After Employee Revolt, Google Says It's 'Not Close' To Launching Search In China (arstechnica.com) 135
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Reports from earlier this month claimed Google was working on products for the Chinese market, detailing plans for a search engine and news app that complied with the Chinese government's censorship and surveillance demands. The news was a surprise to many Googlers, and yesterday an article from The New York Times detailed a Maven-style internal revolt at the company. Fourteen hundred employees signed a letter demanding more transparency from Google's leadership on ethical issues, saying, "Google employees need to know what we're building." The letter says many employees only learned about the project through news reports and that "currently we do not have the information required to make ethically informed decisions about our work, our projects, and our employment."
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Google addressed the issue of China at this week's all-hands meeting. The report says CEO Sundar Pichai told employees the company was "not close to launching a search product" in China but that Pichai thinks Google can do good by engaging with China. "I genuinely do believe we have a positive impact when we engage around the world," The Journal quotes Pichai as say, "and I don't see any reason why that would be different in China." The report says Brin "sounded optimistic about doing more business in China" but that Brin called progress in the country "slow-going and complicated."
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Google addressed the issue of China at this week's all-hands meeting. The report says CEO Sundar Pichai told employees the company was "not close to launching a search product" in China but that Pichai thinks Google can do good by engaging with China. "I genuinely do believe we have a positive impact when we engage around the world," The Journal quotes Pichai as say, "and I don't see any reason why that would be different in China." The report says Brin "sounded optimistic about doing more business in China" but that Brin called progress in the country "slow-going and complicated."
How to use the memory hole (Score:4, Funny)
Claim the controversial project is not near completion.
Wait a few months for the sheep to lose concentration and have it drift beyond their attention span.
Then, quietly do it with a small elite staff.
When people complain, say, "Well, it's a done deal now, we can't back out or we'd lose money!"
Everyone knows that is bad and unpopular, so no one will support that. We are herd animals.
Moooo.
The employees only support censorship of their own (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently they're only cool with censoring their own conservative employees [techcrunch.com].
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... breitbart ...
Is Alex Jones irrelevant?
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Quote context from the Breitbart article:
"A document brought to light by James Damore’s class-action lawsuit against Google and drafted by the company’s HR department instructing managers at the company on how to be “inclusive” cautioned managers against rewarding employees for traits “valued by the U.S. white/male dominant culture”, including individual achievement, and meritocracy."
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Traits of 'white dominant culture' :
https://media.breitbart.com/me... [breitbart.com]
Re:The employees only support censorship of their (Score:4, Insightful)
They are becoming the corporate equivalent of the Evergreen College. The investors should be calling for Pichai's head. The employees in non-leadership positions should not be dictating the company's direction by mob rule.
Keep it Down Home (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Keep it Down Home (Score:5, Insightful)
At this point I would be surprised if, by the 2020 election, there are even a small handful of conservative voices who haven't been completely banned for YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Alex Jones was a kook, but he was just the low-hanging fruit they used to set a precedent. Anyone who thinks he'll be the last conservative voice effectively banished from the internet is kidding themselves.
They start with the kooks, then they go after the semi-kooks, then they go after the controversial, then the semi-controversial....and by the 2020 election pretty much anyone to the right of Che Guevara is a persona non grata on the modern internet. And that's how democracy dies. Say anything you want as long as no one can hear you.
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They start with the kooks, then they go after the semi-kooks, then they go after the controversial, then the semi-controversial....and by the 2020 election pretty much anyone to the right of Che Guevara is a persona non grata on the modern internet. And that's how democracy dies. Say anything you want as long as no one can hear you
Every four years, the other side has the chance to do the same thing itself. Apparently this is a venerable American tradition...
Differences in censorship (Score:5, Informative)
The Right censors those who act against social standards; the Left censors those who fail to be Leftist enough.
