
Leaked Google briefing, admitting a “shift towards censorship” - freedomben
https://www.scribd.com/document/390521673/The-Good-Censor-GOOGLE-LEAK
======
mherdeg
This presentation briefly mentions but then seems to mostly forget about
"Elsagate" which they call the "Peppa Pig scandal".

James Bridle argues convincingly that the genre of bizarre YouTube videos
which appeals to the toddler reptilian brain (
[https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-
in...](https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-
internet-c39c471271d2) ) is not created by hostile or evil actors but instead
has evolved orgnically based on what stuff toddlers want to click on. Kids'
click patterns reward more video themes like "Elsa tied up on train tracks
kissing Spiderman", so the content industry crams more of that stuff into its
new content.

The result, after a few iterations, would not have passed editorial controls
at 1990s Nickelodeon (!), which would normally have halted the feedback loop,
but with no one at the helm -- to "censor" or otherwise exert editorial
control -- YouTube's kid-targeted videos are just a whole forest of weird.

Does YouTube want to allow their platform to become a laboratory for rapidly
discovering local maxima in very young children's fantasy worlds? Do they have
any choice? Should they step in and publish rules for what children's content
is allowed? Should they hire some kind of human curator or editor to enforce
those rules for child-focused videos? Should Web platforms act in loco
parentis?

In this cases, in "the Peppa Pig scandal" style situation, the producers are
machine-generating content that gets clicks and the consumers are children.

When the issue is the viral proliferation of "fake news" and hate speech, the
content producers are people or state propaganda apparatuses, and the
consumers & re-sharers are grown adults.

It seems like it's a different topic with maybe different guiding principles
to decide how & whether to censor these different groups of consumers &
producers.

~~~
paganel
> Kids' click patterns reward more video themes like "Elsa tied up on train
> tracks kissing Spiderman", so the content industry crams more of that stuff
> into its new content.

To be fair many of the Tex Avery and Tom and Jerry cartoons with which almost
everyone grew up with were a lot more wild than that, thankfully they weren’t
censored back when we were kids.

~~~
chaosite
Tex Avery and Tom & Jerry were wild and a product of their respective era,
sure, but they're definitely not as bad as some of the Elsagate videos.

Did you watch them? Some of them are literally snuff, with tons of gore. The
stuff of nightmares.

~~~
paganel
> Did you watch them? Some of them are literally snuff, with tons of gore. The
> stuff of nightmares

I don't have kids so I only watched what I could quickly find on a simple YT
search, and I remember watching that spider man scene the OP mentions (hence
why I commented) which I didn't find that scary (even though it was quite
tasteless). The gore stuff (probably meaning blood showing and similar stuff)
should probably be restricted, of that I agree.

~~~
chaosite
Look at /r/elsagate on Reddit for plenty of examples.

------
evilturnip
I'm actually glad to see the conclusion. Everybody wants to censor what they
don't like. There are people who believe free speech is not the ultimate
value, but rather to protect people from 'harm'. In this case 'harm' being
ideas they don't agree with.

The best stance is not to take a side, but to make sure both sides are civil
in the expression of their beliefs.

~~~
mellow-lake-day
I'm speaking for myself here but I think the Russian bots as well as
astroturfing bots need to be censored. And not censored by government
regulation but by the terms of service. There are many "active measure"
Russian bots active on twitter. Twitter doesn't seem concerned at all mostly
because those Russian bots are padding their numbers same goes for FB and
reddit.

~~~
gnarbarian
That sounds all fine and well but half the time I utter a conservative opinion
I'm accused of being a "russian bot".

~~~
spangry
This happens to me too. I think people do this so they can dismiss ideas
without having to refute them.

~~~
sanxiyn
We actually have a good word for this: McCarthyism. If I don't like your
opinion, you are a Soviet agent!

