doing. Eventually, executive changes happened and the board demanded more profit. Ads were easy so they got integrated everywhere instead of burdening the busy engineers with having to figure out how to monetize their products. This led to ads taking over the entire company over time.
  - LanceH 3y ago
    > Google was never really interested, culturally, in making money. People find it really easy to say money isn't the important thing when they are rich. But see that wealth challenged and their behavior changes very quickly (with some exceptions, of course). Google may have had ideals, but they were still a company filled with directors and managers and employees who weren't rich (enough) yet. They weren't paid off from the initial rainfall of money. They were going to use all tools at their disposal. It is no surprise it happened, even if the founders weren't too concerned with money (which I don't believe).

BLKNSLVR 3y ago

> Remember when google was good and gave you "search results" as best it could instead of suggestions of things it thinks you might want? In those days ... "in those days" - is that they key to this argument though? Has Google evolved to what the majority want? Ie. "stuff" rather than "information" Are we, on HN, in an echo chamber? Curious people, on the fringes, still wanting information whilst our "normal" peers are just interested in breaking their previous weekly Amazon delivery record? Maybe Google are serving their customer base. We're just not it anymore.

devjab 3y ago

I don’t think Google is evil. I also don’t think they were ever “good”. I think they are mostly just caught in a world where they have become the worlds largest advertising company but their primary platform is turning out to be less valuable. Yet because they are an advertising company they struggle to sell any products that aren’t advertisement. I spent a long time in the Danish public sector, and if you don’t know this, the EU public sector is a billion dollar industry in terms of selling cloud services, and Google was never really an option. Which is sort of silly when you look at the tech. They had Office365 before it was cool, but because they couldn’t/wouldn’t guarantee privacy concerns they were never really able to sell it outside of education. So Microsoft casually strolled along and now dominate the market completely. Google has firebase (I think it’s called) which is arguably one of the best backends for 95% or the applications that I’ve seen build in the Danish public sector, and it’s used for 0% of them because Google never understood that what Microsoft sells to IT departments in non-tech enterprise organisations isn’t tech, it’s support. When something goes wrong with Azure, your CTO can tell the organisation that they are getting hourly updates on the situation directly from Redmond. When something goes wrong with Google Cloud, your CTO can use the same chat-bot you and I can, despite the multi-million budget difference. I think the most interesting part was how Amazon entered the market with a Google mentality, but then when AWS kept loosing to Azure they figured out why and are now even more compliant to what EU enterprise wants than even Microsoft. I mean, Azure still can’t completely live up to every aspect of the GDPR in terms of who services Azure global, AWS has been compliant since around 2020. I still remember how around 2018-2019 we went from taking with whatever Amazon support you and I probably talk to, to having a sales representative call us and get us hooked up with all sorts of compliance officers. Mean while Google sort of got even worse. I mean, Google actually managed to do really well in education. At least here in Denmark, but “big Google” once again got in the way. This wasn’t for lack of trying by Google education, they have this really great team of people, and I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be for them to have “big Google” stomp on all their decade long efforts by not giving things like Chromebooks and Google education better privacy tools for kids. I think it’s the same story for search. Search is a business for them and over the years the MBAs have focused too much on profits and too little on products. Fair enough, things like social media has made things harder. I mean, the reason you and I type “Reddit” in to our google searches isn’t only because Google got played by SEO, it’s also because people started putting their thoughts into social media instead of running blog wheels and using smaller forums. I hope Google pulls around. I don’t think they are more evil than Microsoft. As an enterprise worker I love Microsoft, they sell you support and they listen to your business needs, and all those privacy invasive tools they are pushing these days are disabled in enterprise. But they aren’t doing it because they are “good” they are doing it because that is how you sell licenses. I do think their cloud dominance may get challenged as Azure pricing a keep rising and alternative options get cheaper, but who’s going to compete with Microsoft on Office365? But as a personal user, have you used the basic windows 11? It literally has commercials in your operating system, and since Windows 10 they have been “pre-installing” stuff like Minecraft and whatever that popular mobile game they own is called. And that is in their paid product, at least google search doesn’t charge you money on top of their advertising. As an anecdote I think it was also interesting to see how Apple became very enterprise “unfriendly”. They owned education before google swooped in, and one of the primary reasons Apple lost initially was because they wouldn’t let IT departments “enroll” (sorry I’m not sure what “owning” the device and OS is called in Operations terms) their devices, which meant schools couldn’t block students from doing what they wanted. That’s since been fixed, but Apple is still what I’d call enterprise “unfriendly”. That works for Apple though, they obviously have a business strategy that’s doing well. But Google doesn’t similarly have one now that the floor is sort of falling out from under a lot of these “pay with your privacy” services.

pwdisswordfishc 3y ago

> make the old days of microsoft look good No, they don’t.

rightbyte 3y ago
Microsoft was "evil" in the as a FOSS hacker or competitor sense. Google are evil in the as a human sense. Facebook and Google are way worse than MS ever was, and sadly MS seems hell bent on joining their club with Windows 10+. By default Windows now spy on the user and shoves algorithmically manipulated "news" (propaganda) down their throat on the former start menu.
- nologic01 3y ago
  One can only rationally extrapolate that the next iteration of so-called "big tech" will be the final nightmare. The conditions for that outcome are getting ripe, with the near elimination of cash and the control of official digital identity the main change drivers.
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    Imagine having your driver ID revoked randomly because some Google ML thought your driving patterns were suspicious ... Ye. Neither cash nor ID is something we need "big tech" to solve. IDs being a problem in the first place is a US and third world problem anyways. Just like Uber solved a US only problem (medallion monopoly and shortage).