Most of our conservatives, in the context of history, are fairly Left-leaning. They support egalitarianism in politics and society; the only area they do not support it is the economy, where they insist on free markets instead of enforced socioeconomic equality.
Fear not; the Left is targeting that next.
Eventually they will win, and produce a socialist society. The good people will all die off, and the proles will have their triumph. Then, that society will slide into third-world status because it is ruled by morons commanding other morons, and so it will vanish from the pages of history because it is irrelevant.
This is what Leftism does: it destroys civilizations.
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The Right censors those who act against social standards
Right now it seems that the right in power would really love to censor those who are trying to prosecute those who act against social standards. If the right were actually censor those who act against social standards, that would be a mighty improvement.
Who (Score:3)
Who do you have in mind here, and how are they censoring them?
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Ah, Omarosa. (Score:2)
I stopped reading there. Gossip is not fact.
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Then, that society will slide into third-world status because ... except for places like most of California and some selected city centers.
Most "civilized" countries consider yours already on that level
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Most "civilized" countries are whiny bitches pissed off because the US public doesn't give two shits about what they think. If the US is so bad why in the hell are people risking life and limb just to get in? The US Embassies and consulates around the world have waiting lines wrapped around the block for people applying for VISA's to enter the US. Have you ever seen a line with more than 5 US citizens looking to immigrate to some foreign nation?
Trump may be an idiot but he has started asking potential "alli
US could be better, still better than most (Score:2)
Human incompetence is simply so vast that the US provides a better quality of life than everyone else.
We could be a lot better, and that really is the target. Competition blinds us to what we could have instead.
Third world USA (Score:2)
Huge parts of the USA are third world, I agree. There are whole areas in Los Angeles, Detroit, Houston, New Orleans, and even Chicago that look like Mexican suburbs and are appropriately bullet-pocked.
Europe is following our policy example and is quickly achieving the same. Then again, this is not new history; remember the Arab quarter in Paris from the turn of the cen
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Berlin has no and never had turkish slums. Or any slums for that matter. I doubt you find a european city with slums, perhaps in greece? But I doubt that, too.
The time of run down Arab quarters in Paris is long over, too. While they still have 'quarters' associated with 'origin' like China or India, those are mainly business related (a quarter with lots of indian shops and/or restaurants e.g)
However other frensh cities still have that problem, Lyon e.g or Bescancon.
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Except for gay marriage, voting rights, felon disenfranchisement, prayer in school, mandatory standing for the national anthem, etc. And, depending on where the line is drawn for "most conservatives", active and vocal parts are significantly against equality with regard to gender, race and religion.
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Except for gay marriage, voting rights, felon disenfranchisement, prayer in school, mandatory standing for the national anthem, etc
Plenty of wide and very disagreements on gay marriage on both sides of the political spectrum everywhere, US? Canada? Hell even in European countries. Voting rights, well that one's interesting. Conservatives want voter ID. Progressives suddenly want voter ID, but only because of the muh russia narrative. But they then suddenly realize that's racist and backtrack quickly. Who'd knew that law and order(something that conservatives generally like), would be against people who've committed felonies losing
Natural Rights versus Civil Rights (Score:2)
America was founded on a natural rights ideal, i.e. "all men are created equal" [amerika.org] means you are born as equal as you are going to get, and it is not the job of government to enforce equality or equity.
Starting in the 1870s, but really picking up after WW2, the American government dedicated itself to Civil Rights, a regime in which governmen
Separating reality from propaganda (Score:2)
And yet they can be egalitarian in other areas. How many will talk openly about the bell curve or the IQ/wealth of nations?
