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Home › News › Leaked Video Shows Google Brass and Staff Explains a Lot of Their Content Censorship Decisions

Leaked Video Shows Google Brass and Staff Explains a Lot of Their Content Censorship Decisions

- September 14, 2018


Shortly after President Trump was elected, Google held an all-hands meeting at its headquarters. The headliners were co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, VPs Kent Walker and Eileen Naughton, CFO Ruth Porat, and CEO Sundar Pichai. The video was leaked to Breitbart.

https://youtu.be/E5gPdrlyc84

I haven’t listened to the whole thing…I started laughing when Porat started getting all weepy around the 13:00 mark…and probably won’t because going much further is simply a descent into schadenfreude porn. Highlights, according to Breitbart, can be found at the following timestamps:

(00:00:00 – 00:01:12) Google co-founder Sergey Brin states that the weekly meeting is “probably not the most joyous we’ve had” and that “most people here are pretty upset and pretty sad.”
(00:00:24) Brin contrasts the disappointment of Trump’s election with his excitement at the legalization of cannabis in California, triggering laughs and applause from the audience of Google employees.
(00:01:12) Returning to seriousness, Brin says he is “deeply offen[ded]” by the election of Trump, and that the election “conflicts with many of [Google’s] values.”
(00:09:10) Trying to explain the motivations of Trump supporters, Senior VP for Global Affairs, Kent Walker concludes: “fear, not just in the United States, but around the world is fueling concerns, xenophobia, hatred, and a desire for answers that may or may not be there.”
(00:09:35) Walker goes on to describe the Trump phenomenon as a sign of “tribalism that’s self-destructive [in] the long-term.”
(00:09:55) Striking an optimistic tone, Walker assures Google employees that despite the election, “history is on our side” and that the “moral arc of history bends towards progress.”
(00:10:45) Walker approvingly quotes former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s comparison between “the world of the wall” with its “isolation and defensiveness” and the “world of the square, the piazza, the marketplace, where people come together into a community and enrich each other’s lives.”
(00:13:10) CFO Ruth Porat appears to break down in tears when discussing the election result.
(00:15:20) Porat promises that Google will “use the great strength and resources and reach we have to continue to advance really important values.”
(00:16:50) Stating “we all need a hug,” she then instructs the audience of Google employees to hug the person closest to them.
(00:20:24) Eileen Naughton, VP of People Operations, promises that Google’s policy team in DC is “all over” the immigration issue and that the company will “keep a close watch on it.”
(00:21:26) Naughton jokes about Google employees asking, ‘Can I move to Canada?’ after the election. She goes on to seriously discuss the options available to Google employees who wish to leave the country.
(00:23:12) Naughton does acknowledge “diversity of opinion and political persuasion” and notes that she has heard from conservative Google employees who say they “haven’t felt entirely comfortable revealing who [they] are.” and urged “tolerance.” (Several months later, the company would fire James Damore allegedly for disagreeing with progressive narratives.)
(00:27:00) Responding to a question about “filter bubbles,” Sundar Pichai promises to work towards “correcting” Google’s role in them
(00:27:30) Sergey Brin praises an audience member’s suggestion of increasing matched Google employee donations to progressive groups.
(00:34:40) Brin compares Trump voters to “extremists,” arguing for a correlation between the economic background of Trump supporters and the kinds of voters who back extremist movements. Brin says that “voting is not a rational act” and that not all of Trump’s support can be attributed to “income disparity.” He suggests that Trump voters might have been motivated by boredom rather than legitimate concerns.
(00:49:10) An employee asks if Google is willing to “invest in grassroots, hyper-local efforts to bring tools and services and understanding of Google products and knowledge” so that people can “make informed decisions that are best for themselves.” Pichai’s response: Google will ensure its “educational products” reach “segments of the population [they] are not [currently] fully reaching.”
(00:54:33) An employee asks what Google is going to do about “misinformation” and “fake news” shared by “low-information voters.” Pichai responds by stating that “investments in machine learning and AI” are a “big opportunity” to fix the problem.
(00:56:12) Responding to an audience member, Walker says Google must ensure the rise of populism doesn’t turn into “a world war or something catastrophic … and instead is a blip, a hiccup.”
(00:58:22) Brin compares Trump voters to supporters of fascism and communism, linking the former movement to “boredom,” which Brin previously linked to Trump voters. “It sort of sneaks up sometimes, really bad things” says Brin.
(01:01:15) A Google employee states: “speaking to white men, there’s an opportunity for you right now to understand your privilege” and urges employees to “go through the bias-busting training, read about privilege, read about the real history of oppression in our country.” He urges employees to “discuss the issues you are passionate about during Thanksgiving dinner and don’t back down and laugh it off when you hear the voice of oppression speak through metaphors.” Every executive on stage – the CEO, CFO, two VPs and the two Co-founders – applaud the employee.
(01:01:57) An audience member asks if the executives see “anything positive from this election result.” The audience of Google employees, and the executives on stage, burst into laughter. “Boy, that’s a really tough one right now” says Brin.

While the video doesn’t reveal any broad conspiracy to use Google’s money and technology to power the Resistance, keep in mind that this took place less than a week after the election and, even then, there is such a progressive hive-mind that senior executives are blowing snot bubbles over the idea of a Trump victory. Do you really think things are better now? For that matter, have any of the NeverTrump voices on the right become more reasoned and rational with time? Does anyone believe this scene would not have been replicated at Facebook or Twitter. No, of course not. If anything, since November 8, 2016, the tech giants of Google, Facebook, and Twitter have essentially declared war on conservatives. Google has restricted access to videos by Prager University

Twitter suspended a black conservative, who, to make a point, substituted “black” and “Jewish” for “white” in tweets by a racist the New York Times decided to hire.

And while Alex Jones is an odious individual, many on the conservative side cheered on Google, Facebook, and Twitter as Jones was banished using nebulous “community standards” that allow conservatives to be threatened with assault, rape, and murder, as though they were going to stop at that point. This is from Erick Erickson:

But the left, led by Media Matters, is out to deplatform Dana Loesch and the NRA. They’ve been pushing Apple to take the NRA app off Apple TV for some time. They are emboldened by the Alex Jones situation and are pushing even harder now. They have every incentive to play up every controversy and twist it to make it worse than it is. They have gotten USA Today and other media outlets to take the bait on this — many of them outlets that had already questioned Apple keeping the NRA platform.

This is the logical outcome of the media going after Alex Jones. Now they’ll go after other conservative outlets. Media Matters is also pushing for climate change skeptics to be censored and others. Alex Jones was the beginning, not a one off thing.

Ironically, while they are stamping out conservative points of view in America they are all actively collaborating with the Chinese government to stamp out dissent abroad.

Fortunately, some in the GOP have seen what is happening and are speaking up:

The post Leaked Video Shows Google Brass and Staff Explains a Lot of Their Content Censorship Decisions appeared first on RedState.

 

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