mschuster91 3y ago

> Nowadays they're fully compromised by both money and politics and make the old days of microsoft look good. The problem is that Big Money entered the Internet... Eternal September just with companies. I'd say even an entity the size of Google gets dwarfed by the amount of people and money that is out to defeat them. You have everything from scammers looking to find victims for malware, unscrupulous people shilling penis enlargement and other questionably legal/useful/toxic "supplements", to Russian and Chinese propaganda aiming to destabilize our societies, and North Korean and Iranian hackers looking for funds for their nuclear programs. IMHO the solution is to follow the money and punish bad actors instead of trying to hotfix the effects: get China, NK, Iran and Russia off of the public Internet, sanction Turkey and India until they close down their scam callcenters, and get the domestic helpers of all the criminals (e.g. money mules) arrested. It is completely inexcusable that people like Pierogi of Scammer Payback have to do the job instead of the police tackling all the cybercrime. Remove the financial incentive for SEO spam and other cybercrime and watch the Internet get better on its own.

selimco 3y ago
This is the first time I read about Turkish scam Callcenters. Do you have any resources to find out more?
- mschuster91 3y ago
  Sure. Indian callcenters mostly target English-speaking countries (most notoriously the US, which is where Scammer Payback, Jim Browning and other scambaiters are as well), Turkish callcenters target German-speaking countries. Damages have been estimated to the tune of at least 100 million € a year in 2017 [1], a single gang that did get in front of a court in 2022 was suspected to have made over 120 million € [2]. Others don't just limit themselves to callcenter scams, they have "fake policemen" to physically take cash from victims [3]. [1] https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/telefonbetrug-wie-die-callcenter-mafia-millionen-euro-erbeutet-a-1221993.html https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/telefonbetrug-wie-die... [2] https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/hohe-haftstrafen-fuer-internationale-bande-von-callcenter-betruegern-a-a50b0fd0-8da0-43a6-b16c-db7def1c7eb7 https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/hohe-haftstrafen-fuer... [3] https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/bande-von-callcenter-betruegern-in-der-tuerkei-festgenommen,TJOa6hR https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/bande-von-callcenter-be...

coldpie 3y ago

Not providing a megaphone to conspiracy theory nutjobs is a good thing, actually. We need a lot more of that, and I choose to give my business to platforms that have those kinds of policies, and not to those that don't. YouTube booting RFK Jr from their platform gives me better feelings about YouTube.

hbn 3y ago
Well it's a good thing Google always has and always will have the correct ideas about who the nutjobs are. I'm so glad the gatekeepers for the only meaningful platforms where you can get ideas in front of people always have our best interests in mind and wouldn't ever censor ideas that are bad for the bottom line of payment processors.
- coldpie 3y ago
  RFK Jr is a long-time, well-known conspiracy theory whacko. This isn't some questionable edge case, hosting his content is straight up unquestionably providing a megaphone for harmful public health misinformation. The only reason for feeling otherwise about RFK Jr is if you're unfamiliar with him, or are deep in the hole yourself.
  - roelschroeven 3y ago
    Isn't he a heavy anti-vaxxer? Or am I confusing him with someone else?
  - hbn 3y ago
    Yeah he seems like an idiot. Don't care. We need to protect the ability for people to say crazy and unpopular things or the power will be abused to censor people who aren't crazy, just unpopular. Which is already happening. Ignaz Semmelweis was persecuted in the medical community for his insane idea that doctors working in maternity wards should wash their hands and he later died in a pysch ward from his mental breakdown over it. If it happened today he would have been banned from YouTube too. We're not post-science, in 2020 people were ridiculed and banned from social media for saying covid came from a lab and that's a pretty accepted theory now. I'm sick of only hearing popular opinions that are run by as brand-friendly from banks and payment processors. I want to hear from people who say things that aren't popular.

manuelabeledo 3y ago

> I see things like this :https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/16737835968285696 https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/16737835968285696... I'm actually OK with this. YouTube is a private platform. You don't get to force them to host anything, same way as traditional broadcasters don't give voice to every nutcase out there. Most would be outraged if NBC hosted talks about public health with shamans and science deniers. What's the issue with YouTube acting the same way?

tourmalinetaco 3y ago
Considering you immediately moved to relating him to a “nutcase”, it sounds more like you’re fine with it because you agree with who they’re censoring, and not the actual ethics of allowing a platform with 75% market share censor people for legal content.[0] The cries of “private platform” only go so far when you’re an effective monopoly on the space. Especially when you opaquely censor legal content, while keeping millions of illegal videos up with ads. And to reiterate, the issue is blatant: defending an effective monopoly like YouTube, who has such a tight stranglehold on information, is incredibly dangerous. Even if you don’t disagree with them now, authoritarians rarely stop finding people to target. https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/online-video--12/youtube-market-share https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/online-video--12/youtu...
- manuelabeledo 3y ago
  > it sounds more like you’re fine with it because you agree with who they’re censoring... Yes, I agree that harmful pseudoscience should not have any room in the mainstream. That is essentially what I suggested on the last sentence in my original comment. > The cries of “private platform” only go so far when you’re an effective monopoly on the space. YouTube is not a monopoly. A monopoly is not established when something is too popular, otherwise any dominant technology company would effectively be a monopoly, e.g. would Twitter be a monopoly in the microblogging space? Was Tesla a monopoly on EVs? Being more popular than anyone else does not make them a monopoly. It would be trivial for this guy to find another space, as he did when he published his BS on Twitter. Even more, it is trivial to open a website and spout all the pseudoscience there. He is playing the victim because it plays great among his followers. I will worry about this when authoritative information about important topics gets removed from all platforms at the whim of one or two companies, buying and bullying a hundred others. Lastly, that hypothetical 75% market share does not account for Facebook Video or TikTok. TikTok has ~90 million monthly active users, compared to ~230 million of YouTube, that alone invalidates the claim.