Conservatives are not in favor of equality; to us, it is a mistaken value. We like what w
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However, it we're talking about the current group of people who identify as conservative..... you have it very badly wrong. You say conservatives support egalitarianism in politics and society? What cave have you been living in? Conservatives are spearheading voter suppression efforts at the activist level (targeted mailings to minorities with misinformati
Confusing strategy with ideology (Score:2)
The Hart-Celler act changed American immigration to be mostly third-world in origin because third-world origin people vote consistently Leftist, even when it backfires on them mul
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First off, I'd love to get some input from other self-identified conservatives. Is this....... is this really the current conservative way of thinking? Is this guy actually desc
Reading comprehension (Score:2)
You missed the fact that if there are reasons for conservative ideals, they are not solely a question of egalitarianism. Remember, we are not ideologues like the Left.
Next, you seem to have further missed the point that my criticism of mainstream conservatives was that they were egalitarian at all. Egalitarianism is a Leftist trope, not a Rightist one.
Further, American was founded and pioneered by Western Europeans, so of course we favor the founding group.
Re:Keep it Down Home (Score:5, Insightful)
Every four years, the other side has the chance to do the same thing itself. Apparently this is a venerable American tradition...
There's a problem with your reasoning. The progressive left, and in general political left across the west have been frothing at the mouth and pushing to censor people for the better part of 15 years now. Now you've got an entire group of people that believe that free speech should be restricted if it hurts feelings and/or desire to expand hate speech laws to cover feelings. If you don't think so, you haven't really been paying attention. Things like deplatforming, pulling fire alarms, calling in bomb threats, and so on have been a staple for quite a while. The last oh 7-8 years or so, they've started moving directly into violence. You can see that with antifa most prominently, but can find it with any communist linked group in pretty much any country in Canada, US, or various EU countries.
Universities are pretty damned cancerous these days in terms of stifling speech outside of what's approved, even here in Canada. The debacle with Lindsay Shepard is a good example, especially since these self declared liberals are now labeled as far-right by various media outlets, student unions, student groups, and so on.
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There's a problem with your reasoning. The progressive left, and in general political left across the west have been frothing at the mouth and pushing to censor people for the better part of 15 years now. Now you've got an entire group of people that believe that free speech should be restricted if it hurts feelings and/or desire to expand hate speech laws to cover feelings. If you don't think so, you haven't really been paying attention.
I've been paying attention to the fact that the two sides are not really all that different, they just do sometimes things differently. The conservatives have been doing these things for centuries, largely under religious guise and/or in family settings instead. So left-wing activists are doing that in schools? Frankly, I don't see how any of the sides is the lesser asshole in this clash.
The last oh 7-8 years or so, they've started moving directly into violence.
Ahhh, *you* haven't been paying attention to the last century [wikipedia.org], have you?
Universities are pretty damned cancerous these days in terms of stifling speech outside of what's approved
Maybe in America, not so much in large parts of E
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I've been paying attention to the fact that the two sides are not really all that different, they just do sometimes things differently. The conservatives have been doing these things for centuries, largely under religious guise and/or in family settings instead. So left-wing activists are doing that in schools? Frankly, I don't see how any of the sides is the lesser asshole in this clash.
Oh this is mostly true, of course you've just forgotten that the left pretty much has a strangehold on culture and has for oh 60 odd years at this point in most of the west.
Ahhh, *you* haven't been paying attention to the last century, have you?
Sure have. Did you pay attention to the fact that antifa of today are just like the ones of the 1930's?
Maybe in America, not so much in large parts of Europe. In terms of left-vs-right, I have yet to find a polarized school in my country.
European schools were the ones to invent deplatforming under the guise of hate speech. You have yet to find a polarized school in your country? How would you know if the viewpoints you're exposed to have already been censored and cura
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Oh this is mostly true, of course you've just forgotten that the left pretty much has a strangehold on culture and has for oh 60 odd years at this point in most of the west.
Oh, my sweet summer child... You have no idea what it means when the left has a stranglehold on culture [wikipedia.org]
You have yet to find a polarized school in your country? How would you know if the viewpoints you're exposed to have already been censored and curated.
