Press leaks during Google's all-hands meeting enrage insiders
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
Putting ramparts and a moat around your primogeniture home owner's association lost to the advantages afforded by consolidation of production and trade. The traditions, structures and expressions of human nature have changed very little.
I'm sure this is probably some high octane confirmation bias, but this story just sings to me about what I've been writing about.
The landed members in this council meeting are outraged that one of their own is ignoring the duties of their vassalage. Is anything sacred when peasants who aren't even in your kingdom can listen in on your chancellors, stewards and spymasters? To the landed of the realm, this is a legitimate affront to the value of your titles! That's casus belli if I ever heard of it. I wonder how many employees are trying to rainbow table the journalist.
If this metaphor is interesting to you, this pithy comment I wrote here ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16565135 ) is related.
You should write a book or short stories or something!
We'll see if I still have it takes, or if I'm just a one-hit wonder. I've been out of the game for a long time. About 25~ years ago, when I was in 3rd grade, I was published my first and only time. I landed a poem in a young authors compilation.
Here's the poem, verbatim.
People with big noses are funny, Because they need lots of money, To fix their nose, that looks like a fire-hose, what they really need is reconstructive surgery.
Since then, I've grown a lot. My art has grown more egalitarian and inclusive. I'm still nervous about re-entering the scene. I'm worried it'll get dredged up, take twitter by storm and cause me to lose my job.
I'm worried that once I fill in the blanks and edit, my #1 supporter CLGrimes will be gone and I'll be skewered in the e-court of e-opinions. Can I count on you to wait for me?
But, seriously, I'm also interested in the comparison of kingdom to corporation.
E: spelling
http://geolib.com/ http://cgocouncil.org/cwho.html
Similar sentiments are to be found among mutualists, agorists, etc. Ownership of land specifically is ownership of property stolen from the commons during the era in which enclosure occurred. Those who pit absolutist interpretations of property rights against the need for democratic and responsive government are the intellectual and often financial descendants of kings and feudal lords. To the extent that other wealth is often derived from land wealth at some stage, it's often tainted as well. This is closely related to Proudhon's "property is theft" (specifically excluding labor-made wealth) and similar ideas going back to Saint Ambrose and Basil of Caesarea in the fourth century.
This is the real "trickle down" economics, but it only extends as far as the modern equivalent of courtiers and lesser gentry - not to the vast majority. Those on the system's fringes are often most wary of threats to it, often seeking to secure their position by loudly denouncing the unblessed rabble who would displace them in a truly free system.
Most Googlers realize this as well, which is why they too are upset with the leakers. It shuts off any visibility that they would have otherwise. Visibility that can be used productively to alter company policy, like was done with the defense contract.
Ultimately, preserving the confidentiality of sensitive discussions, is part of the social contract that benefits the employees themselves in the long term. Going on an anti-corporate diatribe and tearing up this social contract isn't doing anyone any good.
Google has 88,000 employees. I don't know what their definition is for "All Hands", but it's probably a lot of people. I think there's a saying about this. 88,000 people can keep a secret if 87,999 are dead?
I know you're hardly the first, but I laughed when you called them "Googlers" instead of Google Employees. I can't wait until Google calls up its levy of Googlers to arms and they hit the campaign with retinues holding bright blue-red-orange-blue-green-red standards. I believe the feeling of betrayal is real but it's still funny.
I assert this is more about loyalty to your liege/realm/company than a practical thing to be upset about. The people doing the cursing on a hot mic seem to have built their identity around the company they work for. I get how that could happen but it's still peculiar to me, I firmly believe that no matter how many times they say it, the company you work for is NOT your family, unless it's a family owned business and they are.
It just occurred to me that you might think I'm being anti-corporate because of the comparisons to feudalism. Maybe you felt an instinctually negative reaction when you read the word. I'm much more dispassionate myself. Taking the emotion out of the words allow you to see that the systems have enormous similarity with merely different vocabulary, like angular vs. react, except feudalism isn't as dystopian as angular (Ha Ha, google joke). Peasant::Non Managerial Employees, Youtube:Google:Alphabet::Duchy:Kingdom:Empire. It's there, you just have to look!
