[blackjack21]

While I generally don't take issue with prosecuting Nazis for the crimes they committed, I think Nuremburg was too much victor's justice and violated ex-post facto since "crimes against humanity" did not exist prior to the end of the war. Yet, that did not stop people from pursuing every possible Nazi to the ends of the Earth.

Historically, this hunt also included suing corporations that had anything to do with the German government during the Nazi period. Volkswagen was one such corporation.

Since the American firm, IBM, was also involved through its German subsidiary, IBM is flagged in the Holocaust since it sold punch card systems for the German census that was used to identify Jews, among other things. By today's standards, those systems were inherently crude. Today, online services track individuals, their whereabouts, what they say online and on wireless phones, etc.

Google has refused to participate with the US department of defense on some of its projects, in part, because some of its customers object. Yet, Google is implementing surveillance technologies to help the totalitarian government of China surveil its citizens and aid political repression.

Google is a service and it is implementing technology to aid a totalitarian society. Can Google claim that it is innocent in the apprehension and imprisonment of democratic activists in China through the policing technologies it provides to the government of China?

I say no. Google used to have a motto of "Don't be evil". They have conspicuously dropped that policy. Like Amazon's creepy "Alexa," Google is clearly involved in espionage. Yet, Google is clearly taking sides in refusing to help the United States, while simultaneously aiding an actual totalitarian one-party state, while dropping its "Don't be evil" policy.

What will a future human rights court say about Google? Will Google have bought off enough so-called "human rights" activists to escape censure?

[Sivad]

Dr. Robert Hare is the foremost scholar and practicioner in the field of psychopathy and sociopathy, in the world today. In this video, Dr. Hare goes through the clinical dimensions for the assessment of psychopathy in individuals (Psychopathy Checklist Revised), and uses these dimensions to assess the behavior patterns of post-modern multinational corporations. His assessment hardly flatters today's corporate world. Yes, the average corporation is psychopathic; and does that really surprise you?

[Sivad]

Top executives don't get paid hundreds of millions of dollars for their preternatural business acumen, they get paid the big bucks because stable psychopaths are such a rare commodity. Psychopaths only comprise 1% of the population and most of them are seriously unstable personalities. If you find a functioning psychopath with an MBA you struck gold.

[Rancid]

Top executives don't get paid hundreds of millions of dollars for their preternatural business acumen, they get paid the big bucks because stable psychopaths are such a rare commodity. Psychopaths only comprise 1% of the population and most of them are seriously unstable personalities. If you find a functioning psychopath with an MBA you struck gold.

Sad, but true.

[blackjack21]

That doesn't quite answer my question. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were just a bunch of Stanford college grads. I guess you could say Eric Schmidt was a stable psychopath. Today, it is Sundar Pichai running Google--who is Indian born. These are people that fired James Damoore for citing scientific papers to lament Google's gender diversity goals. They are clearly ideological, and they are not stupid.

The question is whether or not Google is acting in a manner that is more hostile to human rights than IBM during the Nazi-era. I think the answer is very likely "yes."

The premise is a bit simpler. IBM's technology during the third reich was basically nothing more complicated than quick counting forms, expressed as punch card technology that was itself borrowed from Jacquard's loom. That technology could be used for good or evil. It was just rapid form processing and tabulation--for its time.

Google working to actively monitor the online expression of Chinese citizens, to weight online expression algorithmically, while the Chinese government takes action against citizens whose behavior it does not like seems more sinister. Among that behavior is pro-democracy behavior. Google is incorporated in a democratic republic, and its corporate leaders purport to be social liberals.

Punch cards are primitive technology. Surveillance systems and advanced algorithms are not primitive. Google cannot claim to be ignorant of the risks that its actions pose to pro-democracy Chinese dissidents. Yet, Google is helping the Chinese government to repress dissent, while simultaneously refusing to interact with the US government.

As you guys know, I'm not a Marxist. So naturally, I'm not thrilled with Google. However, Marxist theory and practice today is quite different from the 19th and early-to-mid 20th Century. In America, we are not so much in a situation where penniless people are forced into dangerous mines for a pittance, while robber barons make bank. It's somewhat more complicated. The welfare state of the west pays its poor not to work, so it imports illegal aliens to do manual labor such as harvesting crops, doing sheet rock work or cleaning houses and mowing lawns.

The nastier corporate exploitation today is happening in a communist country at the direction of private capitalists with the aid of communist totalitarian oligarchs.

The paradox of today's situation is that it is government communist apparatchiks that have allied with private sector capitalists to oppress the proletariat of the communist state. It is such a strange state of affairs.

Yet, Google still seems to enjoy some modicum of prestige due to its money and market position. Yet, the people who purport to oppose exploitation and repression often use Google--I use DuckDuckGo by default, if you wanted to know.