They're not. It's just that nobody gives a fuck in schools what your political leanings are. And why would they? That's not what a school is for. American schools, on the other way... [archive.org]
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Oh, my sweet summer child... You have no idea what it means when the left has a stranglehold on culture
I don't? Oh you bloody fool, making an assumption like that just shows how badly you're arguing that point.
They're not. It's just that nobody gives a fuck in schools what your political leanings are. And why would they? That's not what a school is for
They're not? So why don't you explain why all those universities go out of their way to remove speakers they disagree with. And the students unions do exactly the same thing. I mean really, in the UK it's become so bad that the government is looking to get involved. [telegraph.co.uk] And even the guardian is arguing against it. [theguardian.com] These are not one-off things. You seem to fail to understand the difference between what
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why all those universities go out of their way to remove speakers they disagree with.
Because UK is a crazyland, just like the US. Fortunately I don't have to suffer living in either, and I was most not certainly having UK in mind when I wrote "in large parts of Europe". Hell, the UK isn't apparently even considered Europe by many Brits.
Universities in Europe are, have, and do actively remove/revoke speakers from speaking at their universities. Whether they're old school feminists who's view points no longer "fit" with the new feminist order. Or speakers who argue for more free speech in Europe.
As I said, luckily we don't have this problem. Hell, your fictional scenarios look ridiculous from where I stand.
You seem to fail to understand that universities are the place where your views should be tested ...
Of course, that's a major part of their purpose. Why would I fail to see that?
... and in European countries your views aren't being tested because they're banning people who would challenge them. European universities have been doing this since the 1970's
And around here, they stopped doing that in 1989.
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Because UK is a crazyland, just like the US. Fortunately I don't have to suffer living in either, and I was most not certainly having UK in mind when I wrote "in large parts of Europe". Hell, the UK isn't apparently even considered Europe by many Brits.
Do I really need to start pulling articles from german and french dailies to make a point, or do you want to save yourself the trouble and start looking on your own? You can try the "UK isn't part of Europe" all you want, but that's like saying Quebec isn't part of North America.
As I said, luckily we don't have this problem. Hell, your fictional scenarios look ridiculous from where I stand.
Fictional scenarios? You're doing more to prove that you don't understand what's going on in your own backyard, let alone what's going on in your own universities. Pick your poison of speakers: political correctness, Israel, depo
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Fictional scenarios? You're doing more to prove that you don't understand what's going on in your own backyard, let alone what's going on in your own universities. Pick your poison of speakers: political correctness, Israel, deportation of illegals. Those are all cases from Germany in the last 6 months where speakers have been deplatformed.
"My own universities?" There's no German universities in my country.
In the part where you believe that universities are apolitical, they're not.
People may not be apolitical, but institutions can. It's actually codified in our law, at least to the extent that political organizations are banned from universities. That doesn't of course prevent students from organizing outside universities, or participating in politics, but universities pushing for political positions would likely get in deep shit.
Never mind that you can find the stories if you dig hard enough.
OK, start digging, then?
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"My own universities?" There's no German universities in my country.
Made a point, and you fully missed it. Are you saying that German universities aren't a part of Europe?
People may not be apolitical, but institutions can. It's actually codified in our law, at least to the extent that political organizations are banned from universities. That doesn't of course prevent students from organizing outside universities, or participating in politics, but universities pushing for political positions would likely get in deep shit.
Uh-huh. And in Canada, universities are codified by educational charter to be places of higher learning. That of course doesn't make it true.
OK, start digging, then?
By all means, let me know when you find the repeated times that Germaine Greer was deplatformed multiple times, from multiple universities, in multiple european countries.
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Made a point, and you fully missed it. Are you saying that German universities aren't a part of Europe?
I'm saying no such thing. You, on the other hand, seem to be somehow hell-bent on steering things towards absolute statements. When I voiced disagreement with your (absolute, and false) claim that "universities are pretty damned cancerous these days" by pointing out that world-wide this is far from a universal truth, you somehow went from my "large parts of Europe" (which I have no idea if it includes Germany or not) to your all-encompassing idea that if one European country does something wrong, the whole
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In other words, the needle swings.