The reality is, the meetings have devolved into events where the councilors engage mostly in political grandstanding for the press, and each faction shows up with with their activist signs, chanting, and yelling.
Obviously the various factions will have private meetings among themselves and have private meetings between representatives when they actually need to get things done or come to an agreement.
This degrading of internal communications is pretty much the entire point of Wikileaks.
Those private meetings are illegal under state law, yet the councilors do it anyway (this was brought to light during the recent Head Tax debacle).
Have their been any investigations into why people find them revolting?
Negotiations are hard, the more parties there are the harder they get. Public negotiations have very large numbers of parties, even if most of them can’t vote.
Transparency and publicity in deliberative democracy does not mean that everything is just public and open discussion, because it just don't work.
Most areas should be maximally public, like results of meetings, meeting agendas, who is attending, decisions and laws of course with very rare exceptions (personal privacy, ongoing criminal investigations, ...).
But sometimes the meetings themselves should not be public to enable honest discussion and ideas. Just make sure that every party involved has a representation. Chatham House rule is often good choice when full privacy is not needed (you can talk about what was said, but not about who said what).
Cabinet's ability to reach decisions effectively requires frank discussions, which are only possible without having to posture for the cameras. Cabinet papers (submissions and minutes) are classified and only released several decades later -- 30 years, in Australia.
Similarly, cabinet solidarity (sometimes called collective responsibility) holds that when Cabinet reaches a decision, all members of the Cabinet must support it in public. This is partly to maintain confidentiality, but also a practical matter of having the numbers on the floor of Parliament.
The flip side is Question Time: when the Cabinet is asked questions in open Parliament (usually alternating between government and opposition members). Question Time is performance art, ritual combat. Rap battles before rap battles. But it is not the main vehicle for decision-making. Nor should it be.
Of course. Just like any press release would be run through the lawyers before going out the door. Can't have a frank discussion with an Omarosa in the room.
I wouldn't be surprised if the next such meeting requires all phones to be left outside the door.
"Where I come from, that means you're about to steal a mirror."
1. A business reason to not divulge sensitive details about any projects in future meetings.
2. Employee support for 1.
3. Actually being able to keep employees in the dark about this Google Search in China endeavor.
Now, the questions that present themselves are:
1. Was the leak planned to have that effect?
2. Was the leak planned and/or executed by one or more members of Google's management team?
If upper management don't divulge it themselves during meetings or to the press, they'll lose a chance to try to be the first to frame the issue, control the narrative and spin it in their favor.
Let's not rush too quickly into conspiracy theories and false flags.
Had they not gotten so brazen as to put up in real time what was being said in the meeting, I'm sure the reaction would have been different. Of course, the powers to be at Google took the chance to turn sympathy towards themselves and are going to use it as an excuse from now on to be a tad less candid in these meetings.
Leaks can break a company.
Otherwise the discussion is private and/or not transparent. (Or at least not intended to be transparent.) Private discussions are usually not be transparent, otherwise the public court will judge.
If Google wants to discuss sensitive issues at an "all hands meeting" then it better be prepared for leaks, otherwise they should stick to smoke filled rooms.
> then it better be prepared for leaks
Leaking something that was brought up questioned and resolved in a negative way is one thing. In contrast this was just live tweeting everything said.
Bringing up complicated topics and having an honest discussion is hard when the whole of the internet is your judge.
> A computing professional has an additional obligation to report any signs of system risks that might result in harm. If leaders do not act to curtail or mitigate such risks, it may be necessary to "blow the whistle" to reduce potential harm. However, capricious or misguided reporting of risks can itself be harmful. Before reporting risks, a computing professional should carefully assess relevant aspects of the situation.
The irony is that the previous leak (which detailed a harmful IT system) was the cause of this very meeting (Googlers wanted to know more about the project they read about on HackerNews/The Intercept). Without that earlier leak, upper management wouldn't be forced to organize this open meeting. Though, I can fully understand getting angry and wanting to signal support.