[blackjack21]

It seems nobody on PoFo cares about Google's efforts, but Amnesty International has announced plans for a protest.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL TO STAGE WORLDWIDE PROTESTS AGAINST GOOGLE’S “DYSTOPIAN” CENSORED SEARCH FOR CHINA

I've already made the switch to DuckDuckGo. Have you? https://duckduckgo.com/spread

[pugsville]

While I generally don't take issue with prosecuting Nazis for the crimes they committed, I think Nuremburg was too much victor's justice and violated ex-post facto since "crimes against humanity" did not exist prior to the end of the war. Yet, that did not stop people from pursuing every possible Nazi to the ends of the Earth.

Historically, this hunt also included suing corporations that had anything to do with the German government during the Nazi period. Volkswagen was one such corporation.

Since the American firm, IBM, was also involved through its German subsidiary, IBM is flagged in the Holocaust since it sold punch card systems for the German census that was used to identify Jews, among other things. By today's standards, those systems were inherently crude. Today, online services track individuals, their whereabouts, what they say online and on wireless phones, etc.

Google has refused to participate with the US department of defense on some of its projects, in part, because some of its customers object. Yet, Google is implementing surveillance technologies to help the totalitarian government of China surveil its citizens and aid political repression.

Google is a service and it is implementing technology to aid a totalitarian society. Can Google claim that it is innocent in the apprehension and imprisonment of democratic activists in China through the policing technologies it provides to the government of China?

I say no. Google used to have a motto of "Don't be evil". They have conspicuously dropped that policy. Like Amazon's creepy "Alexa," Google is clearly involved in espionage. Yet, Google is clearly taking sides in refusing to help the United States, while simultaneously aiding an actual totalitarian one-party state, while dropping its "Don't be evil" policy.

What will a future human rights court say about Google? Will Google have bought off enough so-called "human rights" activists to escape censure?

so what do you suggest? The Nationalization of google and Facebook? You wnat the US government running this stuff? The UN? Who? The Abolition of the internet as a evolutionary dead end?

Very large corporations controlling vast amounts of the economy and globl data can all sorts of things. Corporate interests don't agree with citizen interests

What do you think are workable solutions?

[blackjack21]

You wnat the US government running this stuff?

What makes you think they aren't?

I'm not talking about public authority. I'm talking about people who claim to be about freedom behaving in an essentially apathetic manner. The same people tend to wax on about Nazis and western corporations who sold products to them. In the instant case, we have a technological service which is designed to identify people who are not considered "good citizens" of a totalitarian state to the enforcers of that state's one-party political ideology.

The question isn't a political one, but a moral and ethical one. That is why I posted the question where I did.

[Sivad]

The question is whether or not Google is acting in a manner that is more hostile to human rights than IBM during the Nazi-era. I think the answer is very likely "yes."

I wouldn't say more hostile but Google has definitely crossed the threshold into deliberate depraved evil.

The premise is a bit simpler. IBM's technology during the third reich was basically nothing more complicated than quick counting forms, expressed as punch card technology that was itself borrowed from Jacquard's loom. That technology could be used for good or evil. It was just rapid form processing and tabulation--for its time.

I don't think the complexity of the product matters, it doesn't even matter if the product is nonessential, selling paperclips to the Nazis is just as evil as selling them Zyklon B. Knowingly servicing evil is itself evil.

[pugsville]

What makes you think they aren't?

I'm not talking about public authority. I'm talking about people who claim to be about freedom behaving in an essentially apathetic manner. The same people tend to wax on about Nazis and western corporations who sold products to them. In the instant case, we have a technological service which is designed to identify people who are not considered "good citizens" of a totalitarian state to the enforcers of that state's one-party political ideology.

The question isn't a political one, but a moral and ethical one. That is why I posted the question where I did.

So what do you propose. I repeat the question, as your replay did not address the question.,

You seem to much more focused on scoring political points people you don't like than addressing the problem.

[One Degree]

So what do you propose. I repeat the question, as your replay did not address the question.,

You seem to much more focused on scoring political points people you don't like than addressing the problem.

My solution is local control and ownership. Everything is funneled through locally owned hubs. No overall authority or ownership. Just cooperation. Any suspect ‘hubs’ are prevented access to your citizens. Kind of like the internet started as a joint effort of universities cooperating in sharing information. There is no need for the likes of google to exist.

[Rich]

I've already made the switch to DuckDuckGo. Have you? https://duckduckgo.com/spread

I find Googles search result page has better refinement options than Duckduck. I don't believe Duckduck has an API for its full search results, which I think Google has. So its not even possible to replace the Duckduck search page.

My current local self written home page has one input text box with 3 buttons for Google, DuckDuck and Bing but the default enter command is set to Google.

