
Google Exec: If you break us up, we can't stop Trump - daenz
https://twitter.com/Project_Veritas/status/1143131346753245185
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underyx
I'll try to practice some charitable interpretation[0] and point out that she
might not mean this in the sense of "small companies can't undermine
democracy." Rather, I see this making sense if we consider it to be about how
companies providing platforms and tools for mass information will always
exist, as it makes economic sense for them to exist. But at the same time, if
these companies are small, their platforms are prone to be attacked and abused
by adversaries. And they need to have a certain size to stand a change against
there adversaries, to be able to protect the people from them.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity)

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djanogo
So much bias, had this been liberal news media coming out with quotes from
Google employee on how they plan to stop Bernie or Warren, then shit would
have hit the fan. This post would have had 1000's of comments on why Google
should be broken up.

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daenz
This thread got flagged off of the front page within 20 minutes of being
posted. It had a crazy velocity, then suddenly, gone. I guess some people
aren't interested in relevant tech news if it hurts their narrative.

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defertoreptar
I can remember trying to recall details of political stories. I type the
breadcrumbs into Google and am unable to find what I'm looking for. I then
realized that I have better luck on certain subjects when I try duckduckgo,
and I know it's not because they have a more mature search algorithm.

~~~
cjhopman
Wow, I didn't realize duckduckgo had gotten so good. I'm sure you remember a
couple of these for examples that I could compare, right?

~~~
defertoreptar
If anything, I implied that DDG was worse in general, but only better when it
came to certain political subjects. I take your meaning as rhetorical, but
I'll answer anyway.

Several months ago, I read an article on Reddit about how the USPS was raising
prices. In the comments, the discussion was of why it was cheaper to ship some
goods from China than it was to ship from state to state. I had recalled
something about Trump taking some measure against this, but apparently at that
time nothing had changed. I tried finding more info on Google, but I couldn't
find what I was looking for. On DDG, I located an article from Newegg
describing the UPU, and how these deals were established many decades ago and
gave 3rd world countries at the time, such as China, a break. I then found
another article from thehill.com that explained that Trump had begun the one-
year notice of withdrawing from the UPU, but until then the rates would be the
same.

On another occasion, I was in a thread that was talking about middle class
wages, and I noticed that on Google, I could find many articles about how the
middle class was shrinking. On DDG, I found some of those articles, but also
found information on how if you control for inflation and hours worked, middle
class wages actually increased since the 90s.

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throwawaysea
I am no fan of Trump, but this is exactly why Google _should_ be broken up.
Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.'s control of the digital public square is a
threat to discourse and free speech. And Google is the worst offender of them,
given how monolithic and ideologically skewed their internal corporate culture
is.

~~~
WalterGR
_Google is the worst offender of them_

What are Google’s offenses in this domain?

 _given how monolithic and ideologically skewed their internal corporate
culture is._

How are you measuring that?

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ycombonator
She openly admits in the video on using the AI to stop Trump’s re-election.
Full video [https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-24/google-using-ai-
me...](https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-24/google-using-ai-
meddle-2020-election-prevent-next-trump-situation-veritas)

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cromwellian
The quick cut editing between her and an anonymous “insider” seems
questionable. When she says “next Trump situation” perhaps she is speaking of
all the Russian bots and trolls. Otherwise, why didn’t she say “prevent the
next Trump” but used the word “situation”?

2020 is likely to be worse with the improvements to Deepfakes. Most people can
barely detect false stuff now and constantly reshre bullshit on Facebook that
takes all of 5 seconds to debunk, just imagine GAN and GPT-2/BERT powered
trolling.

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deogeo
Let Google decide which politicians stand a chance... I'm sure they'll limit
the use of this power to Trump.

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NedIsakoff
I would have gone with Baidu. I don't see anyone breaking up Baidu. How will
Google compete with Baidu if its broken up?

~~~
jandrese
Given the arbitrary blocks to Google from the Great Firewall of China, I don't
see how it can compete in the first place.

