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CMV: Google is Fucking Evil and a danger to free exchange of information in the Internet. (self.changemyview)

Grumpy_Kong が 投稿

With the recent search result manipulation, and the consistent push to exclusively adopt the Google ecosystems (by force sometimes (I'm looking at you Google+...)), I can come to no other conclusion than Google is a cancer that is trying to wrap itself so intimately around the internet, that cutting it out is impossible, or highly damaging. This is a deliberate corporate decision to make them immune to oversight (too big to jail).

These actions are intentional, unethical, and damaging to free speech as a whole.

And they know this, and they've geared themselves up for partnerships with various military and government groups in such a way as to secretly favor establishment authorities while showing a public face of false transparency.

Now that their ecosystem has become so integral to many people's and businesses existence, they realize they no longer have to keep up the transparency facade.

Something truly dangerous is brewing, and the majority of the world is completely unaware of these consensus manipulation practices.

Sure, 2 years ago these statements would have been dismissed as tinfoil-hat ramblings.

Yet now we not only have the aggregate experiences of hundreds, if not thousands of users who have become aware of this manipulation, we have wikileaks coming forward with backroom connections demonstrating Google's unethical behavior and government involvement.

It is time to turn our backs on this, for the good of our future internet.

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[–]Sveet_Pickle [スコア非表示]  (2子コメント)

I don't recall the Google+ thing affecting non Google products correct me if I'm wrong. Outside of that nobody is forcing you to use their products or services, so go use other services and tell other people to do the same if they don't like Googles Practices, Google is a business that exists to make money and as such are amoral. Enough people switch to Duck Duck Go because they don't like how Google is conducting business and they'll change the way they do business, share holders don't like reduced profit.

[–]Grumpy_Kong[S] [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

It isn't about 'affecting non-google products' as that is pretty much illegal and they know it.

Instead you are 'softly' encourage to use only Google services.

Have a gmail account and want to send a MS Office doc? Ok, the web-preview will be the default action when someone clicks it. But oh-no! Google docs (deliberately) doesn't display MS Office docs properly (even though the format is ancient and thoroughly known), so if you want your client or customer to get a doc in an email that looks good in the automatic preview, guess what!?: You have to use Google Docs.

And no-one wants to maintain two parallel systems for long, so even if the intent is to run them side-by-side (a ridiculous requirement), there will come a time when google's 'soft nudging' make it seem that giving up the flexibility of a dedicated and mature office suite for the sake of not losing customers by appearing unprofessional is a choice that is wise to make.

And now you are directly invested in their infrastructure, you have a Google Business account, and that MS Office licensing is a big red mark on the budget that the beancounters decide is redundant as 'We use Google Docs for everything we send anyway'.

And that's only the ecology example, don't even get me started on the consensus manipulation...

Enough people switch to Duck Duck Go because they

That requires the public to be made aware of Google's unethical behavior, and any time we try that a 'tinfoil-hatter' backlash occurs. I think this may be deliberate.

[–]UncleMeat23∆ [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

even though the format is ancient and thoroughly known

Man I don't think you really understand how messy MSOffice formats are. Even microsoft can't do backwards compatibility right. For years there was an entire chipset emulator in Word to handled embedded Excel docs from ages ago.

Rendering correctly is hard. Look at the fucking web and see how even well defined specs are handled differently by the major browsers.

[–]Generic_On_Reddit10∆ [スコア非表示]  (5子コメント)

With the recent search result manipulation, and the consistent push to exclusively adopt the Google ecosystems (by force sometimes (I'm looking at you Google+...)), I can come to no other conclusion than Google is a cancer that is trying to wrap itself so intimately around the internet

I really just want to address this specifically. If you'll look a bit closer at Google's products, you'll realize that Google can be really really shitty at realizing their potential. Both the potential of the product itself, and the potential of the product itself.

Did you follow the Google+ release? It was fucking awful, but it wasn't only awful. It was dumb. They did a limited, invite only, release for what felt like weeks. Sounds fine for a software product release, right? Limiting the traffic to iron out the bugs. Wrong. The product in a social network isn't the site, it's the people on it. They released it in such a way that people couldn't get on it and the interest died for it before it was open to the public.

