Shocking Internal Google Docs Prove Their Orwellian Goals and Desire to Squash Free Speech, by Cassandra Fairbanks.
Shocking internal documents from Google reveal their concern about “utopian” free speech and how it cannot truly be achieved while users are “behaving badly.” …
The documents, obtained by Allum Bokhari at Breitbart News, are part of a presentation entitled “The Good Censor.” It focuses on if Google can “reassure the world that it protects users from harmful content while still protecting free speech.”
Google begins the presentation by saying early on that free speech has become “a social, economic, and political weapon.” They go on to ask “who should be responsible for censoring ‘unwanted’ conversation, anyway? Governments, users, Google?”
They acknowledge that free speech allows individuals to hold ‘the powerful’ to account and that censorship can give governments and companies the power to limit individuals. They state that the internet was founded on “utopian” ideas of free speech — and that the idea was instilled in companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google when they were founded.
“An important US Federal statute from 1996 supports this position of neutrality,” the document says of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This statute essentially gives platforms a waiver from liability over user posted content as it differentiates a “platform” from a “publisher.”
“Under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, tech firms have a legal immunity from the majority of the content posted on their platforms (unlike ‘traditional’ media publications),” page 15 reads. “This protection has empowered YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Reddit to create spaces for free speech without the fear of legal action or its financial consequences.”
Google explained that in some cases this freedom has had positive outcomes, using the Arab Spring as an example. The document then goes on to list the negative outcomes that have “undermined this utopian narrative,” listing the 2016 election (along with a photo of President Donald Trump), the trolling of actress Leslie Jones, YouTuber Logan Paul, and the rise of the alt-right as some examples of where free speech has went wrong.
The company followed that up by saying “as the ‘we’re not responsible for what happens on our platforms’ defense crumbles, users and advertisers are demanding action.” This seems to be an admission that they should no longer be protected under section 230.
Google determines that the problem is that users, governments and tech firms are all behaving badly.
It lists the ways in which users are “behaving badly” as hate speech, reprisals and intimidation, trolling, cyber harassment, cyber racism and venting. …
One of the “problems” that they found is that “everyone has a voice.”
“The ‘little guys and girls’ can now be heard –– emerging talent, revolutionaries, whistleblowers and campaigners. But ‘everyone else’ can shout loudly too — including terrorists, racists, misogynists and oppressors,” Google notes. “And because ‘everything looks like the New York Times’ on the net, it’s harder to separate fact from fiction, legitimacy from illegitimacy, novelty from history, and positivity from destructivity.” …
The document goes on to directly admit that big tech is no longer complying with section 230, saying that they have been moving from “passive facilitation to active curation.” …
Google continues on to admit that tech firms are performing a “balancing act” between two incompatible positions,” creating an unmediated marketplace of ideas and creating well-ordered spaces for safety and civility….
“But tech firms have gradually shifted away from unmediated free speech and towards censorship and moderation,” page 68 says. It admits that they now lean towards being “politicized,” having an “editor” and being a “publisher.”
hat-tip Scott of the Pacific
