Google CEO Sundar Pichai to Meet with Top GOP Lawmakers

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?

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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?

There is not equal application of the rules, they are applied in a biased manner.

Jack Dorsey and Zuckerburg said their company had liberal bias. We know google does.

> The fact that Jack had to personally intervene to stop his employees from banning Alex Jones (after numerous egregious violations) speaks to the power of this approach.

Alex Jones got banned anyways. For things far more benign than say what sarah jeong wrote.

Stop it. It's been proven that there is bias. The only question is what, if anything, should be done about it. What's with the blatant dishonesty here? How can there be an honest discussion when people outright lie?

Interesting claim. Can you back it up?

Off the top of my head I would posit that the most powerful lobbyist in US history was the United Fruit Company, who successfully lobbied the US government to overthrow the democratically elected government of Guatemala. From [1]:

> Several historians have maintained that the lobbying of the UFC, and the expropriation of its lands, were the chief motivation for the U.S., strengthened by the financial ties of individuals within the Eisenhower administration to the UFC.

I'm genuinely very interested in seeing evidence that Google has more influence than the UFC!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A...

Why do we willingly allow private governments, especially those with an enormous amount of power over people? Who would ever want these companies with hundreds of millions to a billion+ users to be allowed to censor other than complying with local laws?

In my opinion, Google, Facebook, and other large corporations are a threat to our democracy & elections in a much larger way than any Russia claim that could be made. Censorship on the level that Google could and probably does pull off is a major concern and could swing elections that directly effect Americans negatively at the benefit of Google.

As mentioned elsewhere in the comments, the question shouldn't be whether google is biased or not, but whether the government should be getting involved at all.