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Comment by slg | Hacker News Reader

Dr. Robert Epstein might very well have a valid complaint, but it seems like he has had an ax to grind with Google going back years. His site was hacked in 2012 and Google put up a warning as a result and he was not happy about it [1]. Maybe coincidentally, later that year Epstein started publicly criticizing Google and calling for them to be regulated [2]. He also started sounding the alarm about election interference years before the 2016 election [3]. If Dr Epstein is leading a conversation about Google's biases, I think it is only fair to also discuss whether Dr Epstein's himself is biased against Google.

[1] - https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/readers-and-expert...

[2] - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/google-privacy_b_1962827

[3] - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/15/google-di...

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Does Dr. Epstein stake any of his claims on his personal credibility in his article? Why not attack the substance of the article instead of going with the the classic "slander the opposition" play that all kinds of disingenuous actors regularly employ? This post sounds like something I used to hear from Lance Armstrong's camp or from authoritarian propaganda.

For all I know you're part of a FUD campaign from Google. Dr. Epstein's paper may well be nonsense for all I know but this post adds nothing to the discussion.

>Does Dr. Epstein stake any of his claims on his personal credibility in his article?

Yes, he clearly does. Why else would he spend most of the first three paragraphs detailing his credentials if he didn't think they would lend himself credibility? Which do you think is more relevant to the current discussion, the degree he earned from Harvard nearly 40 years ago or the event that seemingly got him interested in Google's "censorship" in 2012 and kicked off his research?

>Why not attack the substance of the article instead of going with the the classic "slander the opposition" play that all kinds of disingenuous actors regularly employ?

A large part of the substance rests on the idea that Google is biased. Not that they are falsifying the facts, that they are displaying facts in such a way as to intentionally manipulate the behavior of the people reading those facts. How is it off the table to mirror the same question back to Epstein and ask whether maybe he has biases that have caused him (perhaps even subconsciously) to gather and present the facts in such a way as to show his intended result?

This testimony isn't an apolitical peer reviewed scientific paper. It is a plea in front of the US Senate for political action. I think it is fair to ask the motivation behind that political action and whether Epstein put the cart before the horse in his research. However, I will be the first to admit that doesn't necessarily invalidate his arguments. I pointed that out in the first sentence of my first comment.

>For all I know you're part of a FUD campaign from Google.

I hope the irony in this accusation was intentional.

The entire basis of his testimony is his personal credibility. He literally only references his own research and the core evidence he relies on is his research findings. Some of which looks questionable to my not-very-knowledgeable eyes, so it's very useful to know about Epstein's past relationship with Google.

Lines that stand out are:

- "Google has likely been determining the outcomes of upwards of 25 percent of the national elections worldwide since at least 2015"

- "In the weeks leading up to the 2018 election, bias in Google’s search results may have shifted upwards of 78.2 million votes" (that would be 70% of the 113 million people who voted in the election)

- "Google’s “Go Vote” prompt was not a public service; it was a vote manipulation"

- "To let Big Tech companies get away with invisible manipulation on this scale would be to abandon the free-and-fair election. It would make democracy meaningless, even if your chosen candidate prevailed."

>"In the weeks leading up to the 2018 election, bias in Google’s search results may have shifted upwards of 78.2 million votes" (that would be 70% of the 113 million people who voted in the election)

You are misinterpreting what he is saying there. That same thing tripped me up too on first glance because the 78.2 million number seemed ridiculously high. He is referring to votes and not people who voted. If there were 10 items on your ballet and he thinks Google may have influence you, he is counting that as 10 votes and not 1 person voting. There is nothing technically wrong with displaying the number that way, but it seems so misleading that it makes me question if it was intentionally chosen to make the problem sound worse. It is decisions like that which make me doubt his neutrality in presenting the data.

You're right, thanks for clarifying.

I agree - it doesn't feel like the most honest way to represent that data and I doubt that subtlety came through in his testimony for congress.

A bad experience with an entity is a legitimate reason to form a bias against them; indeed, that's the point. The nature of the threat that Google poses is likely to leak into many activities inviting criticism.

In general, yes. For warning the public about your hacked site feeding malware to visitors, no, we can evaluate that directly and see that it is not a valid basis for a grudge.

Bias may exist but it is only relevant on non-factual opinions or factual opinions that can't be independently reproduced or verified.

And a lot of Epstein's research cannot be independently verified.

as someone that is right now locked out of their work email account because google aren't able to fingerprint my browser, and are demanding a telephone number to restore access til I get to the office again

and who has been locked out on holidays multiple time in the last 2 years with similar effect, only that an SMS would not reach me...

these are not the only shitty things in my existence brought by google.

perhaps then, the author is entitled to have a grudge for another reason.

futhermore:

if grudges are so bad, then the opposite: what of endless cheerleading for the status quo - are motives there also questionable?

He can be biased as well as having a good point :-) However, I think there is more to be said here. In the past, the companies that most controlled public opinion were media companies. Could we not make the same argument that Rupert Murdoch is a danger to democracy? Or for that matter could we include companies like MSNBC who have been shown in studies to favour certain political personalities? CNN? Fox News?

Historically can we complain that newspapers controlled personal opinion? Even now, we famously have a political figure criticising a news paper for it's less than favourable coverage ;-). But in seriousness, how much has democracy been eroded by the ability of large corporations to send pretty much any message they wish unchecked?

We could certainly argue that Google has a longer reach and a considerable higher degree of ability to actually extract data about the population. But why single out Google? Facebook is still around ;-) Surely we need to be concerned not just about a single entity, but a class of "attacks" against democracy -- many of which we have tolerated in the past. Perhaps we technology is getting to the point where it's a big problem. Or perhaps it's been a big problem for a long time and we haven't really realised (since the arrival of radio and TV or perhaps even the advent of ubiquitous literacy, widespread newspapers).

