Well, except for when they didn't. A simple search reminds us of this:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/ftc-to-an...
"Google emerged from nearly two years of intense federal scrutiny Thursday by convincing the Federal Trade Commission that even though rivals may suffer as the company continually refines its search engine, consumers often win through better, faster, more valuable answers to their queries."
This also ignores more recent requests from Democrats to look into Google:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/06/04...
"The new complaint comes from Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, a progressive in the upper ranks of the Democratic National Committee. In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission dated May 31, Ellison urged the watchdog agency to take a closer look at Google and its parent company, Alphabet, given that European regulators recently found that the search giant harmed its rivals and fined it $2.7 billion.
“The FTC should determine whether Alphabet has engaged in similar conduct in the United States and whether such conduct violates the FTC Act,” he wrote."
Those are just two cases I found in searches.
I wouldn't call this sitting on your hands.
> ...so we're not hearing a peep of antitrust talk from the Dems.
We are. It's just getting drowned out by everything else that is happening.
You got one company, presiding over 90% of the search on the web: http://www.visualcapitalist.com/this-chart-reveals-googles-t...
Might as well call Google the Ministry of Truth. They sit in a very powerful position over information and influence. China understands this, that's why they tightly control their search results.
Anyone arguing that one company should have so much influence without probably being subject to some sort of oversight or regulation, is naive at best.
nothing.
Your claim wasn't that they didn't receive enough scrutiny. Your claim was that people haven't done anything.
You lied, or at best, are seriously misinformed, and got called out for it, and now you are moving the goal post trying to pretend like you weren't wrong and ignorant. Just admit it. You were wrong, you didn't know, and yeah, they are trying to do something, but haven't found anything yet, and even in 2018, they are calling for investigations.
What more do you want? Do you want them to NOT investigate or ask for investigations?
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/word-mo...
Google makes Ma Bell look like a tiny tyke by comparison. Their position and influence over the modern internet is in a word, scary. There's no check on their power, and the Obama administration did nothing to check said power. I don't care what rubber stamps or certificate of approvals they got. Google is a monopoly. It's fine if the Democrats have abandoned that principle. Totally fine. But don't call that analysis dishonest.
Also, I'm not the only one mentioning this:
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/348217-the-...
https://newrepublic.com/article/144694/democrats-face-import...
There isn’t any credible alternative to Google because they’re head and shoulders above everyone else.
There are other search engines, they just don’t measure up.
But I actually think you raise an extremely interesting question: does pushing a political agenda using your monopoly position constitute an abuse of monopoly power?
The advent of privately controlled monopolistic forums is somewhat new. I don't think it's at all obvious how the spirit of anti-trust law should be extended in the age of platforms...
We're in new territory.
As horrible as this may sound, it is a cause for anti trust break up when those in power are right leaning.
I mean, let's not split hairs here. As a matter of pragmatic reality, that's pretty much what it comes down to.
So long as they are not regulated as such, then I don’t think the gov should get involved. But then again, that raises the question, should google be allowed lawfully to, say, supress all topics around Atheism, or Christmas or Hanukah or Russian meddling, if their management and ownership changed to one even more manipulative?
People have been writing this, but I'm curious what they mean, as there is no single legal "Utility" classification that could be put on something like google or facebook.
Is there a specific legal approach people are talking about or is it just the commonly understood meaning of "utility" they're referring to?
I'm not aware phone books being regulated as utilities.
The point i'm making is not : "Do you sympathize with 'bad guys'?"
it's more: "Would you want whats happening to 'bad guys' to happen to you?".
The important line that is being crossed here is that you can get banned from Twitter/Facebook/Google/whomever for saying something that is not illegal but is in the opinion of the company objectionable.
No utility has the power to disconnect me if I do something they think is objectionable with their service. And that goes to the heart of what people seem to want from "regulating as a utility" (a phrase that is terrifying in its vagueness) - they want freedom to voice unpopular opinions and let those who agree, agree.
But, I feel under no threat of being disconnected by my water provider because /they think/ that I am harassing someone.
For Jones in particular, I believe the appropriate channels of response are for the person being harassed to: (1) Sue him (2) Respond clearly.