[Rancid]

It seems nobody on PoFo cares about Google's efforts, but Amnesty International has announced plans for a protest.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL TO STAGE WORLDWIDE PROTESTS AGAINST GOOGLE’S “DYSTOPIAN” CENSORED SEARCH FOR CHINA

I've already made the switch to DuckDuckGo. Have you? https://duckduckgo.com/spread

I hate to defend corporations, but going after Google for what China is doing to its citizens just simply isn't going to work. Google executives and the board are legally responsible to the share holders. If Google wants to make money in China, then they have to play by China's rules. There is NOTHING that Google could do to stop China. Absolutely nothing.

Might as well make some money then.

The turth of the matter is, countless American and European companies are falling in line with what china wants. It's the only way to be able ot do business there.

Last, I don't use Google. I haven't for about 10 years now.

[blackjack21]

I wouldn't say more hostile but Google has definitely crossed the threshold into deliberate depraved evil.

I agree with that assessment, and I don't think Google is alone in that effort. However, their ambitions in China show a distinct disregard for human rights. It's interesting that a once "Don't be evil" bunch of idealists would make such a hard turn toward evil.

I don't think the complexity of the product matters, it doesn't even matter if the product is nonessential, selling paperclips to the Nazis is just as evil as selling them Zyklon B. Knowingly servicing evil is itself evil.

I think the complexity of the product shows intent. A punch card system isn't designed to ferret out Jews from the general population. Algorithms designed to determine who is naughty and who is nice in the eyes of a totalitarian government is decidedly much more deliberate in its intent. So from my perspective, Google does not have a "we didn't know what the Chicoms were doing" defense, since Google is clearly helping them police political dissent and control dissidents.

So what do you propose. I repeat the question, as your replay did not address the question.,

I'm not proposing anything. I posted this in the morals and ethics thread to discuss the moral and ethical implications of Google's actions. I still use GMail, but I have moved off of Google search. I will probably start considering a secure email platform as a replacement for my personal GMail account. As for my corporate account, I'm simply stuck for the time being, although I think I can stop using the GMail web client. So my personal choice has been to deprecate the use of Google products.

You seem to much more focused on scoring political points people you don't like than addressing the problem.

I disagree with the political left. I have never made that a secret. I don't think talking about Google's censorship and tracking activities is purely about scoring political points. It's technology, and any faction could use it. Google has made a calculated business decision to use it in furtherance of the interests of a one-party anti-democratic state from the auspices of a multi-party democratic state for at least the apparent motive of profit. It's an interesting development.

Until very recently, I've worked in mass cloud storage. The product I supported has many uses from people uploading pictures of their cats on Yahoo Flickr to supporting physics projects at the Large Hadron Collider site in Cern. Yet, we also support US government agencies and military branches. Personally, I think the excessive collection of data on US persons is at best creepy and probably much worse. However, I have little regard for the notion of "human rights" in some sort of absolute teleological sense, so I am not as inclined to care what they do to Al Qaeda, ISIS, and their ilk.

By contrast, Sivad makes a strident stand, indicating that selling anything to Nazis is inherently evil. Does the same thing apply to Google? I've been offered employment there before, but I am not willing to accept work there at this time.

My solution is local control and ownership. Everything is funneled through locally owned hubs. No overall authority or ownership. Just cooperation. Any suspect ‘hubs’ are prevented access to your citizens. Kind of like the internet started as a joint effort of universities cooperating in sharing information. There is no need for the likes of google to exist.

There is no need for the internet to exist either, but it does. The internet was opened to commercial use under the Clinton administration--arguably the most impactful development of the Clinton years. After 9/11, the US intelligence agencies via its investment arm In-Q-Tel invested in social media technologies in an apparent effort to influence public opinion in the Arab/Muslim world, among other things (i.e., under Bush).

A lot of people I know--on the political left, no less--thought Facebook was creepy. Yet, it took off and became the dominant social network. Today, it is facing a serious contraction. I deleted my Facebook account last year. A lot of people are doing the same.

While it is different from the question I pose about Google, firms like Facebook and Twitter have been working to suppress nationalist feeling and conservative politics in the US.

I have made no secret of the conclusion that I have come to that the US establishment has lost its way. I do think firms like Google, Facebook, and Twitter maintain close ties to the US government for the purposes of surveillance.

What Google is doing is something more dramatic. Google is collaborating with a totalitarian government to suppress dissent and control dissidents--i.e., preventing a multi-party state from evolving into a democracy in China in exchange for money. That appears to be the current moral/ethical norm at Google, while simultaneously maintaining a diversity agenda in furtherance of identity politics.

None of this is illegal. The question I pose is whether it is moral or ethical.

[ccdan]

I agree with that assessment, and I don't think Google is alone in that effort. However, their ambitions in China show a distinct disregard for human rights. It's interesting that a once "Don't be evil" bunch of idealists would make such a hard turn toward evil.

American tech companies have long been involved in helping totalitarian regimes punish innocent people accused of committing victimless crimes, the main beneficiary by far being the US government.

[SolarCross]

Google is probably more culpable than IBM because Google has the benefit of hindsight. Google knows all so it should certainly know about IBM.