------
toomanybeersies
Slide 66 is particularly interesting, and articulates an observation that I've
made:

> Tech firms are performing a balancing act between two incompatible positions

> 100% commit to the American tradition that prioritises free speech for
> democracy, not civility

> 100% commit to the European tradition that favors dignity over liberty, and
> civility over freedom

It is a very American view that unrestricted freedom of speech is a
requirement for a well-functioning democracy, and that any restriction of this
beyond censoring direct calls to violence is evil.

~~~
raxxorrax
As a European I have to admit that the American model is vastly superior.
Europe had laws to protect "civilty" even before the great wars. American
democracy is also more successful in general.

Europe just had the "luck" that censorship didn't become very necessary. In
some places it was used extensively and those places are no more today.

And lastly, stripping someones voice implicates directly stripping someones
dignity.

~~~
hef19898
As a fellow European I have to disagree. Hiostorically speaking, pernal
freedoms have been alot higher in Europe than the US (since the time something
like personal freedom became athing), slavery was abolished by Great Britain
and France way before the War of Independance for example. Also, where exactly
is the US democracy more successfull overall? We do have free election in
Europe, don't we? And we don't have such things like aelectoral college, not
even in Germany where we don't elect the Chancellor directly (that the
separation of legislative, executive and judicative powers works better in the
US than in Germany with regards to the first two the excepotion proofing the
rule).

Cesnrship was used extensivle by every European nation during WW1 and WW2,
France convicted journalists of treason during wWW1 and Britain was very
restrictive as well during WW2. Both places still exist.

Again, no one is stripping me of my voice in Europe. With the notable
exception of redicals within their respective bubbles, there freedom of speech
is treated as a direct threat. The existence of these bubbles and the hate
speech coming from them has to be freedom speech on the other hand. But hey,
extremist always want it both ways. Logic thinking isn't theirs strength, self
dilusion is much more comfortable, isn't it?

~~~
burfog
I disagree with most of that.

You can pick and choose freedoms that you value or don't, and say Europe has
more freedom. I can go the other way. Here is one: In much of Europe, you have
nothing resembling the protection that Americans have under the 2nd amendment.

You have "free election" of approved parties. The other ones are subject to
arrest for their political expression. Right now in the UK, Britain First is
facing trial for what would be protected political speech in the USA. LePen
got charged in France, also for what would be protected political speech in
the USA. Geert Wilders, a member of the House of Representatives of the
Netherlands, was likewise put on trial.

If you have a parliament that chooses a prime minister, then you have an
electoral college. The members happen to be the same as those of congress;
that is what a parliament is. It's actually worse, because you don't have a
solid understanding of who they might choose.

In your last paragraph you admit that you don't really have free speech, but
you don't care because your own views happen to be in favor with the current
government. It's all fine to censor people you dislike, and to label them as
radicals speaking hate speech. You're in a rather privileged position there,
quite lucky to not be under a government that labels YOU in that way.

~~~
hef19898
Just one thing, is the electoral college part of Congress and / or the Senate?
If not, the systems are not comparable. And I have the impression that you
seriously missunderstood my last paragraph which referred to radical elements
thoroughly within their communities. Which, obviously, has nothing to do with
constitutional free speech.

In the end, we agree that we don't agree. And for the sake of the discussion
it is better than we stop now and don't go towards the 2nd.

~~~
atypicaluser
The electoral college (EC) is a state system connected neither to Congress nor
the Senate. Rather the EC is apportioned representatives based on the total
number of Congressmen and Senators a state has. These representatives are
chosen by (and vote at the behest of) the individual states according to how
those states choose. All but two states require their EC representatives to
vote for the Presidential candidate who won their state vote.

~~~
hef19898
Thanks for the answer. I knew that, and yes the German syatem has a tendency
to blur the lines between legslative and executive branches.

My comment was in reply to a comment that equated a parliament electing a
chancellor / prime minister with an electoral college. Despite all the
downsides of not electing the head of government directly they still are
different things.

~~~
burfog
It's just a unification of some government functions. The functionality is the
same.

parliament == electoral_college + congress

Specifically for Germany and the USA:

Bundestag == electoral_college + house_of_representatives

Bundesrat == senate

So you effectively do have a congress and an electoral college. In your
system, they are merged and thus have the same members.

There are six typical roles:

1\. lower legislative body

2\. upper legislative body

3\. electoral college

4\. supreme court

5\. head of state

6\. executive

You have the 1==3 and 5==6 mergers. The USA has only the 5==6 merger. The UK
has the 1==3 merger and prior to 2009 had the 2==4 merger.

