Google exec responds to Project Veritas video about bias | Hacker News Reader

Google exec responds to Project Veritas video about bias

medium.com

80 pointsrosterface45 comments

Google has removed the original video from youtube over a "privacy claim" and have disabled responses on this medium post.

It makes it hard to give Google the benefit of the doubt when their stance seems to be "stop talking about it", instead of addressing the content of the video.

Why do Google, Twitter, Facebook or any of these companies deserve safe harbor provisions?

They aren't transparent in their decision making processes, and it's beyond obvious that the "Rules" are applied unequally.

Given that she has already gotten threatening messages, that seems like a reasonable response. The primary responsibility should be to the safety of the employee.

If getting "threatening messages" from anonymous social media accounts is the standard we're going to apply to whether or not we can talk about corruption of power, say goodbye to free speech.

Imagine an oil executive saying you can't report their name or what they said in a private conversation because some environmentalist sent them a vicious tweet. This is what you're arguing for.

They did the same thing for the Pinterest video.

It's kind of disturbing because there's a clear two tier pattern emerging.

People with tech connections can take down videos that name them, even if the videos are legitimately news worthy.

Meanwhile CNN hunts down and doxes people who post memes without tech companies doing anything.

Private security is a better response if they’re concerned about her safety.

Viewed through the lens of human power, which is more likely?

same excuse always used but no evidence. at least post a screenshot. they never do. never call the police. just an easy cover up to play the victim.

It would be nice if she’d elaborate on the comments she made, particularly where the “imprecise” language was —- what was she trying to say at the dinner? There were many long runs of commentary without opportunity for deceptive editing.

“Elizabeth Warren is saying we should break up Google. And like, I love her but she’s very misguided, like that will not make it better it will make it worse, because all these smaller companies who don’t have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation, it’s like a small company cannot do that.”

“We all got screwed over in 2016, again it wasn’t just us, it was, the people got screwed over, the news media got screwed over, like, everybody got screwed over so we’re rapidly been like, what happened there and how do we prevent it from happening again.”

I think it's clear what she meant, but Google doesn't want to deal with the legal or social ramifications of being politically non-neutral.

It could also just mean, they weren't prepared for the onslaught of bad actors like troll/bot farms. Those actors often take both sides of the argument with the simple goal to instigate hate and rage and eventually cause as much societal division as possible.

did you see the meeting video leaked after the election? they were all actually crying and upset and swore to change things. this isnt a single incident. they openly say this in the company, its like a cult

For context, this is the report she’s talking about: https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/06/24/insider-blows-whis...

The hn thread is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20269756

There was a larger discussion in another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20264543

Reminds me of the Planned Parenthood hatchet job.

Also that time O'Keefe and co edited a speech about racial tolerance and solidarity among impoverished farmers to make it seem like the speaker was advocating racism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firing_of_Shirley_Sherrod

Veritas has been caught doing this exact type of numerous times, and why anyone would consider them to be a credible source of information beggers belief. Hell they even refer to themselves as an intelligence agency.

https://theintercept.com/2019/05/03/erik-prince-trump-uae-pr...

I’ve watched the video where she expressed “solidarity with impoverished farmers” in explicitly racial terms. Maybe her intent was simply solidarity, but race-based solidarity is frowned upon... and racist!

To those in disbelief, watch it yourself and see if it’s “deceptive editing” (a dog whistle)

Also, the "Google Insider" talked about secret meetings at a Masonic Temple. This almost made me think that Veritas got punked by a fake Google employee trying to feed them made up nonsense.

You can type in those Google searches and get similar results so at least that part is not a “hatchet job”.

You call that a "hatchet job" after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, through an independent forensics review, found[0] the videos to be "authentic and not deceptively edited?"

The case involved the Texas Health and Human Services Commission decision to terminate the state’s Medicaid provider agreements with PP affiliates across the state, based in large part on those very videos.

The Fifth Circuit affirmed that decision in January of this year, which directly refutes your "hatchet job" claim against the video footage in which Planned Parenthood executives admitted to illegally altering abortion procedures to obtain intact fetuses whose organs could be sold to medical research firms for greater profit, and how they found ways to circumvent the federal ban on partial-birth abortion?

If that is what this reminds you of, well...

[0] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D8GgSTArPinJ6SH8ITRgjkYqNq6...

This ruling by the 5th Circuit, which is controversial itself, has nothing to do with James O’Keefe or Project Veritas. O’Keefe’s attempt at smearing Planned Parenthood took place much earlier and was thoroughly discredited. The videos referenced in this case, by the “Center for Medical Progress”, have also been called into question, and a single victory in a circuit court appeal does not make them factual.

