It is beginning to meet many of the definitions of one, which matters to those of us who use the search engine:
Project Veritas announces that a new rebel Googler has sent nearly 1000 documents on algorithm bias to the DOJ. While we prepare a news story on Zach Vorhies’ revelations, it may be worth asking why one of the world’s largest companies has developed what appears to be the atmosphere of a political cult… Tiku offers an account of the underlying intensity that went well beyond the needs of a sound strategy for helping stranded co-workers:
“Finally, to a remarkable extent, Google’s workers really do take “Don’t Be Evil” to heart. C-suite meetings have been known to grind to a halt if someone asks, “Wait, is this evil?” To many employees, it’s axiomatic: Facebook is craven, Amazon is aggro, Apple is secretive, and Microsoft is staid, but Google genuinely wants to do good.
Nitasha Tiku, “Three years of misery inside google, the happiest company in tech” at Wired “
Wait. All the other companies that these employees might have ended up working for have lost their way morally? In 2017, ex-Google engineer James Damore, who was fired for suggesting that men might be better suited to tech jobs than women, described the atmosphere as “like a cult”.
Denyse O’Leary, “Is Google a cult? Or does it just act way?” at Mind Matters News
It’ll get crazier. Stay tuned.
Earlier stories in this thread:
A closer look at Google’s search engine bias If Google’s CEO honestly believes that there is no bias, that is, in itself, a big part of the problem Pichai is arguing against the nature of writing algorithms itself—not a good position for a computer guy to be in.
What others are saying about the new Google insider’s revelations The documents’ authenticity is not in dispute. What to do about them is another matter. Perhaps we cannot have a realistic discussion of the problems Google.gov creates unless we start with a willingness to pay for search engine services. That allows us to bargain as equals with respect to terms.
Whistleblower says Google called police to do a “wellness check” on him. He can be seen doing a perp walk on the sidewalk in front of his house on the video; some portions transcribed here. In the documents Vorhies unearthed, Google seemed to be “intending to scope the information landscape so that they could create their own version of what was objectively true.”
and
Google engineer reveals search engine bias. He found Google pretty neutral in 2014; the bias started with the US 2016 election (Gregory Coppola)