~~~
hef19898
You have to seprete the function frok the body, this is a very relevant
separation. e.g. the head of state in Germany has close to zero actual power
while France has a very powerfull presidential system. The only thing comming
close to electoral college in Germany is electing the Head of State. Both,
candidate and electors are caeefully selected by both chambers of parliament.
Personnaly I'm not happy with that, parties tend to have way to much power in
the German system.

All the Bundesrat has in common with thr Senate is being a second chamber. It
is not elected directly as a body. Instead the prime ministers of ech state
are making it up. So it is voted for indirectly during state elections. Votes
in the Bundesrat are than based population, more or less (if someone knows the
details that'll be cool). coalition governments different to the one on the
federal level usually abstain (e.g. parties A and B govern federal, C and D
being the opposition while parties B and D govern a certain state that state
will note vote on certain issues).

In a democracy, these details do actually matter a lot. Otherwise you won't be
able to ditinguish democracies on paper from real ones.

------
Aunche
It's interesting that this document calls Arab Spring "the high point in
positivity" of the internet. From what I understand, most countries are even
worse off now. Libya in particular is still stuck in civil war to this day.

~~~
marricks
I think that’s the point. Arab spring, the chance of positive change around
the world because of it, pre Snowden(!).

It’s not that things weren’t awful then just people didn’t know what was going
on or how things would turn out, so we were all upbeat about the internet.

~~~
Aunche
I disagree. People know how awful their lives are by their well being. The
internet offered people the ability to organize and topple their corrupt
government, but that doesn't mean that the new people in charge are going to
be better.

~~~
marricks
Definitely. The awfulness that I implied was meant to be mass surveillance.
That people could organize and resist was great, needs to be way more of that,
not less.

Still, that moment has passed so people aren’t positive about our
connectedness in the same way cause it doesn’t seem to be causing any
progressive/democratic changes.

------
zaroth
Underpinning the whole question of censorship;

“Under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, tech firms have legal
immunity from the majority of the content posted on their platforms (unlike
‘traditional’ media publications). This protection has empowered YouTube,
Facebook, Twitter and Reddit to create spaces for free speech without the fear
of legal action or its financial consequence.”

Censoring content is suspiciously like editorializing content, and steps
social media a lot closer than they want to being _publishers_ and not
_platforms_.

Proceeding with censorship seems to carry the risk of losing immunity under
Section 230.

~~~
ubernostrum
_Proceeding with censorship seems to carry the risk of losing immunity under
Section 230._

Nope. The whole point of Section 230 is platforms can make and enforce rules,
and still have a safe harbor. Otherwise, they all would have lost their safe
harbor _decades_ ago.

~~~
edikit
The issue is that Google is now associating itself with the role of a
"publisher" rather than a "platform" (in particular on slide 68). Publishers
are not protected under Section 230.

------
manukin
Why did this have to be leaked? Seemed like a good summary on why things are
the way it is with social media v moderation.

A whole lot of platforms could do with the conclusion.

Be consistent, be responsive and be transparent.

Who wouldn't love Google to be more transparent?

------
est
> The Arab Spring was the the high point of this positivity - a visceral
> example of the power of digitalised free speech.

Yes, millions of refugees is obviously not the consequence at all.

~~~
rdtsc
Everything else was rather unsurprising, pretty much what I expected. But that
was the part that I had to read again. Hoping they just copied that from a
2013 pamphlet. If they consider Libya's slave markets (
[https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/14/africa/libya-migrant-
auctions...](https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/14/africa/libya-migrant-
auctions/index.html) ) and Sirya the high point of positivity, I'd wonder what
they consider the low point.

------
adamrezich
I just finished skimming the whole thing—did Google just trick Breitbart into
publishing propaganda for them? (I'm reminded of the Valve "employee
handbook.")

~~~
shadowmore
Not really. It'll have the same result as literally every other revelation in
the media.

The side completely, 100% opposed to any restrictions on speech (including
"policing tone" as outlined in this presentation) will see this as corporate
meddling in people's expression.

The side that supports speech regulation will see this as a structured plan to
curb the kind of speech that's considered "harmful" or whatnot.

This presentation doesn't contain anything outside the current ideological
dichotomy, no original or unorthodox thoughts or ideas.

------
gfodor
The underlying premise of this, if real, is that these companies and their
centralized platforms ought to exist. "Never expect a man to understand
something his salary depends upon him not understanding" and all that.

