Comment by IfOnlyYouKnew | Hacker News Reader

Comment by IfOnlyYouKnew | Hacker News Reader

Google is surprisingly non-evil given it's size. Both the moral conviction of its founders as well as the lack of pressure that comes with taking in gobs of money probably contribute to it. Look no further than Facebook or Uber to see the contrast.

Unfortunately, there's no guarantee those favourable conditions persist. So despite not being evil, Google is suspect just due to it's size.

And even though Google has been actively good in many of the things it does (Summer of Code, their work with non-profits, Alphabet's various moonshot projects in the environmental or medical space), Apple has lately been giving them a run for their money in being actively and creatively a force for good in its core business, especially around privacy. It's not really something has the right to demand from them, but it does seem like they should have the potential to surprise us on occasion with technology aimed to solve the myriad problems societies are experiencing with the rising role of the web. A high-performant, hassle-free and verifiable alternative to TOR, say. Or a new paradigm that mends the growing conflict between advertisers and users, similarly to what Apple is doing with it's pseudonymous targeting scheme.

This is like saying the giant that could have squashed me into nothing has only stepped on a couple of my neighbors.

In the end, Google has unchecked power which it has used to sway politics, which is something its own employees have protested.

You can say either for good or bad, that it lets government authorities snoop and pry on emails and communications.

Many people remain convinced that Google is not all bad and I am in agreement. But also, Google is not your friend. If you get torn to shreds in the gears of its business logic, Google couldn't possibly care any less. Maybe this doesn't mean to you evil, per se, but I find any institution that is so large that it cares over its own good much and beyond that of its negative effects on society is evil.

There is a saying that "You Either Die A Hero, Or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain". Google has lived long enough to see itself become the villain. Where once it was certain they worked for the active benefit of people, at this stage, this can most certainly be cast into doubt.

> which it has used to sway politics

Do you have any actual evidence to support this assertion?

Certainly Google could easily swing an election, if it chose to (which is sort of frightening in itself) but I haven't seen anything to suggest that it has done so.

Listen, if you saw the hearings about Google and search ratings, you know that a search should be a million different things to a million different people. By making a search engine you have to make A choice as to what is right, and you WILL make political decisions along with many others as to what people want to see.

Just like the cloud is "Just someone elses's computer", Google is "Just someone else's yellow pages". Someone rates the importance, and there will ALWAYS be a bias because bias ALWAYS exists.

Edit: I should correct and say someone has to create and curate the algorithms. Even if not a single person rates a single page personally, keywords can and will boost or lower popularity. Trigger words that in the US that mean "racism" but in other countries do not harbor racial aggression will bleed through search engine results, even if Google has a dedicated team in each country to resolving such things. These types of things, like it or not are very political in nature, and thus US politics is invasive in a sense, simply by being native to Google. This has the end goal (I think) of evangelizing a brand of politics to others. You can argue again whether this is good or bad. I would say parts of this are definitely bad. The major country that performs most poorly in many of its ways is exporting its bad culture to other places.

> something its own employees have protested

I imagine what those individuals have talked about publicly is only a fraction of what actually goes on. Over time, more and more has been revealed that is unsettling but not too surprising.

I also imagine that many of the employees who decide to manipulate politics also see themselves as the good guy, using the tools at their disposal to enact positive change. To them, the ends justify the means.

Moral conviction? No idea what you're talking about.

Lack of pressure? Whenever they get any orders from the government they operate under (like US National Security Letters or Chinese, uh, whatever it is the Chinese government issues) - they just comply with them.

"Apple a force for good"? Yeah, tell that to the Foxconn employees, I'm sure they'll be thrilled. Or, again, to the people whose data is made available to the NSA.

"mend the growing conflict between advertisers and users" - much of advertising is (mostly) hostile to the users, aiming to achieve results which are detrimental to them. So there's not much mending to be done.

Here's an example of Google fighting a NSL in court https://www.wired.com/2013/04/google-fights-nsl/

"Google Takes on ---===[ Rare Fight ]===--- Against National Security Letters

Google has filed a rare petition to challenge a... national security letter... extraordinary petition... etc. etc."

I don't think they could emphasize rare and extraordinary more than that. Also, like I said above - they're still complying with funnelling _all_ data to the NSA, a practice which dwarfs the exercise of opposing some NSLs.

Finally - there's the fact that they don't leak all those NSLs. Why don't they? Those NSLs belong on WikiLeaks, for sure.

The fact that Google or Apple comply with a US law is not something that intrinsically makes them evil. They can fight it but they still have to comply eventually (if they lose). The choice is breaking the law. Would this make them less evil?

There are plenty of other things making companies evil. In short and perhaps superficially, it would be their tendency to choose to go against the best interest of users to make more money.

Google only complies with ~60% of government requests and frequently pushes back against suspect orders.

https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview?hl=...

That's propaganda. I mean, it's probably true, in itself, but it's the 'small potatoes'. Why? Because, regardless of individual information requests, they funnel a copy of _everything_ to the NSA. All of it. Of course, regular government agencies have to go through semi-civilized procedures of spying on individuals, so they issue individual requests.

That's a pretty bombastic claim. Do you have any sources to back it up? Otherwise it's unadulterated conspiracy theory and FUD.

True. It is pure luck that Rupert Murdoch or Larry Ellison etc didn't end up owning search.

That said Google shifted priorities from Search to Empire Defense many many years ago. And that has had many unintended "evil" consequences on Society well documented by Tristan Harris, Tim Wu, Jaron Lanier et al.

Could they have avoided that path of empire defense, as they grew in size and survived, I don't think so. Few companies or empires have. The golden age of Greeks or Persians or Indians would have lasted much longer if they knew how to defend their empires.

Now that they have successfully survived and own the market and have cash in the bank, what they do with their empire is going to be interesting. Reviving a golden age takes vision not just empire defense.

> True. It is pure luck that Rupert Murdoch or Larry Ellison etc didn't end up owning search.

Even reading this line is horrifying. I don't even want to think about this possibility.

>It is pure luck that Rupert Murdoch or Larry Ellison etc didn't end up owning search.

Why would that be any different?

Lol, in my personal evil ranking, Rupert Murdoch is certainly Top 10.

Larry Ellison is a greedy jerk too. But at least he‘s content in being jealous of Google, Amazon and Microsoft and stops short of keeping a harmful conservative media empire alive. As far as I know.

Well, okay you don't like their politics, but I was talking about money. It doesn't seem like Google is passing up any opportunities for making money. People might be tempted to think that they could be much more evil, sure, any company could, but you end up killing the golden goose. With google the goose is public trust, and they are clearly stretching whatever trust they have left. I wonder how many Google employees actually believe that ads are anything but an annoyance that nobody wants, or even that what they're doing is ethical.

What exactly is the contrast with Facebook and Uber here?

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