It's pegged all the way to the right at this point.
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The employees need an extra apostle.
Probably only the USA employees complaining (Score:2)
I think Google employee’s need more reality about Google.
Its likely Google's Chinese employees are far more practical about this than Google USA employees. Google can shift more development to China as necessary.
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Its likely Google's Chinese employees are far more practical about this than Google USA employees.
Of course Chinese workers all unite to praise Glorious Leader Xi Jinping's glorious censorship program....or else.
and facebook will shield you too (Score:2)
Its likely Google's Chinese employees are far more practical about this than Google USA employees.
Of course Chinese workers all unite to praise Glorious Leader Xi Jinping's glorious censorship program....or else.
Some actually trust that the government is shielding them from criminals, lies and unhealthy content. Its sort of like some in the USA who are grateful that facebook will shield them from conservative ideas. ;-)
Chinese Darwin Award (Score:4, Insightful)
More importantly, those who do not praise the Chinese State tend to fail at a form of natural selection, mainly by experiencing 7.62mm tumors at the base of the skull. Therefore, they no longer exist on Chinese development teams, and everyone else eats their rice.
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Xi Jinping would never go so far as to harm his opponents. Though his opposition does tend to show an unusually high rate of suicide-by-throwing-themselves-down-an-elevator-shaft-onto-some-bullets.
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Some people are just REALLY tired of living, man.
Bullshit. (Score:1)
They'll just spin off another Alphabet company.
Then they can say, "Google isn't doing business with China!"
Delivering ads is a *service* to users (Score:2)
that's what I want to know. It seems you are yourself working for an entity that has lost all sense of ethics and morality in its quest to commercialize the profiling of every single internet user for both intelligence gathering and monetary revenue, and you have in effect waived your right to moralize over others because they don't want to let Google loose in their country.
But delivering better targeted advertising is a *service* to internet and email users.
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They love their Chinese companies way more than Americans love Google. Even when it was allowed in China it had a tiny market share.
Conservative sites fading away (Score:3)
It seems harder to find non-cucked conservative content on Google of late, at least without highly specific searches (for example, phrases you know are in the article).
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There are other toys you could use.
Vote with your choices.
The market rules.
"Not close to launching" is not a denial (Score:5, Insightful)
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Engagement is how you get people on your side.
Nixon and Kissenger's engagement (ie what we've been doing since the 1970s) failed to liberalize China, exported large chunks of American industry and jobs to China, financed China's military growth, update their military technology and capabilities (ie force projection into their neighbor's waters) by decades, ...
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They were the smart people. You're saying you don't want to listen to smart people when they advise you? This is the same idiocy that led to Brennan getting his security clearance revoked. Now the government has one fewer smart person on the outside doing good.
No, I'm saying the smart people [Nixon/Kissenger] had an idea, it seemed reasonable at the time, we gave it a try. They turned out to be wrong as we all learned from Tiananmen Square, but we continued with the failed idea anyway. Further evidence of being wrong accumulated, predatory business practices, fake territorial water claims, etc. Its time for trade reciprocity, favored trade practices have failed. Plus they are no longer a developing nation so some of the favored trade practices no longer make sens
Busted (Score:2)
GOOG - origin myth was " Do No Evil" . What does this company stand for since dropping " do no evil"? To what purpose does its (evil by explicit omission) platform now support? Each time its employees reveal adverse " Do no evil" moral implications Google is lofted on its petard. Google whines " Sorry" but... we'll keep doing it.
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They just streamlined the motto by removing the "no".
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GOOG - origin myth was " Do No Evil" .
No, no it was not. It was "Don't Be Evil".
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Google's back is against the wall.
They've hit a brick one called, "customer acquisition," and the next big fool pool is in China.
Money, money, money.
China has lots.
So does the US gubmint.
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Like Alex Jones?