~~~
noobermin
Well, given that it's done by Google employees of course they'll want to
continue to wield their power. For example, they mention "regulation" as a
punch-line, IOW, the assumption is that regulation of any form is bad.

------
wstrange
The presentation seems quite balanced.

Probably not the spin that Breitbart was hoping for.

~~~
stochastic_monk
I agree, assuming that it's real. (Which, considering Breitbart's history,
could not be the case.)

~~~
noobermin
Breitbart wouldn't benefit from faking it. If they did fake it, they would
have made it look much more unbalanced whilst justifying more censorship.

------
chaosite
This is a really good document, mostly describing current events and trends in
censorship.

Most of the policy it advocates is basically being consistent and open about
how Google is handling issues, and how censorship is being applied.

The title is click-baity, but that's not so bad.

------
odessacubbage
dignity/civility should be a self determined value rather than one instated by
authority. it is impossible to create a universal standard of conduct that
will be adequate for everyone and we don't need to. you can call me a faggot
or tell me to kill myself as much as you like and i really wont care at all, i
want to see everything short of direct and malicious efforts to cause me real
life harm (and arguably i want to know about those too). on the flip side you
have older users who may be completely averse to course language or any
interaction that falls beyond tv standards of etiquette, things that are
relatively tame by internet standards may be completely offensive to them. how
do you create a set of standards across your product that are adequate for
both use cases without artificially limiting appeal to a single audience?
empower users with the tools to define their own experiences and, if they so
choose, filter out what they don't want without assuming what that is. perhaps
you could even let users display their version of a content rating so that
others could see what content they will and will not filter rather than the
communication breakdown that emerges when some messages are opaquely censored.
you could even use an honorific system to better determine what is an adequate
level of filtering between two users. you might not want to hear 'i'm gonna
fucking kill you' from a total rando, but if it comes from your spouse you
probably should. don't tell the customers what they want when you don't know
the answer.

------
beaner
HN seems super strongly opposed to Google providing censorship in China. Do
they feel the same way about Google applying it to the rest of the world?

~~~
Kaveren
There's a strong difference between state mandated censorship and a company
voluntarily censoring content on their platform.

A company has the absolute right to prohibit any content on their platform
that they so choose. There's freedom not to use Google services.

Calls to regulate independent companies are purely ludicrous. If Facebook said
tomorrow that any positive mention of, say, Paul Graham, would result in
immediate account deletion, that'd be their choice. Very valid criticism from
the perspective of a user would be warranted, but that's where it should end.

~~~
bzbarsky
> There's freedom not to use Google services.

Using Google services is now required by many public schools in the US. That's
where all the homework is posted, for example. Now in the US there's freedom
to not attend public school, of course, so technically you have the right to
not use Google services. But in practice the vast majority of people would not
be able to exercise that right in this case.

Similarly, a number of schools are starting to do communications with parents
purely through Facebook. And I expect this trend will keep getting worse
before it gets better.

> Calls to regulate independent companies are purely ludicrous.

If they're really independent companies, yes. If they're government-sponsored
monopolies, on the other hand, the calculus is quite different. And we're
quite close to that line, if not over it.

You could argue that the right solution is for governments to not enshrine
these companies in these monopoly positions. That would be lovely, obviously.
Too bad the companies are spending all this money to get into those positions
(see Google Classroom).

~~~
Kaveren
I'd find a private school / homeschool argument disingenuous, so I'm with you
that far.

Google Classroom is a fair point (schools also use Google Docs and the like as
well), but I don't believe it holds water.

Governments would be well within their rights not to award contracts to, or
use the services of, companies they felt were not respecting the values of
free speech. The difference between this and active regulation are that one is
voluntary for the company (must obey this term for eligibility for extra
reward) and one is mandatory (must obey this term or be punished by the law).

I don't have much to say about communicating to parents through Facebook,
other than that they should still offer optional email communication.