The tech majors, who have mounting leaked evidence that their management is politically active in the workplace, should not be arbitrating what a publisher does. If they do, then they are publishers themselves, in which case they should be regulated differently and their status as publishers made very public.
Then it seems very bad faith for you to be using him as an example.
"For Jones in particular, I believe the appropriate channels of response are for the person being harassed to: (1) Sue him (2) Respond clearly."
This is simply not true. Further, if you're Twitter, and you have users that are harassing other users, that makes those users less wanting to use your platform. And you have other people that catch wind that Twitter is doing nothing about harassment, and now very few people want to use Twitter.
"The tech majors, who have mounting leaked evidence that their management is politically active in the workplace"
[Citation Needed]
"If they do, then they are publishers themselves, in which case they should be regulated differently and their status as publishers made very public."
I disagree. Asking someone to leave who is harassing other users is not causing themselves to be publishers.
That’s simply not true.
In fact it specifically mentions anonymous communications in a variety of forms.
Either (a) communicates with a person, anonymously or otherwise, by telephone, or by telegraph, mail or any other form of written communication, in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm; or (b) causes a communication to be initiated by mechanical or electronic means or otherwise with a person, anonymously or otherwise, by telephone, or by telegraph, mail or any other form of written communication, in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm; or Makes a telephone call, whether or not a conversation ensues, with no purpose of legitimate communication;...
I can only recommend a more in-depth reading for you. At the very least you owe it to yourself to have basic knowledge of the laws in question before you go about declaring what’s legal and illegal.
I really don’t believe just because Twitter is popular it’s suddenly mandatory that it host any and all content. If hacker news became as popular as twitter could the government suddenly start compelling HN to stop censoring off topic conversation and host any and all posts?
Twitter was created by people to serve a certain purpose and for certain conversations and they are within their rights to control the content they host on their machines and on their site.
On paper this is true, but network effects mean you won't be able to interact with the general public UNLESS the general public also moves to your platform as well, which is fairly unlikely.
Or, let's say on the other hand the Koch brothers buy it and again, direct employees who have not quit to ban all non-conservative posters.
Would that be okay because they don't owe it to anyone to be a medium for everyone?
Someone else could create a more neutral site since there’d certainly be a void to fill.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier
"Net neutrality is the principle that [providers] treat all data on the Internet equally, and not discriminate"
"In a "dumb network", the endpoints are thought to be where the intelligence lies, and as such, proponents argue that the network should leave the management and operation of communications and data transfer to the end users, not a government bureau or Internet company."
"Supporters of net neutrality... want to ensure that [companies] cannot screen, interrupt or filter Internet content without a court order."
I don't think it would count as a duplicate internet any more than archive.org would.
Edit: and why is curation relevant to the question of whether there should be a common crawl that can be accessed by all, a publicly hosted mirror of the web that can be used to create competing search engines?
On a side note, I find it very ironic that a community who so passionately embrace net neutrality are so quick to cry 1A and liberty when it comes to political censorship and bias by the huge internet companies.
And to think, it's the Republican Party that's been anchoring for removing any pretense of net neutrality.
But now it's Bad(TM). Or at least Unfair(TM).
This is a far too simplistic and superficial analysis. Yes, Google could decide to position themselves as a publisher and claim the corresponding right to editorialize their content, but this would mean accepting a publishers' responsibility for all of the content. Historically, Google and others have been immune as a result of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields them from responsibility for libel, defamation, threats, falsehoods, child porn, fair housing violations, etc.
They could choose to become a publisher in the eye of the law, but then they would have to play by the rules of a publisher. They can't simultaneously be protected as a publisher by freedom of the press and claim immunity as not a publisher.
That's the part that confuses me. Why not embrace the bias. Those who think that Google is biased are not going to be convinced by the a PR statement saying "we are impartial, etc". They've already made up their mind.
It's like with the leaked video we discussed recently. Was anyone surprised by the reaction? Not me, it was exactly what I expected. But their PR response to the leak is what bothered me:
> Nothing was said at that meeting, or any other meeting, to suggest that any political bias ever influences the way we build or operate our products.
Why not just be brave and come out and say "we support these values and not those values, we are not a neutral platform, please move on to another service if you don't agree".
Presumably because telling half of your users to fuck off is a terrible financial decision?