The reason I say this is because you can look at them fumbling through Google+ every step of the way. The YouTube thing was just another fumble. They don't know how to run the social network, they don't know what to do with it, they don't know where to integrate it.

Google has a large product graveyard of things they don't know what to do with. And if you look into their products, their products should be way more integrated than they are. You can see examples of this in the recent Allo and Duo releases, Hangouts, Inbox (not sure what the point of that is anymore), products that should have been more or used in better, more integrated ways like Waze and Reader. The list goes on.

The point of this is, I don't think you should look at something like the Google+/Youtube thing and think it's a nefarious plot. I think you should see it and think Google is stupid as fuck sometimes.

Edit: Reading some other comments reminded me about Google docs. You probably know how many people use it instead of Office now. Seems like they're doing a good job with it? Well, maybe, but they could be doing a lot better.

I've been using it for nearly a decade now, since its release, on and off and Google docs hasn't improved in forever. Instead of getting smarter, with more features and integration, it's pretty much stagnated in what it's capable of. (They add features, but nothing that can actually improve capabilities.) Why is Keep not integrated with docs? Why is Google+ not integrated with docs? Why is Hangouts not integrated to start conversations on and about collaborative documents? I've been working on group projects a lot recently and it's sad that, in order to discuss the project in general, it's easiest to have GroupMe open while talking, when that should be integrated.

[–]Grumpy_Kong[S] [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

This isn't about being a 'bad' company, stop trying to shift the focus.

It is about Google being an unethical and frankly dangerous company.

[–]azuredown1∆ [スコア非表示]  (3子コメント)

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. Also RIP Reader.

[–]Grumpy_Kong[S] [スコア非表示]  (2子コメント)

Manipulating search results isn't incompetence.

This is malice and unethical business practices.

[–]azuredown1∆ [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

Well, manipulating what you see is something everyone is doing. There's a pretty good TED talk a few years ago about filter bubbles, it's still my favourite talk ever. In it, he says Facebook and plenty of other companies are manipulating search results as well. And, although this talk was recorded a long time ago, it is safe to assume any company with a non-chronological feed is as well.

It's not unethical or malicious. They're just trying to give you what they think you want.

[–]JelloDarkness [スコア非表示]  (14子コメント)

There is no search manipulation by Google; all of those claims were not only quickly debunked, but easy to see for yourself. The truth of the matter is that auto-complete/suggest tries to filter offensive terms (for what should be obvious reasons).

All large companies have lobbyists and work with governments for a variety of reasons: usually tax laws, anti-trust prevention, and IP protection. There is no evidence to suggest any wrong doing with Google specifically, as far as some nefarious conspiracy goes.

Google is a large company that serves up a significant portion of web results, and of course is in a fight to stay relevant in a fast-changing world with constant technological disruption (e.g. social media, mobile apps, etc). Google+ was poorly executed and you can see Google reeling from that, pulling back, and trying something else. You can argue that one company shouldn't be in a position to collect all of your data (and you'll get no argument here), but people have been trying to malign Google since its inception in that vein and have been proven otherwise.

Google does fight for its users ever day: working against government surveillance overreach, fighting for net neutrality, fighting for reasonable IP laws (software parents are bunk, etc), and so forth. These are benefits for the user that extend beyond the lifetime of the company (and in the case of government surveillance fighting, don't directly benefit the company at all).

The company might be too large for you to be comfortable, but you can seek out alternatives such as DuckDuckGo in that case. There is no conspiracy here.

[–]Grumpy_Kong[S] [スコア非表示]  (7子コメント)

Sorry, no. Snopes is no longer a trusted source.

Also, I'm not talking about auto-complete, I'm talking about actual results.

In fact, I think the whole 'autocomplete fiasco' was deliberately initiated by google as they knew it was easy to muddy the waters and obfuscate the true consensus manipulation of its searches.

For example, if you search 'did google manipulate search' gives you 2 pages of 'lol no' responses on google, yet everywhere else you get a mix of 'maybe', 'no', and 'Whharrglebargle!' just like you should get when searching such a contextually ambiguous string.

Bit it doesn't, manipulation.

Which plenty of people have argued that 'It is google's right as the owner of its own infrastructure and data to return the results it chooses to return.'