~~~
bzbarsky
For what it's worth, I don't understand why you're being downvoted... :( I
just upvoted you.

I agree that the optimal solution would be for local governments to not rely
on Google like this. What's not clear to me is what the best course of action
is in the world in which they _are_.

I think having "no propaganda aimed at elementary school students" regulation
may be the only way to solve the coordination problem here, but of course that
has the obvious flaw of it being hard to agree on a definition of
"propaganda"...

------
wslack
The most annoying part of this document is the watermark. It seems like a
cogent summary of different ideas in the space - and doesn't advocate for
"good censorship" (I think the title of the deck is provocative and
unhelpful).

------
chrisco255
Here in 2018, I'm not that worried about Google's position as world's
information arbiter and how it chooses to censor content. But I do worry a
bit, as the path to hell is paved with good intentions. How will this evolve
over the decades to come?

Where does the line between "hate speech" and legitimate criticism get drawn?
Criticism is often crude. Humor is often crude. Sometimes humor, even crude
humor, cuts to the core of an issue better than any intellectual discussion or
essay could possibly yield. The U.S. itself has a long tradition of pointed,
sarcastic political cartoons, as an example.

We need not reach back too far in memory to find an example of grey area
between "hate speech" and "free speech": The Dutch cartoonist Kurt Westergaard
and his infamous Muhammad bomb cartoon.

I think Google and other social media giants will find themselves in an
impossible situation, if they haven't already. To be a good censor is to
declare the "rightness" and "wrongness" of content in a consistent manner.
However, in order to do so, you have to stake a position.

However, these companies sprawl too far and too wide to stake a position
without alienating huge swaths of the population. And without making it all
too easy for factions to believe that their side is being discriminated
against.

~~~
Karunamon
> _Here in 2018, I 'm not that worried about Google's position as world's
> information arbiter and how it chooses to censor content._

Why, if I might ask?

"Google" has entered the common lexicon as a generic term for "search the
internet for something". The amount of power they wield, ignoring all other
power aside from the ability to rank the search results of most internet
users, is _massive_ and I think this cannot be overstated or minimized.

This is a non-fallacious version of the slippery slope. Just because you're
okay with the "do the right thing" nee "don't be evil" Google of today does
not mean you'll be okay with the Google of tomorrow having that power.
Consider _very_ carefully whether you want any one particular company to have
that power, and what the remedies are if Google ever does go full evil.

On a side note, it absolutely reeks of double standards on many of the
commenters here to castigate Google for their Chinese censorship while giving
them a pass for what is described herein. Censorship is only bad when done at
the behest of a state? I don't understand this sentiment.

I want _no_ third party deciding for me what is "hate speech" and deciding I
shouldn't be able to see it as a result. With a special emphasis on the second
part of that phrase.

------
sanxiyn
The presentation mentions "global inconsistency" as a problem, but I disagree.
Communities have different community standards, so they should have different
moderation.

As an example, it is rather unfortunate that American obscenity standard is
enforced against the world at large.

------
0xBA5ED
Censorship alone is not evil. The problem is, once you have infrastructure in
place to make it easy, it will be abused. And if that infrastructure is
centralized, the stakes for abuse are much higher. It's the same old problem
of "who regulates the regulators". Rather than the issue being about
"censorship bad / free speech good", I think the heart of it is: There's
simply a lack of confidence that tech giants like Google are part of a larger
system with checks and balances, and they appear to be making unilateral
decisions behind closed doors.

~~~
raxxorrax
> Censorship alone is not evil.