Here executives were crying on camera saying "we lost". I don't think many believe they are then going to turn around wipe their tears, sit down at their desks and be impartial when deciding which news to filter, which videos to demonetize, which charities to support. I don't think they will be, and they shouldn't. They should be more brave and stand up for what they believe. It will make them seem more honest and they might even recover some of the PR image they lost recently.
Google/etc have policies on hate speech and false content, and for some reason banning those things is now considered a political bias.
Fact: You will find such people subjected to strikes and bans on YouTube and Twitter who are simply ideologically opposed to the goals of Intersectionality and Feminism on the basis of philosophy rooted in "smaller government."
Really? I was parodying your lack of logic. Why is it that you can't enforce child pornography, but still refrain from other kinds of government infringement. Please explain the reasons you so carefully gave above before you started to poison the well by invoking child porn. Provide quotes. Or is there a hole in your logic there?
And giving counter-examples is not poisoning the well, unless you personally have a history with violating child pornography laws that I'm not aware of. Then that would be discrediting you as a pedophile, not your argument, and in which case I apologize for picking such a touchy counter-example for you.
I was parodying you with a reference to "lobster" logic.
And giving counter-examples is not poisoning the well, unless you personally have a history with violating child pornography laws that I'm not aware of.
I'm going to be charitable and think you're trolling here, not hilariously lacking self-awareness.
I've heard conservatives say they're uncomfortable working there because "everyone" is liberal, but they also live in San Francisco California, where "everyone" is liberal, so that's hardly Google's fault.
For example: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/youtu...
I have yet to see evidence of actual enforced liberal bias by youtube.
It depends on who you watch. If you get away from the left-leaning bubble on YouTube, it's rampant. Phillip DeFranco often gets demonetized, often because he gets lurid, but at times it's apparently because he's "too neutral" from a Far Left point of view. Dave Rubin gets demonetized all the time, though he almost never covers anything lurid, and his entire channel basically consists of people talking about things. Computing Forever gets demonetized all of the time, though he's basically just a talking head coming from a conservative point of view. Independent Man: same.
Can you point me to a few left-leaning spaces on YouTube that do not get demonetized? I follow a few leftist YouTubers, and all have them have several demonetized videos.
I've never seen evidence that Phillip DeFranco or Dave Rubin got demonetized specifically because of the political leaning of their video.
Alex Jones got demonetized because he claimed shooting victims were crisis actors, which is an acceptable form of "bias" to me. I actually blame his blow-up as the origin of the "Youtube censors conservatives" meme.
I think this polygon article does a generally fair analysis: https://www.polygon.com/2018/3/9/17101166/youtube-purge-robe... though it doens't talk about Rubin or DeFranco.
The most thrown around quote is this:
"As we work to hire rapidly and ramp up our policy enforcement teams throughout 2018, newer members may misapply some of our policies resulting in mistaken removals,"
Which, yea, hire a bunch of moderators out of San Francisco (I assume) and that can happen. But, the company rectified the issue. The fact that videos lost out on money is due to YouTube's dumb method of content moderation (demonetization immediately and invalidating all those views), not because the company itself has a bias. If the company had a bias, it would not train employees to not remove pro-gun videos merely for being pro-gun, or reinstate banned pro-gun videos.
But, you seem to have the greatest handle on this - do you have any articles or analyses across multiple conservative accounts facing demonetization on a regular basis? That kind of evidence would indicate a trend and would finally fulfill my desire for actual evidence of anti-conservative bias by Google.
Polygon is thoroughly biased and intellectually dishonest.
"As we work to hire rapidly and ramp up our policy enforcement teams throughout 2018, newer members may misapply some of our policies resulting in mistaken removals,"
Which, yea, hire a bunch of moderators out of San Francisco (I assume) and that can happen. But, the company rectified the issue.
The issue isn't rectified. Basically, those ideologues are just being sneakier.
This seems to be to be ad hominem fallacy. As you haven't successfully targeted individual points of the article, an outside observer would (so far) correctly surmise my argument to be the stronger one. I welcome you to challenge me on this.
>Basically, those ideologues are just being sneakier.
Are they being so sneaky we can't even tell they're doing it? Well then how do you know they're doing it!
I'm going by their track record.