So, I appreciate the point that pointing the microscope at Google is probably misguided, but I think we need to be more and more cautious about how the dissemination of information allows small numbers of people to effectively measure and control public opinion.

The second "part" to his huffpost article is re-telling the story from the first nytimes article from his perspective - it was eventually solved via removing "20 crafty lines from a config file".

Interestingly, if I go to his site now, it's ran on PHP 5.6.40 (not supported[0]) and is on Joomla 3.6.2, current Joomla is 3.9.5.

0: https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php

His biases are interesting but what really matters is the data. Either his empirical findings are correct or they are incorrect.

Caveat lector. His empirical findings include the claim that because Google knows its users trend liberal (simple demographics would tell you that, without any intrusive analytics), it is unfair of Google to run universal "go vote" PSAs on its site, because doing so will favor the Democrats.

Here's an article he wrote on The Epoch Times, which I believe is cited in the section about how Google is running GOTV for the Democrats:

https://www.theepochtimes.com/another-way-google-manipulates...

Amen. When the first counter-argument is an assassination of the author's character-- we have a problem! The statements in the PDF are in the public interest. Debate them, don't simply make an ad homenim attack against the speaker.

And when Epstein loses the debate and continues to just make up wild accusations? Debate only functions if it ends.

You'd imagine a professor in Psychology from Harvard would not hold a grudge for seven years over Google warning users about his hacked website and "tarnishing" his reputation. Apparently not.

Some random dude on hackernews claims that Epstein's motivation is based on a 7 year grudge, and you just believe it.

Had you done a quick search you'd find his Wikipedia page along with several references.

> would not hold a grudge for seven years ...

Why not?

He had a poor experience with them some time ago, and Googles behaviour in the last 7 years has been abysmal and seems to be getting far worse. eg likely re-inforcing his opinion.

Not really seeing why he'd "forgive" an entity with those circumstances.

If Google had instead changed for the better, maybe you'd have a point. :)

You're just talking in abstract terms. Let's be grounded in facts. His initial "poor experience" was that his website was hacked in 2012 and Google warned its users about visiting it.

> You're just talking in abstract terms.

Sure. But you are too. You seem surprised someone would hold a grudge for 7 years against a bad actor.

Personally, I don't find it surprising at all.

Do you have a file on Epstein or something? The first ten Google results for me don’t include those links.

The first line of his testimony mentions working at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology. Knowing how congressional testimonies tend to work, I Googled that to see if was one of those politically motivated think tanks with an intentionally neutral sounding name. Robert Epstein's Wikipedia page was one of the top results. I clicked through and noticed that roughly half of the content of that page was under the header "Criticism of Google". The links I included all came from either the Wikipedia sources, Epstein's testimony, or a link from one of those. The whole thing took maybe 5 minutes and didn't require any research skills beyond simply being curious.

Claiming that Robert Epstein has an ax to grind sounds like you know him personally. Independent of that, it does seem like you spent thirty minutes of reading articles on the subject before you made that comment.

I am certain that 90% of the people who step into Congress are crooks, or at least have no honest opinion, so I would only use details of Epstein’s testimony to confirm existing biases.

He does have an ax to grind against Google; that's not really in dispute. It's not clear that he's sharpening his blade on this particular Senate testimony, but it's a reasonable question to ask, since he has no particular expertise in the topic.

I will equally say without any evidence that Epstein has forgiven Google, and is speaking out against Google for purely mercenary reasons.

The difference is that you're saying something without evidence, and I'm saying something for which pretty extensive evidence is on the record. Please note that I'm being careful about separating what I have evidence for --- Epstein's grudge against Google over the quarantining of his hacked website --- from what I don't --- his testimony before the Senate.

You are claiming that Epstein is a petty man, and has decided to devote his entire life towards smearing Google, although at this point it is for wages?

You disguise your rather strong claim with passive voice and a conclusion that doesn’t attempt to convince me at all.

I think if you read any other comment of mine in this thread, you will not see me saying that Epstein has "decided to devote his entire life towards smearing Google". I don't know what you mean by "a petty man" and further don't think it'd be productive to explore that. I'd appreciate it if you could try a little harder to respond to arguments I've actually made.

Okay, I will try harder, I suppose I owe that to you to understand your arguments and where you come from.

I was unclear, I meant that your arguments leave one with the inference that Epstein would dedicate the remainder of his life against Google. I mean petty man as in man motivated by petty reasons.

I am unaware if you really meant to imply that or if you’ve been repeatedly communicating unclearly.

Once again, my argument is simple:

1. There is clear evidence that Epstein holds a grudge against Google based on the quarantine they put on his website.

2. It is not clear that this grudge determines his opinion about Google's influence on elections.

3. However, the grudge is relevant information in anyone's consideration of Epstein's opinions. Do with it what you will.

1. The evidence shows that Epstein was angered by Google’s actions, but there is no evidence of his present emotional state. I don’t know anyone who would be angry for seven years for an automated notation warning caution for their own website.

2. Yes, but it is not even clear he holds this opinion or is being paid to parrot viewpoints he is paid for.

3. No evidence there is a grudge, see my argument in item #1.

Let's again be clear that Google's "actions" here seem to sum up to:

1. Noticing that this guy's site was serving malware --- which Epstein was later forced to concede that it was.

2. Putting a warning on the search engine referral.

It's been prominently featured (and a subject of editor attention) on his Wikipedia page for over a year. It's not a secret.

Please explain how your comment isn't a case of ad-hominem.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20512199

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