Restricting access to information generally is until a good reason is given.
That could be the protection of personal information for example. But without
justification I would heavily disagree with that statement.

~~~
princekolt
There seems to be justification though. If a "news" website is constantly
publishing stories that are objectively false, or based on some factual event
but distorted beyond any verifiable aspect, then Google has the right (and I'd
argue the duty) to remove that content from its platform, especially if that
content is targeted at individuals.

------
rdtsc
It would be good for them to be more honest and transparent, and this leak is
a nice step in that direction :-)

But to be serious, something like "We take these positions and stand behind
these values and we're proud of it" would seem better than claim they are a
neutral platform and they welcome all points of view and let users create and
share whatever content.

This didn't even have to be a leaked document. They should have posted it in
their "about" section right on the front page. If anyone doesn't like it they
can go and make their own Google and share content there instead.

There was the leaked company meeting video after the 2016 elections with
people crying and saying "we lost" and then users are supposed to believe
those executives will turn around, wipe their tears, walk back to their desks
and be unbiased when it comes to moderating news, search results, Youtube
videos, charities they sponsor, etc? That's probably unrealistic... So why not
drop the pretense and come out and be proud of what they support. Nobody will
be surprised and many will welcome it including most of their employees.

------
growlist
I think there is a massive market opportunity here, and all the competitor has
to do is build Google from 5-10 years ago - when you could actually still get
decent results for your search, warts and all - as opposed to the wildly
unrepresentative kindergarten/pollyanna picture of the internet they currently
return.

------
vhakulinen
Has anyone else ever wondered how some of the numbers about internet compares
to a real world? Like,

* "2.6 million tweets contained anti-Semitic speech during the US presidential election" \- how many conversations there where, in real word, about the same topic and contained anti-Semitic speech?

* "26% of American users are victims of internet trolling" \- how many are victims of trolling in real word? Or in schools?

* "40% of internet users have been harassed online" \- how many persons have been harassed at work places? Bars?

* Governments under cyber attack? How many of them are targets of espionage? Or have many companies are targets of espionage?

I'm not saying that these are not bad things, nor that those shouldn't be
addressed - I'm just wondering if these things are as bad as they might seem
to be, when compared to "the real world".

~~~
woodruffw
I took that to be the point -- we tend to be at our worst online, thanks to
the unique combination of anonymity (I can say whatever I want with as many
accounts as I want, without meaningful consequences) and absence of social
cues (there's nobody around me, so I have no incentive to soften my language
or weaken my opinions).

In other words, the way we talk online is _not normal._ Even outside of the
free speech debate, it's worth noting that.

~~~
repolfx
You could also see it as the inverse. Online we talk as we really are, saying
what we really think, and thus the quality and depth of the discussion will
inevitably be higher and deeper than in the 'real world' where we are faced
with relentless groupthink, desire to conform, self-censoring to avoid
unrelated career blowbacks and so on.

Moreover online people can take the time to write something good (not saying
they usually do of course), whereas in-person debates usually suffer from
being shallow, filled with interruptions, half baked ideas, people getting
artificially upset to try and 'win' and so on.

I'd actually like to see far more experimentation and research in online
commenting and discussion forums. There's really been very little movement in
this space since CmdrTaco retired.