As GOP Chairman Rich Bond said,"There is some strategy to it [bashing the 'liberal' media...] If you watch any great coach, what they try to do is 'work the refs.' Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack on the next one."
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/books/chapters/what-liber...
Enforcement in Silicon Valley tends to let bad actors from the left have lots of leeway while immediately censoring or disciplining for expressing mainstream conservative views.
What examples are there of a company in silicon valley censoring or disciplining conservative employees for conservative views?
Oh, the Google thing. That's easy to sum up in my opinion. From his tldr:
>Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership. Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business.
He failed to demonstrate a difference in traits between men and women correlating to engineering interest and ability. Therefore, equal representation is fair. Therefore, it is an attack on an underrepresented gender to argue otherwise.
If he wants to go and research whether or not there are actual trait differences he's more than welcome to, but he shouldn't be surprised if Google doesn't want to fund that effort.
By the way, it seems you're suggesting "belief that women are biologically predisposed to not be interested in / good at engineering" is a conservative value. I'd agree that it's a value many people that are conservatives hold, but I also know many fiscal conservatives who'd be quite insulted by this conflation.
Brendan Eich opposed a bill giving equal rights to a certain group of humans based on born traits. Is "not wanting to give equal rights to a certain group of humans" a conservative value? That's a shame, because that kind of thing is typically illegal at the Constitutional level. If someone feels bad that they argue that gays shouldn't have equal rights, and then tbeh get fired over it, I have about as much sympathy for that person as I do for a racist.
In any case, racism, sexism, hate against gays are not political opinions, and shouldn't be protected.
For the CNN video, which was most interesting as I haven't seen it before, so thank you for turning it up:
The first guy says "if I suggest we have more border security am I gonna get fired?" I'm not allowed to talk about politics at work, why should he? If there's an environment he's in where people are talking about this stuff, and he doesn't get to, that's definitely an issue! Same for maga hat guy.
If someone holds unpopular opinions and is getting pushback about it, that's life in the big city. Every big city, actually. They're all full of liberals. I've yet to hear of people suffering actual consequences for expressing non-hateful aspects of their personal philosophy.
Tldr I don't care that sexists, racists, or homophobes get fired for their beliefs. I don't care that a maga hat guy can't wear his hat to work because I can't put a Bernie sticker on my laptop and fair's fair. If a trump supporter doesn't have any friends in San Francisco, I am unsympathetic. If they get fired over it, though, I will be mad.
edit: I was just saying that the heartland is dying and doesn't yet realize it and that their death throes are going to screw us all. I don't think civil war is inevitable, I think that the "right wing" or whatever will fizzle over the coming years.
The "heartland" is also biased to things like food production and military service to defend the rights of all (including the "coastal majority"). Probably not a good idea to unnecessarily stir the pot and risk secession or civil war.
A little understanding, compassion, and tolerance goes a long way.
To reiterate, there's a reason this article is about Google and not Facebook and Twitter...because those two showed up to the Senate hearing...which was bipartisan.
The whole thing about snubbed senators getting mad and wanting revenge is beyond undemocratic it's tyrannical.
Edit: If you downvote, tell me why you disagree.
The Senate cares way way more about Google killing cooperation with the DoD and then cuddling up to China to censor search than anything else. Google's willingness to violate human rights to gain a foothold in a search market should bother more people than it currently does.
Senators are legislators. Legislators write laws, changing things from "illegal" to "legal" or vice versa. The question of whether conduct should be illegal is thus absolutely their business, and the purpose of senate hearings (aside from grandstanding) is to give a public forum of record where these issues can be discussed to guide future legislation.
There seems to be a strange misperception that judges should decide whether something should be legal or not, when their role is to /interpret/ the law as it exists, and /apply/ the law to specific situations.
I think they're concerned (as am I) about the false advertising aspect of it - they're not presenting themselves as, say, a newspaper which just runs the stories it runs, but as a _global_ web search company. If they're not actually searching the entire web, or if they're performing tricks to make it difficult to actually use their product the way it's implied that it's supposed to be used, they have to disclose that and make it clear.
You don't believe false advertising is against the law in the United States, do you?
Well, freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences. While the Government cannot police google's speech, it can certainly break it up with anti-monopoly laws.
Does the first amendment prevent the government from using economic regulations to punish political speech by companies?
