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Comment by fromthestart | Hacker News Reader

People are rabidly dismissive of the project veritas expose, but articles with quotes like this repeteadly show pervasive bias among Google staff which aligns exactly with the accusations and candid management recordings within the video [1]. The video is admittedly obnoxious and overly dramatic, but the candid clips with exec Jen Gennai strongly suggest that these political biases are leaking into technical work with an intended effect on society.

1.https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/06/24/insider-blows-whis...

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Even if google doesn't have a political bias, there's no way for them to avoid allegations of unfair political treatment. They're in an unenviable position as the arbiter of global popularity and visibility, and there are thousands of mostly far-right groups that are flooding google with garbage. Just by virtue of taking down clearly false, misleading, or violent content, they're already "biased" against one political ideology.

> there are thousands of mostly far-right groups that are flooding google with garbage

Is there a citation for this? I see lots of far-left garbage on social media generally (by which I mean posts espousing violent revolution, racism, sexism, blank slatism, anarchism, and/or communism). I'm sure there are niches of far right racism, but it mostly seems like a niche problem (and given that the far right is largely a reaction to the far left, it stands to reason that we have an opportunity and obligation to kill both with the same stone).

That video has been debunked as being heavily edited misinformation. Here's Jen's side on it:

https://medium.com/@gennai.jen/this-is-not-how-i-expected-mo...

You don't debunk something by saying it's debunked. So her claim is that because she was no longer in the trust and safety team at the time of the video, her opinions are irrelevant?

Of course she's going to claim that the video was "heavily edited." But the validity of the video comes from the fact that there is no context which makes the clips of her speaking any less damning. They clearly indicate a willingness by Google to curate search results.

>The video then goes on to stitch together a series of debunked conspiracy theories about our search results, and our other products.

I'd love to see this debunking.

>Google has repeatedly been clear that it works to be a trustworthy source of information, without regard to political viewpoint. In fact, Google has no notion of political ideology in its rankings. And everything I have seen backs this up. Our CEO has said ”We do not bias our products to favor any political agenda.” He’s somewhat more powerful and authoritative than me.

Oh, well, if the CEO says it, it must be true. This is just a weak attempt at damage control.

Her claim is much simpler. Project Veritas calls her a "powerful senior executive," and she says "I'm not any sort of executive and wouldn't know about any of this even if it were true."

I don't see any reason why a propaganda outfit led by a guy convicted of sneaking into government offices on false pretenses should be taken at their word that a random Google employee is a powerful executive when the employee in question says that they are not one. Seems like "they are an executive" would be pretty easy to establish.

People are rabidly dismissive of Project Veritas and another one of their "exposures" because of their attempts to "make evidence" by tricking people into admitting something, cherrypicking what "evidence" they do display, and having a "answer first, evidence second" mindset to their operation.

If you want to show that Google has "bias against conservatives" or whatever, get it from a reputable source instead of the garbage heap that is Project Veritas.

I've seen some of their videos. They seem fairly damning, and rebuttals have always been fairly weak. For example, a google exec was captured on video saying: “smaller companies don’t have the resources” to “prevent next Trump situation”. In what context does that statement not amount to silencing conservative perspective on their platform? I completely agree it is their right to do so, and probably benefits the nation, but pretending they aren't doing it is terrible optics.

Oftentimes the people they say are "executives" are just rank and file employees. I have a friend who is not an executive who got tricked into meeting with a Project Veritas scumbag. Thankfully they realized something was up and left the meeting.

That's a good point. In general I'd say outing a rank-and-file employee is bad form. There are exceptions of course, like if the employee's revealed behavior is at par with Edward Snowden. The only example I have is the Gennai one, which is what I'm referring to above. I'd love more examples of Project Veritas behaving badly

Note: not implying Gen Gennai's behavior was Snowden tier

The hidden camera captured an interview with Jen Gennai, Head of Responsible Innovation, Global Affairs at Google. You could at least watch the video and find out for yourself.

I think the real problem here is that people are aware of Google's bias and OK with it, but unwilling to admit as much.

Trump situation. Not Trump. I am not sure what the context of the discussion was, but I am sure a Project Veritas video doesn't give the whole context. It could be referencing something unrelated to the election. Maybe it was about Net Neutrality or some other anti big tech signaling. Large companies have more sway than smaller ones. The fact that you go from one no-context quote to "silencing conservative perspectives" is not good. Please keep thinking critically.

>The fact that you go from one no-context quote to "silencing conservative perspectives" is not good. Please keep thinking critically

There's more context than that single quote, including the other strong evidence of overt bias in other sources, like OPs article. I get the feeling you didn't watch the video.

To a conservative, is "preventing the next Trump situation" any different than "preventing Trump"? I'm not arguing that Google shouldn't do this, I'm pointing out that the optics are garbage if we argue they aren't.

> I am sure a Project Veritas video doesn't give the whole context

Have you watched any? I would suggest you do before trying to convince others of their content. Again, what you are doing is garbage optics.

Another quote from Jen Gennai: "the same people who voted for the president do not agree with our view of fairness"

Where do you go for official sources when the entire modern media establishment has an undeniable (and rather open) liberal bias?

Ignoring bias, do you believe that every given situation that some group may identify as a problem is guaranteed to have a reputable source reporting on it?

I'd love to find a more reputable source, but one is not currently available, and I'm not in a position to create one. That does not imply that the problem being reported on is illegitimate. You should be able to assess the contents of the video with PV's bias in mind - and most of the content really does stand on its own, especially in the context of relevant quotes from employees in OPs article.

There was also a massive trove[1] of internal Google documents dumped on PV related to, among other things, AI development and arguably politically motivated guidance by internal definitions of "fairness", designed to shape search results. Should these documents also be ignored because they're only being hosted by Project Veritas? You can see them yourself...

Ironically, this is the danger of trusting only select biased organizations with curating the flow of information - as you suggest, to most people, if a "reputable" source hasn't reported about it, it doesn't exist. How many years has 4chan been screaming about epstein, as another example, without major media investigation?

The bottom line is that no entity that acts as the front page to the internet should be curating information flow without a massive, blinking disclaimer.

1.https://www.projectveritas.com/google-document-dump/

I admittedly only looked at at half a dozen images/PDFs, but I didn't see anything alarming or beyond what I would expect in any large company. In fact your link has had the opposite effect you intended because if you think a well cited document on diversity improving ROI and other metrics is controversial, I am now much less interested in what you have to say.

If media does have a bias, and let's assume it does since it was de-regulated, then I'd put pro-business Liberalism first. Then on a liberal vs conservative spectrum, I would agree it is more liberal than conservative. But why is that controversial when by raw population there are more socially liberal people than conservative?

Now that's out of the way... I do agree that no one media source should have the power Google, FB, Fox, CNN, etc have. And there is no doubt not every interest is covered by the giants. But you should stick to that argument and not bring in PV to actually win people over.

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