This post like every other post about Project Veritas have been heavily flagged off the front page. Looks like damage control, not a good look.

I'm no fan of James O'Keefe, but some of the direct quotes are much more incriminating than this response makes them out to be:

> “Elizabeth Warren is saying we should break up Google. And like, I love her but she’s very misguided, like that will not make it better it will make it worse, because all these smaller companies who don’t have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation, it’s like a small company cannot do that.”

She may have "used some imprecise language" but I have no doubt that many Google employees do indeed feel like they should use their company's influence to prevent "the next Trump situation."

Also, there's no way she wrote this on her own. Google's PR machine is very proactive, and the enormous collection of messages she received when she landed undoubtedly included a stern warning not to say anything more in public. She may have written part of this, but at the very least it was a team effort.

It doesn't seem incriminating at all. When she says "the Trump situation" in this context it seems clear she is talking about making sure that foreign and otherwise nefarious actors are not able to game search results and the ad system to spread disinformation. Which is what happened in the last election.

That will always happen, but what is the significance? Trump himself spent six or seven hundred million dollars, and Clinton spent about double that. Where is the evidence that any "foreign and otherwise nefarious actors" did even 1% of that?

It makes no sense to get riled up over numbers that would be rounded to zero.

right after they spent years telling everyone that there was no tampering? so did they lie before or is she lying now?

why dont you watch the leaked video of the meeting right after the election that shows them all being upset and saying it cant happen again. they openly say this in teh company and email about it all the time.

Exactly. It's a shorthand. Not a huge fan of google or Trump, but it's just like when he said the "moon" was part of "Mars" the other day. They're part of the same program, obv not the same binary system...

I think delusions like this persist because 1. ppl aren't used to communication on that bureaucratic shorthand. 2. it makes it seem easy like they really nailed someone.

Project Veritas is truly some bottom of barrel garbage, probably worse than Alex Jones.

Yet here they are breaking an important story. Do you have a comment on the actual content of their report?

Important story that no other main news source is reporting.

That begs another question: why?

Sheer terror would explain it.

All those news sources have come to depend on Google. They hate it, but they can't fight it. News revenue is way down in this Google world, with viewers passing by whenever Google deems it best.

Any news source that opposes Google is at risk of getting blacklisted and they know it. You might find a bit of coverage on sites that are already blacklisted, like Breitbart. Nobody else would dare anger Google.

I'm sure that most news sources would love to see Google get hurt, but going after Google is like going after the king: you'd better not miss.

That could explain a part, but not the entire phenomenon.

Fear is a negative emotion, but is quite visible to those who are under it, and they would try to get rid of it.

But the journalists (ok, let's them call so for now) do not seem to be driven by fear. The media owners might be, but the journalists aren't. They have a positive emotion, they want to do thing the way are being done; they seem to be driven by shared ideology of progressive liberalism (see twitter for blue checkmark social bubble). They believe they are doing the right thing, even if it means being silent about some wrongdoing. The end justifies the means, and talking about some issues would be like helping to the enemy. Nobody wants Trump in 2020 again, right?

That's why you are seeing dissent only in media, that are not progressive. And they happen to fall outside main media sources by definition.

because the media is liberal and they also push for censorship

And why is that exactly?

leftist news that pushes for censorship is not running a story exposing leftist company doing censorship. not surprising.

Project Veritas is not news. Everything they have ever "reported" on is trash.

what are you refuting? they have video of the people saying it

What a lame excuse to be completely honest. The Project Veritas video clearly isn't edited like she claims it is, she is downright admitting to redefine what "fairness" means so it is the opposite. The video clearly shows creepy slides on how google plans to "program" humans, condition them to a certain political viewpoint, even if they have to censor truth...

Just split up google at this point...

That's not what those slides say at all, they're talking about how biased information already programs you.

Maybe you should just go see the exposé yourself...

https://www.bitchute.com/video/re9Xp6cdkro/

I am not sure what slide you think I am referring to. Just not to confuse people here is a transcription of the slide that I am referring to:

It is a flow chart btw.

"Training data are collected and classified" -> "Algorithms are programmed" -> "Media are filtered, ranked, aggregated, or generated" -> "People (Like us) are programmed"

Make up your own mind.

meh only matter of time until this sort of propaganda idealism is the norm across the valley. lots of sjws justify banning various actors as the right of the private corp. this again falls into that same purview. they can show you whatever selected by an ai trained on whatever rules for whatever social agenda they wish to push -- this has been going on for over a cenury. social engineering becomes more explicit than implicit.

They've been doing AI training for a century? Wow, this goes deeper than I thought.

Oh, oh no, wait. This the plot to Bay's first Transformers movie.

This is replacing editorial control.

See century of self.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEsPOt8MG7E

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