There's actually a lot of SCOTUS case law on this question. Including very recent cases, such as http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/06/opinion-analysis-court-rul...
> But the critical question of when and how Phillips’ right to exercise his religion can be limited had to be determined, Kennedy emphasized, in a proceeding that was not tainted by hostility to religion. Here, Kennedy observed, the “neutral and respectful consideration to which Phillips was entitled was compromised” by comments by members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. At one hearing, Kennedy stressed, commissioners repeatedly “endorsed the view that religious beliefs cannot legitimately be carried into the public sphere or commercial domain, implying that religious beliefs and persons are less than fully welcome in Colorado’s business community.
Similar standards are applied elsewhere; e.g., local govt's limiting assembly (e.g. requiring permits) or speech (eg in council meetings) is, in general, acceptable. But only if those restrictions are applied without ideological/religious bias. Ditto for schools.
If the executive branch systematically communicated that it was breaking up Google because of ideological disagreements between the ruling political party and Google's executive team, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see SCOTUS slap down that enforcement action.
I doubt it. The politicians criticizing Google's political actions aren't going to be the ones prosecuting it or adjudicating its violations. It'll be referred to regulatory bodies that will determine if it's in violation or not in a much more neutral manner.
The case you cited was about improper bias exhibited by an adjudicator in the course of deciding a case.
I should've been more explicit about my meaning :)
Many YouTubers and many Twitter users would say more conservative things, but Google and Twitter actively discourage and ban users in a way which is pointedly biased. Some of those so targeted deserve such treatment. However, not all of them do. Many of them are simply in ideological disagreement.
It's a dilemma. If monopolies and near-monopolies are allowed to use corporate power to police speech, then this is allowed in the letter of the law, but it stinks to high heaven as far as the spirit of free speech goes. On the other hand, the government shouldn't be in the business of policing speech.
The way out of this dilemma is to break up near-monopoly power where it exists. Right now, there really isn't a good alternative to YouTube, and this near monopoly power lets them effectively police speech across the entirety of a certain kind of widespread culturally relevant media: That of personal video commentary.
Who is doing the editing is extremely important. If a newspaper declines to publish a white supremacist screed in their op-ed column, that is not censorship. The screeching racist can always try and publish somewhere else, or publish themselves (online or in print), or yell in the streets. But if the government intervenes and tries to force/prevent any of those things from happening, that's censorship and it's unconstitutional. Completely different ballgame. It drives me up the wall that people think those cases are "equivalent".
Free speech is an American value, not just a few words in the Constitution. I'm sympathetic when folks object to private censors. As an American, I'm offended as well.
The post office is more analogous to the transport layer, in which case you'd be making a solid case for net neutrality, and I'd agree with you there. The post office having an editorial board would be like Comcast having an editorial board.
The “platform” excuse is dead on the first real legal challenge. It’s past time for these publishers to be held to the standards other publishers have been held to for decades or longer. They can’t cry “free speech” on one hand while acting like publishers on the other. When it was just galling hypocrisy fair enough, but they’re big enough and have supplanted enough “traditional media” that their time has come.
The problem isn't with excluding "X" screeds. The problem is with dishonest actors who happen to have corporate power who label everything they disagree with as "X." The problem is with arbitrary corporate media power which can have an effect commensurate with government violation of the 1st amendment, but which skirts the law because it's "private."
In the 1960's the government sought to suppress the speech of students and large segments of the populace, then that populace sought to fight back using Free Speech. Now, in the 21st century, corporate media and tech power seeks to suppress the speech of large segments of the populace online. The question isn't whether or not it's the government. It's the question of whether or not coercive power is going against the will of a segment of the populace. It's the question of force vs. argument.
The issue is not the government shutting down media. It's with big tech shutting down small mom & pop media. If it's wrong for the government to censor, we shouldn't let the authoritarians skirt the constitution by gathering the commensurate power (in the form of a monopoly) to do just as much.
"Or tell them what to say." Is there anyone who actually thinks that what some random YouTuber says is the official word of YouTube? They probably exist and comprise only a sliver of a fraction of a percent of the population. Censorship on a media platform should not be a form of speech. The fact that this is such a sticky issue probably indicates that another category is needed.
