Sen. Cruz Grills Google Executive on Alleged Censorship Bias
Why Hacker News recommends it
Commenters cite it as evidence in arguments about partisan bias at tech companies and as testimony worth watching.
What it is
A Senate hearing clip in which Sen. Ted Cruz questions a Google executive about alleged political bias and censorship in Google's products. It is a short excerpt of congressional testimony from 2019.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2019 to 2020.
What Hacker News said
Recommends throwgoogleaway · 2019-08 · on “A second whistleblower working at Google comes forward to warn of search bias”
Before people start shooting the messenger (Project Veritas a.k.a PV), I highly recommend watching congressional testimony [1], [2] by Google lawyers & employees where, under oath, they've confirmed materials from P.V. leaks to be accurate. Google's only defense in the testimonies was that seemingly partisan actions weren't company policy, but actions of a few individuals. That line of defense fails to hold muster when said actions repeat like clockwork. [1]: [this video] [2]: [LINK]
Cites writepub · 2019-07 · on “Section 230 Is the Internet's First Amendment. Both Parties Want to Take It Away”
Because big tech companies have become the arbiters of speech online, and they are disproportionately favoring one party in their actions. This was woefully apparent in Google's congressional hearings [1][2], where Google's only defense was that seemingly partisan actions weren't company policy, but actions of a few individuals. That line of defense fails to hold muster when said actions repeat like clockwork. [1]: [this video] [2]: [LINK]
Cites throwGuardian · 2019-11 · on “Google to restrict political adverts worldwide”
Google will be totally neutral fellas despite: 1. Some 95% of employees being registered Democrats 2. 100% of senior leadership being Democrat. Heck, they even wept publicly after the 2016 elections. 3. They've never refuted contents of leaked tapes exposing bias - just keep denying that the said bias is company policy. [1][2][3][4] [1]: [this video] [2]: [LINK] [3]: [LINK] [4]: [LINK]
Cites throwGuardian · 2019-11 · on “Google to restrict political adverts worldwide”
Ignoring the ad hominem suggestions of illiteracy and stupidity only because you are willing to listen. 1. Google is majority Democratic, at least by a spread of 40% (D:R) if you simply assume the employee pool to mirror Democrat:Republican ratios of the counties Google HQ and branches are located in the bay area. [1]. Further, this is only the lower bound, as Google's employee pool tends to be college educated with postgraduate degrees (M.S, PhD, ...), which leans 63% democratic [2]. Further, Google is legendary for it's recruitment of the activist left, and minorities, with an even greater proclivity towards the Democratic party. So yes - you are bike-shedding when you make a mountain of t
Cites throwGuardian · 2020-01 · on “Mozilla, Cloudflare and GitHub write joint open letter to Indian Government [pdf]”
There's no whataboutism here - it's 3 American (foreign) companies petitioning a democratically elected local government for a free pass. Sorry, no quarter. Especially for technocratic elitist valley companies fully aware of their ability to control & shape the zeitgeist, with a history of having to defend their blatantly partisan practices in congressional hearings [1][2][3][4]. These companies are falling over themselves in an effort to cut off political advertising on their platforms, just in time for the 2020 elections, sensing an opposition faction victory[5][6], while simultaneously singing praises of the Obama campaign's 2008/2012 actions of the exact same kind [7]. Your circular refe