Which is a fucking insane idea for what essentially boils down to a telecommunications company.

And lastly, your entire post reeks so hard of a marketing department's touch that I am beginning to suspect that your post is not intellectually genuine.

The company might be too large for you to be comfortable,

Holy crap what a passively aggressive manipulatory statement. Do they give you guys classes on psychological manipulation when you signed up to work for them?

[–]-AragornElessar-1∆ [スコア非表示]  (6子コメント)

And lastly, your entire post reeks so hard of a marketing department's touch that I am beginning to suspect that your post is not intellectually genuine.

The company might be too large for you to be comfortable,

Holy crap what a passively aggressive manipulatory statement. Do they give you guys classes on psychological manipulation when you signed up to work for them?

Don't be a dick. There is no need to act like this in a civilized debate.

[–]Grumpy_Kong[S] [スコア非表示]  (5子コメント)

There is no need to act like this in a civilized debate.

This is not a civilized debate /u/JelloDarkness is spouting marketing copy and something is manipulating the posts here.

This is propaganda in action and I feel no responsibility to be civil to propagandizers.

[–]Grumpy_Kong[S] [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

Also, this comment pointing out deliberate thread manipulation in screenshot form just went from +4 to -5 in less than 2 minutes.

No that isn't suspicious at all!

[–]-AragornElessar-1∆ [スコア非表示]  (3子コメント)

This was a civilized discussion/debate until you started throwing around insults. If you have a point to make, you can make it without acting like this.

And what evidence do you have that there is any propgandizing going on here?

[–]Grumpy_Kong[S] [スコア非表示]  (2子コメント)

So you're /u/JelloDarkness's wingman?

Good to know and RES marked as such.

[–]-AragornElessar-1∆ [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

Are you here to debate in good faith or just to rant about your view? In other words, what can someone say that will change your view?

[–]Grumpy_Kong[S] [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

what can someone say that will change your view?

Show me unbiased data that addresses all of my points.

Which is going to be kind of hard, considering that anyone can open up two browser windows and replicate the results for themselves.

It's really hard to refute something that everyone can easily demonstrate is true.

If you were to come up with a logical chain that somehow explains the thousands of separate and similar incidents that are being reported by everyone from grandmas to xbox users, then I would consider my position changed.

[–]Grumpy_Kong[S] [スコア非表示]  (5子コメント)

Also I find it very, very interesting that your comment has been voted below visibility, yet still appears as the top comment even after it has been hidden.

Very interesting indeed...

[–]johnnyoffacliff [スコア非表示]  (4子コメント)

I think you undercut your decent arguments with unwarranted aggression and conspiracies. Sometimes being too aggressive puts everyone else on the defensive making it much harder to get them on your side. Let your argument stand for it's self rather than accusing any opposition of being paid off.

[–]Grumpy_Kong[S] [スコア非表示]  (3子コメント)

Except they aren't conspiracies, many many people have documented themselves getting the same kind of skewed results.

I personally have experienced it.

And the aggression is fully warranted. What do you think would have happened if a telecom company only allowed calls to your number from a particular party's phone board?

And I would argue people rely far more on google than they do almost any other info channel.

This is beyond serious at this point.

So your attempt to marginalize the heat of the argument is kind of suspicious...

[–]johnnyoffacliff [スコア非表示]  (2子コメント)

I wasn't calling your main argument a conspiracy, the tin foil side comes out when you accuse anyone with opposing thoughts of working for Google.

Warranted or not aggression probably isn't effective.

[–]Grumpy_Kong[S] [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

Did you even look at the screencap?

[–]-AragornElessar-1∆ [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

The point still stands that there is no need to be so agressive to the other participants in the discussion just because they have a different view than you. There is also no reason to accuse them of being paid off by Google just because they have different view. You have absolutely no evidence of that.

[–]Jambdy [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

Hmm, you raise some interesting points. My retort would be... KILL THE HERETIC! PRAISE BE TO GOOGLE!

[–]Grumpy_Kong[S] [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

KILL THE HERETIC! PRAISE BE TO GOOGLE!

Yep that's pretty much been the content of most of the replies, though a lot more passive-aggressively.