If the government tells YouTube which YouTube videos to suppress, no matter how "unimportant" the "random YouTuber", then the government is restricting both the YouTubers' speech, and YouTube's right to prioritize information as it sees fit. Just the same as if the government told newspapers which articles were allowed to appear on the front page, or which op-eds it could select.
Let's turn your criticism right back around: Would that kind of regulation be tolerable to you if we were talking about conservative publications/websites, and it were a liberal government telling them what to do?
How is this not just more conservative persecution syndrome?
Fact: Google has hired humans to moderate. They've even spoken to the press about how it went a bit wrong at first.
How is this not just more conservative persecution syndrome?
Note that it's you who has the facts wrong here.
Put up or shut up. Show what you were referring to, or admit that you don't have anything to complain about.
There is no failure. I reject your premise that logic on a ToS is empty and idiotic, as most other people would.
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/books/chapters/what-liber...
As Google does not censor conservative content, what else would only GOP officials be upset about? If it was general election integrity, the other major issue cross tech/politics right now, why aren't isn't it a bipartisan meeting? Actually, the GOP has downplayed election integrity issues, which further convinces me that it is not a strawman argument to claim the GOP is pressuring tech companies to show more pro-conservative content.
There are certainly many anecdotal complaints about Google censoring or demonetizing conservatives on YouTube.
There have been a few notable instances where Google has promoted incendiary content against conservatives in their search results “answers” — although those cases seemed to algorithms picking up tainted UGC. [1]
Also anecdotally, Google News seems to present a highly scewed viewpoint (browsing logged off with no cookies, only inferred location from IP).
I’m not aware of rigorous studies, but by no means would I take it as a foregone conclusion that Google is not censoring conservative content.
[1] - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trudy-wade-google-search-result...
I appreciate your genuine approach here. The reason I'm being so militant on actual evidence is due to excellent coaching from many people I admire in my life to challenge assumptions and anecdote. Trust me, I'm great fun in design meetings.
In this case, I'd agree with you that Google News presents generally liberal news. Generally I'd say this is because there is 1 conservative media conglomerate (Fox) vs so many liberal ones (CNN, NBC, etc), and meanwhile the many ones I would consider "fair" (Al Jazeera, BBC, NPR, NYTimes, WaPo, NHK) seem so anti-conservative because, well, conservative politicians keep doing some pretty shitty things. That being said, Fox is a default source on my uncookied google news, and I've seen Breitbart and other extraordinarily conservative sources, so I don't think there is a Google-level explicit bias, rather a failure on the part of conservative-leaning media to present a perspective as level-headed as, say, NPR. When the best it has to offer is Fox, Breitbart, and InfoWars, I'm not surprised it gets churned.
Just checking through sources I had to block due to simply terribly ham-fisted propaganda attempts, here's other ones that show up on google news by default:
Investor's Business Daily
New York Post
RealClearPolitics
Screen Rant
The Hill
Washington Times
nationalreview
When the government is the agent of "consequences", that's exactly what freedom of speech is.
> When the government is the agent of "consequences", that's exactly what freedom of speech is.
You're talking about the First Amendment, not freedom of speech.
And that's where you're wrong. The federal government at least in principle guarantees no consequences from itself for merely communicating or publishing ideas.
They key word there is merely. The government can still punish you for your other actions. For instance, if you use your free speech rights to brag that you're dumping a pollutant into a river, which is unregulated and therefore legal, and the scrutiny you invited with your speech leads the government learn that you're also drug dealer, they can still prosecute you.
Yes, but that's not punishment for communicating or publishing ideas. You can admit things that can be used against you in a prosecution for a different crime, but you cannot be legally punished for merely communicating or publishing ideas. To use such an example as evidence that you are not free from consequence legitimizes the common sentiment that freedom of speech is a soft right that can be violated if we feel like it very strongly.
Exactly my point. The government has been overlooking Google's antitrust issues, and Google doesn't get immunity from that scrutiny because some GOP congressmen don't like its First Amendment-protected actions. The antitrust scrutiny (and especially its timing) may seem like a "punishment for communicating or publishing ideas," but it's really not.
Then this position should also extend to gender/diversity quotas and similar things pushed by the government.
The First Amendment has had many exceptions made for cases the founding fathers could not foresee and even cases they could but didn't consider the long term implications of. This could be just as valid as other exceptions. It'll be up the Supreme Court to decide.
