Wed 1 Oct 2008
My recent little post has spawned a debate in the combox essentially about whether Mr. Brin is right supporting homosexual “marriage” or not. However, my main point is not whether this is good or bad – after all Mr. Brin is entitled to his opinion just like everyone else. But, he somehow felt that his own name is not enough, that he has to make it his company’s official position. My main point was that this action is bad and has serious implications.
For example all Google employees who are Muslim or christian or just believe differently than Mr. Brin find themselves in a strange position of working for a company that has an official position on a moral and political issue that is strongly against their own. One could say this is their problem, but I find this troubling.
Is it right for a company manager or even founder to impose his views on all of his workforce in this way? Isn’t this arrogance (as rightly pointed out by CMR)? After all he is not representing those people in any way when it comes to issues like this one. Would it be ok if Mr. Brin said that it is official Google position to support Obama or McCain for president? Would that mean he represents the votes of his employees?
Again, I believe private corporations should be allowed to hire whoever they want or do jobs/projects they want (so I find a recent case of prosecuting a photographer for not wanting to cover a homosexual “marriage” outrageous) or have their own criteria for benefits etc. But all this is quite different from publicly weighting on a piece of legislation pertaining to moral or social questions.
Next, someone called me paranoid for even suggesting that Google’s search results and not only results might be affected by their management’s views. A few words on this one too.
First, please notice that over-reliance on Google can affect your worldview anyway – which is something I wrote about long ago. Notice too, that Google is dealing with lots of content, they are not only delivering search – they also host web sites, they host videos, they host groups, they gather and process news (through news.google.com) etc. They have immense power over what is getting through to the majority of Internet users, especially in the English-speaking countries. This power goes unnoticed, people concentrate on press and TV – but truth is newspapers circulation is down, and TV is evolving towards Internet, not away from it.
Now, call me paranoid all you want, but I find this combination of power and strong political views troubling. I have no proof that Google is meddling with search results as such, but considering supportive evidence I don’t think one can rule this out and continue to trust them.
What supportive evidence? Well, there is even a page on Wikipedia devoted to Google’s censorship and you can easily find cases of troubling disappearances of content from Google’s sites:
- Censored by Google Alerts – Crossed Crocodiles on AFRICOM,
- Google Censors Media Outlet Supportive of UN Whistleblowers.
Then there is the case of Google’s refusal to run pro-life ads while at the same time running abortion clinics ads. This is clearly using the power they have over what contents get through according to their own beliefs and views.
Reasons why all those things happen might be different, but those are all examples of power Google has over content. As I wrote above – add strong opinions to power and trouble is likely.
To sum it all up: I think Mr. Brin has stepped over the line he shouldn’t have crossed. At least for me it means I can’t trust Google anymore to provide fair and equal treatment to all opinions in their handling of web content.
October 1st, 2008 at 15:57
I found your post from Sergey’s site, so if he’s censoring this sort of thing then he’s not doing it especially well.
The question of whether corporations can take a position on the questions you raise is long settled and the answer is yes. You specifically cite the example of supporting a presidential candidate. Candidates for many offices, including US president, have long sought and received support from both companies and unions.
As to power over content, Google cannot avoid it. No content provider on the net, radio, television, newspaper, or whatever can avoid it. They have content and the value they bring to the world is that they present the content in a sequence and a format that they find valuable. Their sequencing of one thing ahead of another is the power to make one thing more prominent than another in a particular context. Absent the ability to present everything on a subject at exactly the same time in exactly the same way, they must choose. You call it power to promote a view, which is true, but incomplete unless you also realize that they lack the power to do otherwise. The question is where to draw the line. The answer is that the line has long since been drawn and he is pretty far from crossing it.
October 1st, 2008 at 16:07
A good post. But I have a few points to make.
First, I take great exception to your statement that “all Google employees who are Muslim or Christian […] find themselves […] working for a company that has an official position […] that is strongly against their own.” A huge number of Christians or Muslims oppose proposition 8, and to suggest that all members of certain religion groups favor the proposition is, at best, strongly misinformed.
Second, I don’t see how you can reasonably claim that Brin is “impos[ing] his views on all of his workforce”. I’ll not deny that some of his workers might disagree with his views, but I don’t see any imposition taking place–He’s not forcing them to agree with his views, to promote them on behalf of the company, or otherwise forcing them to take any action at all that violates their personal conscience.
Third, I think you’re off base when you suggest that the head of a company is answerable to his employees when it comes to taking political stances. Brin has no responsibility to his employees in that regard–Instead, he’s responsible to the shareholders. And Google shareholders overwhelmingly support his position (mostly of course, because Google shareholders are overwhelmingly Brin and Page)
January 20th, 2011 at 17:57
I just added google to my list of companies to boycott along with Home Depot. Home Depot has no business keeping their employees from wearing christian buttons and allowing them to wear gay pride buttons.
I don’t really care about anyone’s preference, I just don’t want it shoved down my throat or pushed into my childrens’s lives.
February 20th, 2011 at 17:26
Exploitation of power & interference in any way of privacy=Google (The fox is in the henhouse, and non too discretly….
December 23rd, 2011 at 21:47
1) As Andy rightly pointed out, Mr. Brin has to make a difference between his personal position and the position of the Company he leads, that is consisting of many workers who may have a different position than his. For example…look in Iowa: the leader of the Christian organization endorsed Rick Santorum, but the organization itself restrained to do so, and rightly so…as many Christians may support other candidates than Rick Santorum. Is anything wrong with this scenario? I think, as Andy correctly stated, that while Mr. Brin is entitled to have his own views, he should make sure that his company is rather supporting a diversified, inclusive opinion with regard to this matter, than to take sides; for the good of his company.
I will wait to see his position with regard to this matter and based on his answer, as Marie Dickens said…I may add (and promote) Google on my list of companies to boycott. Is always better to think twice before making such a decision…