~~~
cmdrtaco
I’m still here! I wish people would try more crazy stuff. I’d even help
brainstorm the crazy!

~~~
repolfx
No way! That's the response I least expected! :)

I'm a huge fan of the work you did on Slashdot and Slashcode back in the day.
It's still by far the best thought out moderation system I've seen.

I'd love to see a modern respin of Slashcode that reused and enhanced the
moderation ideas. Unfortunately my spare time project slots are all consumed
already :(

------
kodablah
Quite a neutral and concise briefing I think covering all sides. The
unfortunate part of the debate is viewing freedom/liberty vs diginity/civility
as exactly opposing forces. That these are seen as opposing forces justifies
the view of resting in the middle as though it exists.

Instead of thinking so linearly along these two dimensions, I would suggest
using a wider lens. Instead of striving for some of both in a common platform,
we should strive for some of both concurrently. I was encouraged by the
example of Twitter unverifying accounts, but not banning them, but even that
suffers from the single platform effect since unverification is objectively
harmful.

Those with qualms concerning unfavorable content should ask themselves whether
the concern is that it's promoted/visible by default or that it exists at all.
The latter is too hard line of a stand to be seen as anything but censorship
and should only be applied in the most extreme cases. But the former is
something we can tackle. Simply default to safe and let the user opt in to
increasing levels of unsafe. You'll always have the problem of being the
arbiter of what resides at which levels (granted you can ask content creators
to self-categorize with threats of violation for clear miscategorization) but
at least it's better than outright banning/deleting. Just make sure that
whatever level the user has set, content that is visible is all treated
equally under the algorithms (i.e. no demotion). I personally would turn
favorability filters off and encourage others to do the same, but at least
defaults exist and levels of moderation can be chosen.

Finally, to shift the rant a bit, I just want to say I welcome self-imposed
solutions over legal requirements. I am encouraged to know that, while it's
hard to compete with a behemoth (why would you try), you can still legally
publish your own content sans filter on your own site or a site with similar
views towards your own. We might prefer all the popular sites respect our
views on what is allowed, but since that's obviously impossible in a global
medium due to cultural subjectivity, don't attempt codify it legally.

------
ronilan
I read the whole thing, all 85 pages of it. Based on the content, and based on
how I read it, I’m now almost 100% sure, not completely, but almost sure, that
it is, indeed a Breirbrat News Exclusive. I think it actually says so
somewhere on the pages.

------
claydavisss
So we're all supposed hope and pray Silicon Valley elects to honor free
expression?

We need a new internet

------
adventured
The monopolists becoming ever more aggressive censors, is the strongest
argument there can be for ending their monopolies. Once a company acquires a
monopoly over a critical means of public information distribution (search,
social, etc), their policies of restriction formally become censorship.
They've become an impediment to functioning democracy.

Freedom of speech is too important to leave to the monopolies of Google and
Facebook to decide what qualifies and what doesn't.

------
adamrezich
The watermark makes it really annoying to read, but unless it gets refuted by
Google, it has to be real, right? (That's how these things work these
days...?)

~~~
p1necone
The Breitbart watermark makes me _very_ suspicious, I would treat it as
probably worthless until we see more reliable sources.

~~~
shittyadmin
They're definitely not the most reputable news source and many of their
opinion pieces definitely step into fake territory, but I think outright
falsifying an entire document like this would be a very extreme move, even for
them.

~~~
batiudrami
More likely that someone else falsified it and they didn't fact check
correctly. But Google's statement appears to confirm that it's real.

------
hef19898
In a nutshell: Google, Twitter and Facebook followed a very liberal definiton
of what they are, created a platform to promote free speech to get free
content from users. Being a platform, they did nopt have to edit content like
print media has to. This created traffic and drove ad revenue. And everything
was fine.

Then some bad stuff happened, advertisers, not users, complained by
withdrawing money. And who would have guessed, that was an issue. The
situation these companies re now in sucks, either they start editing (which is
not censorship) and risk being treated like traditional media eliminating
their competitive advantage. Or they don't and risk loosing ad revenue.

IMHO the underlying reason is that free speech and free press offline is lot
easier because there are a ton of different outlet, all with a somwhet limited
reach. People like Rupper Murdoch already put these limitations to a serious
test. Online it's much worse with a couple of global de-facto oligopols. I
wouldn't be surprised if societies and governments are moving to regulate that
one day.

That being said, the fact that all these companies, leaning apparently heavy
on " 100% commit to the American tradition that prioritises free speech for
democracy, not civility", are at the same time more than happy to ignore that
stance in certain countries to maintain a global foot print (p.47 of the
Google doc comes to mind). It seems, after all, that money is king and
everything else secondary.

Admittedly, FB is much worse that Google in that regard.

EDIT: All of the above points are more or less cited from Googles own
document. Except the part with e oligopol which is my own conclusion.

------
etchalon
I can understand why Google, as an engine, should err towards neutrality of
information, without arbitrating even hideous content.

But I've never really understand why social networks can't, or shouldn't, say
"This is the type of community we are, and what content we find acceptable."

~~~
mkeyhani
Because Facebook, unlike say a subreddit, is not a a community formed around a
certain topic. There is no 'we' in particular.

~~~
etchalon
Isn’t the “we” whoever developed and hosts the service?