The question in my mind is, based on Google's positioning in the market how much does "common carrier" and "net neutrality" apply? They seem to be in a bit of a grey area.
If they are an opinion site, yeah, 1st Amendment, no doubt. If they want to come out and communicate something completely separate from the search engine like a manifesto, that's also 1st Amendment.
But the messaging and expectation from users is that the search engine is a machine without bias. Presenting something as unbiased when it is biased could be considered fraud.
Also, is Google a curator of information or a generic provider that merely connects multiple parties like the postal system, ISPs, etc? If so, should net neutrality apply?
One approach they could take is that the algorithms just reflect the information that is available and merely mirrors any bias in society. Then again, that raises the question of whether AI is racist, sexist, left/right wing, etc; and whether something should be done about it.
Tech companies aren't liable for user content on their sites as long as they act as the equivalent of a digital public square. The minute they start selectively editing content they become a "publisher" and can be sued into oblivion for any illegal content they host.
Google search is probably safe but Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter could be argued to be in violation with their policing of conservative content in the past year or so. Social media companies would basically cease to exist without the protections from US communications act 230
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...
What's especially insidious about censorship online that forces us to think differently about it is that when users do a Google search, they generally don't expect political bias to influence search results. People are aware of the biases of different media outlets and can tailor their consumption of such media accordingly, but the black box of social media and internet search means the bias is invisible and we can't monitor it the way we can when we read the New York Times or watch Fox News.
Yes these are private companies, but they monopolize what has become the public square and we must not allow the public square to be arbitrarily controlled by private entities.
The medium of communication doesn't make speech suddenly exempt from the first amendment - especially when the government is actively questioning if the speech in context is legal because they don't like the search results they see.
But a more important distinction is this: Google has control over what content produced by individuals is seen by other individuals. Television, radio and newspapers are much more limited in scope, in that they are private groups which produce content that I consume. Google, Twitter and Facebook instead provide platforms for individuals to share their own content, which is what makes them part of the "public square", and which is why - combined with their monopoly control of the internet - their politically biased attempts at controlling what we see is censorship and cannot be tolerated.
Google does not have a monopoly. Market dominance with accessible competition != monopoly. Having a consumer preferred or superior product != monopoly.
>Google has control over what content produced by individuals is seen by other individuals
And the television networks didn't? What you're describing is not different at all.
No, television spreads the product of companies, not the thought of individuals.
This isn't creating a precedent that the government can tell Google what to do. It's creating a precedent that the right wing can tell Google what to do.
https://thinkprogress.org/facebook-weekly-standard-fact-chec...
But I don't think First Amendment protects Google, in principle. A corporation is not an individual, it's an artificial construction allowed by the society because its existence is useful to the society. It does not have human rights. And, frankly, I don't think Google's search results even qualify as "speech". (Again, IANAL.) You won't find a single Google employee (or executive) who will say "Yes, what you see on Google's search result represents my opinion."
Besides, it's the fucking job of the government to "complain" about what corporations do. The government complains when a company overworks workers, pollutes a stream, or exercise their right to free speech by saying "This product is safe for baby!" when the government decides it is not.
We can talk about whether this particular case is justified: reducing it into a 1st amendment issue is not very productive, IMHO.
your 1A argument is moot. nobody is telling Google what they can say, which again, they don't produce content anyway. they are telling Google to make their platforms level for all points of view. speaking of 1A, InfoWars is all i have to say about that.
last thing, if you don't think conservatives are being censored on FB, Twitter, and Google... well, there's no point arguing. it's happening. DuckDuckGo it.
When I browse through a blog post that speaks positively of a product, I know there is a pretty decent (double-digit percentages) chance that it is a well disguised paid ad. I can at least try to factor that in to my decision making.
Now with Google there is very much an assumption that they have an algorithm that applies some linear or non-linear math and comes up with a rating, sans some by-hand filtering for pornography and some other stuff that should be non-controversial to 80% of the population. If that assumption is wrong, government absolutely has a role to step in and expose that.
Why? Why can't people who are unsatisfied with the product just use a different product?
However, they are overtly claiming to be neutral and have no bias.