What this new leak made clear is that the supposed culture of openness at Google is a farce: "Brin reportedly denied having knowledge of the program until after news leaked and what Brin described as "this kerfuffle" erupted." So even one of the CEO's was left in the dark.
It's right there in the US Constitution Bill of Rights.
Therefore more important/vital, yet given the transnational nature, also less difficult to "enforce".
A censored search engine is a gray PSYOP weapon.
> Psychological operations (PSYOP) are planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.
Personally, I'd rather see something like Google that operated outside all jurisdictions, and was entirely uncensored. And not advertising driven. But so it goes.
Let me get this straight. You argue that these US documents apply in China? That's quite the claim. Believers in the proto-US fought a war against England over those issues, after all. And that ain't gonna happen in China.
And, yes, inalienable rights apply in China. If it is good and proper to be offended by how someone is treated regardless of legal context, there is an implicit inalienable right. Ad absurdum, we expect freedom from rape, justice broadly defined, freedom from genocide, and many other things. If Elbonia passed a law saying lynching of minorities was OK, they'd be wrong. That's what makes the relevant rights inalienable.
Not at all. I argued that certain human rights are inherent to being human. The US Constitution does not invent or bestow those rights, it recognizes and guarantees them. (And yes, the US government has fallen short of that now and then.)
Still, as much as I (and arguably, most of those reading this) agree with that claim, the fact remains that the Chinese government (and arguably, much if not most, of China's population) do not. And there are norms and laws there which are inconsistent with that claim. And furthermore, that situation is certainly not unique to China.
Also, there's the internationally recognized expectation that businesses are subject to at least the laws of places where they do business. And governments are not shy about enforcing their laws. So if Google wants to do business in China, it must accept Chinese jurisdiction. Just as Google must comply with EU regulations and court orders in order to do business there.
And yes, I get the argument that Google ought to stay out of China, on moral grounds. Back when South Africa practiced apartheid, I would have expected Google to shun that market.
However, I don't believe that Google has exited the Israeli market, in protest over human rights abuse against Palestinians. Or more generally, against a theocratic government that discriminates against all non Jews.
Also, Google is clearly cooperating with the EU regarding the "right to be forgotten". On its face, that violates the right to free speech. Although an exception could be justified by other enumerated human rights, that seems inconsistent with libel precedents in the US.
Finally, if we expect Google to stay out of China on moral grounds, what about all of the other firms that have invested in Chinese businesses, buy products from them, and otherwise participate in the Chinese economy? Why isn't there pressure to divest and sanction, as there has been regarding North Korea, Iran, Russia, and so on? As there was regarding South Africa, during apartheid? Why isn't there pressure for Apple etc to source components elsewhere?
What's so special about Google, in this regard?
In 1964 America, some types of rights-violating discrimination that (as generally understood due to the victory of the Union in the Civil War) the government ought not to engage in, were suddenly also banned from the sphere of corporate activity. [1] I wasn't born at the time, but I understand that there were many US locales where the discrimination forbidden to government had been retained, and remained widespread, via delegation to businesses.
Are we headed to a similar battle around online free speech? I personally don't want Western businesses to help implement censorship in any country, whether express or local, whether administrative or corporate.
At the end of the day though, a video being downed from a private service doesn’t make it go away, for better or worse. It does make it harder for the average goon to find, unless they’re strongly motivated in which case they still find it. The ability of a private service, however large, to choose what the host also strikes me as reasonable, just as I have a choice to use them or not. We have a right to freedom of expression, not convenience of expression; it sort of feels like people arguing that 20 years ago, everyone should have had the right to get Simon & Schuster to publish their book, or they were being censored. The same facile arguments about “sort of a monopoly” could have been applied then, and they would have been ridiculous then too.
So instead of a good debate we’re stuck with either slippery slope arguments which ignore the history of all countries other than the US, or dishonest arguments about the definition monopoly.