I think in this example, it can definitely be said to be manipulative and deceitful. Schmidt's agenda seems to be actively silencing reporting that describes them as using their near monopoly power to their own benefit. In this example, it seems to quell murmurs that maybe the Google is a monopoly that is abusing it's power in the US. I'm sure they don't want to go through what Microsoft went through in 2001.
I mean show me some think tanks that don't disperse manipulative and deceitful research and I could change my mind about said individual think tank, but as a general rule, I stand by my statement.
There's nothing inherently wrong with using modern language to mean what it means in the modern world.
Not inherently, except when it just destroys information. Let's say a couch is really light but made from good material, and has a design and colors I find very pretty, and it comes at a fair price, too. I might just call it "awesome" and be done with it, but that conveys nothing, and then when I am actually in awe, I have to talk about how something is "literally genuinely really awesome". Likewise, if propaganda "now means" propaganda one doesn't like, how does one call propaganda in general? I would guess "public relations", "public outreach", "engaging with the community", "influencing the narrative for a positive outcome", and a lot of others, but why not "propaganda"? I'm sure I use it in a purely negative meaning all the time myself, but I still can't see anything gained from that.
Propaganda has negative connotations under the presumption that the message is dishonest in some way. The original meaning was 'neutral', and in that sense more information is being provided by the modern term than the older one.
>how does one call propaganda in general?
Communication.
Re:Criticizing Google got me fired
by dragonwriter on Wednesday September 06, 2017 @07:45PM
(#15188054)
> The original meaning was 'neutral', and in that sense more information is being provided by the modern term than the older one.
The modern term comes fairly directly from a use in which it was positive, not neutral (though it was negative to outsiders of the group using it, which shaped the modern connotation.) Specifically, it comes from the old Latin name (Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fidei, “Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith”) of what is now the “Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples” of the Roman Catholic Church.
Re:Criticizing Google got me fired
by lordlimecat on Friday September 01, 2017 @12:14AM
(#15146072)
In the modern language propaganda typically is a subjective descriptor that explains very little outside of your own views on the subject.
There is nothing inherently wrong with propaganda. It is not necessarily manipulative or deceitful.
(from wikipedia) "In the twentieth century, the term propaganda has been associated with a manipulative approach, but propaganda historically was a neutral descriptive term"