If in practice they aren't neutral (and I don't event think they themselves can tell at this point, given how complex the search stack must be), they ought to be called on it.
> Their position should be a very firm "don't tell us what to f-cking do."
Makes complete sense to me. I assume that is the advice you have for others as well?
Facebook's reaction to government concerns about "fake news":
Don't tell us what to f-cking do!
Facebook's reaction to running ads for Russians:
Don't tell us what to f-cking do!
Super PAC campaign ads:
Don't tell us what to f-cking do!
Donald Trump selecting who he sends Twitter messages to:
Don't tell me what to f-cking do!
Policing ideological speech: Laws against incitement. Fact: There are also laws about curbing private monopoly control of certain kinds of media in a given area.
Government complaining about bias: Civil rights laws. Equal Opportunity Employment.
When the actions of both powerful government organizations and powerful companies start to infringe on the speech of constituents, then the representatives elected to that government have taken action in the past.
Google could in principle make its results insanely left-leaning and the first amendment should protect them.
This has already happened. I don't think the first amendment would necessarily protect them. There is already a precedent for government to curb monopoly power in media.
They must be very careful not to let the narrative become "we don't bias our results, we swear!"
If "they" is Google, then the bird has already flown the coop in this case.
Their position should be a very firm "don't tell us what to fcking do."*
Should other companies start saying the same? Maybe having far less government would be far better across the board. When one concentrates power, someone figures out a way to abuse it. This applies as much to Google as it does to government.
EDIT: No such thing as "Hate speech laws."
Can you be specific? Because unless there's a tv or radio station involved, there's not a lot to stand on here in the last 50 years.
Translation: We just fell through the cracks because of the technological specificity of older laws. Time for new laws.
The FCC is able to regulate cross-market ownership of media only when the ownership includes a license to broadcast within publicly owned spectrum. It's not technological specificity, it has to do with the root of each technology's ability to broadcast media.
> Time for new laws.
I was talking about the Supreme Court recognizing wider application of the First Amendment, like in Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson. New laws won't help there.
The public didn't own that spectrum in 1812. Or at least no one knew. Again, the point is that laws (and regulations) are too technologically specific. It's time to update.
This the same reason why the FCC can regulate content on the airwaves, but can’t over cable. There’s no public property involved.
Hopefully, constellations of satellites providing Internet can take over almost entirely, so public property in the forms of bandwidth and orbits can justify such regulation. I say hopefully, because the current big tech culture has shown that it lacks the ethics to create level playing fields and curb its own biases.
Ideologically biased actors in YouTube are basically engaging in ideological manipulation of the market within its walled garden.
To what? Without a convincing basis for the government to regulate a type of speech (like a limiting resource that needs to be licensed), your new law isn't going to make it past the first supreme court challenge.
Space on the recommended section and monetization is a limiting resource. Basically, human attention and the sum total of all available information are valuable and limited resources, and manipulation of access to those has potentially dangerous and far reaching consequences.
There's a large difference between political/religious bias and racial bias in employment/commerce. The former is explicitly constitutionally protected. The latter is not.
Hate speech is protected by the 1st amendment.
It's the standard in most of the world. In parts of europe, you could go to jail for political speech and the media is tightly controlled.
> They must be very careful not to let the narrative become "we don't bias our results, we swear!" (even if it's true)
You know it's true.
"Facebook, YouTube, and the like are publishers.
As a society, we did not have qualms before the internet about publishers declining to amplify the views of people like Alex Jones. Even in the absence of YouTube's support, he arguably has far more of a voice now than he did in the pre-internet days, before he could host his own website. He has that on top of all the traditional means of communication he always had, which includes passing out flyers and yelling in the street.
It is the responsibility of information disseminators to curate their content. Nobody is going to jail over these editorial choices, so the notion that this is a constitutional issue is pure hysteria. YouTube and Facebook are finally stepping up to the responsibility they have long owed us from the beginning."
Why don't you have any principles or consistency? You support corporate censoring when people you dislike gets censored. You support government censorship when people you you gets censored. Is that a bit hypocritical?
They must be very careful not to let the narrative become "we don't bias our results, we swear!" (even if it's true) because that validates the notion that the government is allowed to complain about it, and puts the burden on them to prove it. Their position should be a very firm "don't tell us what to f*cking do."