People warned that this would happen when Facebook (YouTube, Steam, etc.) started sliding in this direction.
And years before Facebook was even created, a middle way was also proposed where a carrier like Facebook wouldn't be legally responsible for the content they carried, unless they started to select and/or moderate that content, at which point they would lose the carrier status, becoming a simple broadcaster, which would be legally responsible for everything that they would help to broadcast.
> unless they started to select and/or moderate that content, at which point they would lose the carrier status
But since the homepage feed (or any medium really) displays contents in a certain order, some selection must take place.
Typically some algorithm (usually a recommender system together with some business logic) is used to determine which contents from all that's available to you are actually shown to you and in what order.
Bias seems to be an unavoidable part of the design to me.
There are shades of grey. However, we have leaked footage of a Google co-founder saying (at an all-hands meeting no less) that the outcome of a democratic election conflicts with Google's values. There is a lot of room for interpretation there, but there are signals from Google in particular (eg, donation streams; leaked video; the occasional scandal bubbling out) that their management might be seeing the world through a partisan lens.
Abstract ideas of unavoidable bias are only of academic interest; the right wing of politics is justified in seeing Google as a direct political threat. That would not be justified if Google had a strict "no political talk, no political campaigning, we are the Switzerland of the internet" style policy for their workplace.
I honestly don't see the problem with Google using its position to affect peoples' viewpoints. If we're going to allow other industries (such as energy) to hire lobbyists or advertisers to change peoples' viewpoints, and even worse, going straight to the decision-makers with lobbyist $$$, then criticizing Google is hypocritical.
>the outcome of a democratic election conflicts with Google's values.
What's wrong with this? The outcomes of the previous Presidential elections conflicted with many other companies' values. Every political election's outcome conflicts with some company's values, because companies stand to gain or lose depending on the policies enacted by that politician.
> If we're going to allow other industries (such as energy) to hire lobbyists or advertisers to change peoples' viewpoints, and even worse, going straight to the decision-makers with lobbyist $$$, then criticizing Google is hypocritical.
I'm curious that you would assume that as being the default position ?
I'm not making a moral case. I do think there is a moral case as well but it is a very complicated do-unto-others-as-you-would-have-them-do-unto-you style one with some nuances that isn't going to fit into one comment. The case is that Google is potentially a direct threat to the right wing of politics. It would be prudent for the right wing to respond by trying to break Google up and neutering them as a platform, so that there are several successful competitors in all their markets. Realistically it is possible that the moderate left wing could be convinced as well - nobody is served by the risk that an entity as powerful as Google becomes an active propaganda platform. If they aren't even professing neutrality internally then they are on the way to becoming one.
Google could have avoided this situation by not explicitly championing political views inside their organisation.
Also the energy situations you cite aren't really comparable, the companies are only lobbying for things that make them more money and they don't have the same sort of power as Google in the political sphere.
It would be totally hypocritical for the right wing to break up Google. The Democrats tried that with Microsoft back in the late 90s, and as soon as Bush took office the case was dropped because Republicans don't believe in enforcing anti-trust law.
>the companies are only lobbying for things that make them more money
Every company does this if they can, and it's either going to help or hurt some political side. The case you're making here is that Google is bad for Republicans. Maybe, but coal companies are bad for Democrats (they give money to Republicans to help them win races), so why is this OK for coal companies, but not Google? I don't see the difference. As long as other companies or industries are allowed to influence politics with money, it's perfectly OK for Google to influence elections however they want, and it would be wrong to break them up because, as I said before, the Republican party is opposed to anti-trust law.
> It would be totally hypocritical for the right wing to break up Google. The Democrats tried that with Microsoft back in the late 90s, and as soon as Bush took office the case was dropped because Republicans don't believe in enforcing anti-trust law.
Circumstances were different - Microsoft wasn't doing anything particularly political. They aren't pro-Republican. This is the difference between politically attacking an entity because it is a corporation (a bad reason) vs attacking because they are politically active (an acceptable reason).
That is the central point. Google are removing potential defences against a political attack.
> Maybe, but coal companies are bad for Democrats (they give money to Republicans to help them win races), so why is this OK for coal companies, but not Google?
It is OK for Google, they can donate to whoever they want to. The issue is if they are going to be an partisan actor they control too much information and have too much influence on how people gather information.
>It is OK for Google, they can donate to whoever they want to. The issue is if they are going to be an partisan actor they control too much information and have too much influence on how people gather information.
If they can donate to whomever they want, they are also morally correct to control information however they want. Giving money to politicians is bribery, and is much more direct than merely controlling information on the internet. Personally, as long as bribery is legal, I have no problems with Google using a different tactic. It's much more ethical to try to shape peoples' opinions at large than to directly bribe politicians.
That argument ignores scale though, giving money to politicians directly may well be unethical, but it is a path that is open to everyone and is at least somewhat out in the open. Compared to that, Google basically is the internet for a large chunk of people and tracking how they use their index is practically impossible.
Compared to news media where the actors are highly partisan but there are strong voices and opportunities to be heard for all points of view. The alternatives are a lot thinner for Web search and Youtube; and most people would be shocked if it did turn out they were actively pushing a message.
Besides, I'd expect political donation laws to come under attack to. It is a very political question. Google should have stuck to strategies and pronouncements that are neutral so that they were less likely to get involved in partisan politics.
It doesn't really matter whether you see it as ethical or not; what matters is that Google has huge and largely unchallenged reach in a field and appear to be official stances by management on social issues that they do not need to. This makes them a legitimate political target.
It was that one from late last yer. Might have been https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl... . There wasn't anything there that was particularly scandalous; it was just a really interesting that this was the state of affairs inside Google.
I mean, it's OK if management have political views, as long as those views don't influence search results.
As long as the experimental process is rigorous and the people are incentivised to use the right metric (and the metric isn't politically biased), then it should be fine.
However, upon making that argument I find myself concerned at the possibility that Google's corporate interests (and perhaps some political interests) may shape which questions get asked, and thus the direction the service takes.
It's quite analagous to Chomsky's views of news organisations in Manufacturing Consent.
Especially as this thread has already mostly said spam filtering (which your example would easily trigger) isn’t in opposition towards a goal of neutral status.
> my point is even chronological order can be exploited
The question is, how easy can it be?
The straw man, is indeed, that you can filter such, client- or server-side. If you see the same shit the whole time, you ignore it all. Easy; even IRC clients with scripting had such features in the 90s. Here is a list of techniques used in e-mail filtering [1]
And years before Facebook was even created, a middle way was also proposed where a carrier like Facebook wouldn't be legally responsible for the content they carried, unless they started to select and/or moderate that content, at which point they would lose the carrier status, becoming a simple broadcaster, which would be legally responsible for everything that they would help to broadcast.