Get the app.
It's called the iCrapp.
Chinese version ... (Score:2)
A great quote (Score:2)
Count de Monet: It is said that the people are revolting
King Louis XVI : You said it. They stink on ice.
If it is not against the law (Score:2)
Just my 2 cents
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They need them and they are, in this case, not easy to replace? You completely misconstrue the situation. Typical submissive personality. Not everyone is like that, fortunately.
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If it's one employee, maybe. If it's a large percentage of your employees, maybe the new work isn't worth replacing a large chunk of your workforce.
Google's Being Pretty Evil (Score:4, Interesting)
Is there any cure for corporate cancer? (Score:2)
For a company whose first rule was "don't be evil," they sure have being pretty evil lately. I wonder if some of those Google employees are now asking themselves if they want to keep working at a place where they've had to revolt twice in less than a year (The first one being over AI in military contracts.)
Yes, there are still some legacy anti-evil people embedded within the corporate cancer known as the google. Unfortunately, I'm not actually surprised to find so little insight on Slashdot into the deeper issues. Didn't need any more evidence that Slashdot has become part of the problem and no part of any solution or solution approach...
Also miss the "funny" comments of yore. Funniest diversion in this discussion was the stuff about not tolerating intolerant FAKE conservatives. It's like no one has ever hear
Slashdot + Big tech = Totally Corrupt (Score:2, Interesting)
Note the total lack of the biggest tech story in months, if not all year: the deplatforming of Alex Jones.
How totally outrageous it is for Slashdot not to run any story about it. It's been a major topic of discussion dead square in the center of Slashdot's subject matter.
You can't let that one slide without making some kind of judgement, unless you're truly brainless.
There is a conspiracy against free speech, especially conservative speech, perpetrated by all of big tech and the main stream media working in
Alex Jones = Totally Corrupt (Score:2)
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If that's true it's totally irrelevant, you absolute pea-brain conflation artist.
It's a person saying their opinions in the public square being banned from the public square.
Obviously you're a brainwashed authoritarian half-wit who accepts any justification for your emotions, so I'm sure any argumentation is lost on you.
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When the doctor says "Every Day", he means it. You start skipping days, and.... you get your post.
I am not commenting about whether Alex Jones should be banned from social media sites provided by corporations, or as your insane comment suggests, from "the public square".
I am just saying that the lying sack of shit is not "conservative".
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You have no argument whatsoever. You are not a man.
An encouraging development, but (Score:3)
One fact is clear (Score:2)
The Google employees understand and appreciate the 1st Amendment, but the owners and managers, and their lackeys, do not.
Annotated Pachai quote (Score:2)
“I genuinely do believe we have a positive impact on our bottom line when we engage around the world“
Figures (Score:1)
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Man, you're just full of hot air, ain't you?
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Is this how you justify your total ignorance to yourself?
Brainless deflection?
If I'm full of hot air, at least I'm not totally empty
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Note the total lack of the biggest tech story in months, if not all year: the deplatforming of Alex Jones. How totally outrageous it is for Slashdot not to run any story about it
Did *you* submit a story about it? No? STFU.
Did *you* upvote any that were submitted in the Firehose? No? Then STFU.
Slashdot, like any other media company, publishes what it wants, not what *you* want.
The First doesn't apply to anything BUT the government. People forget that.
AFAIK, Jones still has his website. He still has a microphone. That he's not on Facetwat and apple podcasts.. boohoo, cry me a river. He still has a way to express himself, his website.
And by the by, when the message is screechy
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Oh it's my personal responsibility to make up for the editor's censorship, since I have the complaint.
The media has a SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY to present relevant facts.
Usually the users know this and pressure them for this, since knowing the truth is of the utmost importance.
Usually people aren't completely brainwashed to the point of mental retardation, as in your case, and realize this.
You have no concept of principles, only practice. You don't care about the PRINCIPLE behind the first amendment. You only c