The idea that you can only limit a community if it’s dedicated to a specific
topic is non-sensical.

~~~
mkeyhani
I am not sure if I understand your argument.

If whoever develops and hosts the service gets to limit what is allowed, then
why Google shouldn’t censor its search results?

------
twmb
I caution against latching onto the title and making assumptions. The bulk of
the content is analyzing where the current censorship position came from and
the conclusion is for Google to be more open with their stance and also be
more equal with applying it.

As for the why:

    
    
      Why the shift toward censorship?
      - User Demands
        - before, In the absence of rules, bad behaviour thrived
        - now, Appease users, maintain platform loyalty
      - Government Demands
        - before, Governments were unhappy to cede power to corporations
        - now, Respond to regulatory demands, maintain global expansion
      - Commercial Demands
        - before, It’s impossible to neutrally promote content and info
        - now, Monetize content through its organisation, increase revenues
        - before, Advertisers were wary of unintended placement and endorsement
        - now, Protect advertisers from controversial content, increase revenues
    
    

As for the conclusions:

    
    
      Don’t take sides
      Police tone instead of content
      Enforce standards and policies clearly
      Justify global positions
      Explain the technology
      Improve communications
      Take problems seriously
      Positive guidelines
      Better signposts
    

Most of the document is non-controversial. There are places where it can be
seen as obviously left leaning, but there are also places where it
acknowledges that sometimes the right has been treated worse:

    
    
      “[Richard] Spencer doesn't get to be a verified speaker; Milo gets kicked off, but I know 
      plenty of pretty abusive feminist users or left wing users,
      expressing themselves in exactly the same way
      that the right is being penalised for,
      who are permitted
      to perform certain kinds of speech. That’s going to get Twitter into

~~~
noobermin
I don't know where you got "left leaning" from unless you're bending over
backwards to be fair, they are if anything centrists which makes sense since
they're Google. For heaven's sake, the slide about conversations of free
speech, I see establishment centrist media pieces on the same plot as
Breitbart and WorldNetDaily. An equivalent would be listing the Young Turks or
alternet.

~~~
twmb
I think it is fair, but I can imagine a scenario where a person reads a line
and thinks "this is obviously leftist".

Personally, I think company's have been bending over backwards to prove they
aren't biasing against the right.

------
erikb
All these "let's be more inclusive by focussing on what/how we can exclude"
activities these days are really scary. You can't be inclusive by being
exclusive.

------
__initbrian__
Interesting Quote of Current President (Pg 48)

"""When it comes to users, all of this bad behaviour and mismanagement...
Breads Conspiracy Theories

"Google's search engine was suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton" \-
Donald Trump, 2016"""

~~~
shard972
I wonder how many conspiracy theories about Trump have been censored by
google?

~~~
shard972
Got downvotes but I can't explain why the conspiracy that trump is a russian
agent is not a conspiracy theory that should be censored and it would be nice
for someone to explain how that works.

------
jhabdas
Today I learnt OogleBot is ignoring the robots.txt file on my private Gitea
server:

git[dot]habd.as/robots.txt

A quick search for "after dark habdas" reveals the second of two rules in the
robots file, which explicitly blocks Oogle at the site root, is clearly being
ignored.

Of course I created this rule before putting this server online and Andex is
the only webmaster console I registered this site with. But that's besides the
point. There's obviously a lack of respect for the robots file or a gross
error in OogleBot as far as I can tell.

So now you know.

~~~
throwawaycxn12
You're doing it wrong, not Google: You're blocking the wrong bot user agent.
You want "Googlebot", not "Google". Google documents this...

------
gufufusfjc
I think the thing that is missing from the presentation is that Google is
positioning itself to take a tone policing position, but that completely
ignores damage to actual people. People injured by the powerful and the state
will be angry, will go viral, and will likely violate tone policed policies.
People that drop white nationalist (genocidal) rhetoric with a smile get to
push their case. Furthermore, the economics of the situation mean that Google
et al are structurally incapable of reforms that dilute their power or reduce
engagement. The alternative that preserves their power is to exert overt
censorship as they will do in China. Thankfully, we are not there yet in the
US.

Tone policing generally favors knocking down the left anyway, which is
favorable to elites whom are the targets of their ire.

------
tomohawk
All this shows is that Google has become a zombie company. It is more
interested in building moats and pleasing politicos to solidify their position
than in actually doing useful things.

