I don’t see how it could be a plot to engender goodwill when nobody ever really expected a search engine to advocate same-sex marriage. It’s not like there were millions marching at Prides around the world demanding it.
But I’m with you on what Google could actually do. I mean, I would definitely not want them to censor sites that are against same-sex marriage - that would make the campaign for same-sex marriage more difficult! Maybe it’s just symbolic - ‘we’re stating publically that we’re for same-sex marriage; use our search engine, knowing this, and you are supporting a company that supports same-sex marriage. Makes you think, huh?’
Has Google said anything about what they’re actually going to do?
U.S. Steel and Microsoft didn’t announce they were planning to build libraries or cure malaria. If Brin and Page want to step away from Google and launch their own initiatives I’ll look at it with less cynicism.
I think this will bite them in the ass, frankly. It may win them some goodwill amongst progressives, and perhaps even centrists, in America and other rich, Western countries, but a lot of countries where sexual beliefs and customs are more conservative (i.e., most of the rest of the world, and, to some extent, American “Red States” too) are going to deeply resent a bunch of very rich, white Californians telling them to change their traditional cultural beliefs and practices, and will react against it. America may be ready for gay marriage, but I very much doubt whether China, or India, or Indonesia, let alone Iran or Saudi Arabia, are.
This could provoke a real backlash, and the results could be bad both for Google and for the advancement of gay rights in many countries. Of course, the countries in question are deeply homophobic already, but that does not mean that things can’t get even worse, or that such progress as might otherwise occur can’t be slowed. I am sure there are productive ways to advance gay rights around the world, but Google is totally the wrong organization, with the wrong image, to be spearheading such efforts.
Bingo. I don’t really give a hoot what multibillionaires do with their personal multibillions. If they want to cure cancer or oppose SSM, that’s their deal, and I’ll dislike or support them as people. But they shouldn’t use the corporation’s resources to do it.
I just mainly want to correct your misconception. It’s not about same-sex marriage, that would have to be a goal much further down the line. It’s about the anti-gay culture in many countries. Google is targeting Poland and Singapore first. According to this article, in Singapore male same sex relationships are illegal.
The Think Progress article has a little more info. Right now Google is targeting Poland and Singapore, because I think they have offices there, and are probably closer to being nudged over into acceptance than Saudi Arabia or Uganda or some other countries.
I think people were misinterpreting “Legalize Love” as “Legalize Same-Sex Marriages” when Google was just meaning “Legalize Same-Sex Love.”
Should bus operators in the Jim Crow South have gone along with segregation, then? Or would you have praised one that refused to modify its seating policy to comply with the laws?
Your analogy fails on both levels. It’s a law that has to do with their business, and you’re specifically talking about individuals–at least, that’s what I understand the word “bus operator” to mean.
I think as the aspiring and de facto curator of the world’s information, I think they have a particular duty to remain neutral on most issues. There are strict rules in journalism about maintaining a wall of separation between editorial and reporting, and part of that is that reporters cannot advocate for or donate money to political causes. Google is in some ways more opaque in their filtering of information than a newspaper, and they don’t have the special ability to analyze news and politics the way that a newspaper does (which partly explains newspapers’ split mission of reporting and editorializing), so there are fewer reasons for them to engage in spreading opinions and more reasons for them not to.
While I think it’s extremely unlikely that Google’s political advocacy will influence search results, I do think it potentially creates an image of bias that could be harmful not only to Google, but to the body politic. We are already becoming more separated by our information sources, and if Christians and Muslims and political conservatives start looking for alternative sources of information to remedy that perceived bias, it won’t be good for anyone.
I made allowances at the time for Google getting involved in SOPA because it seemed to clearly relate to their mission as a company, but now I’m wishing people had expressed a little more skepticism about their foray into politics.
Like BigT says, that’s a law that directly affects the business (presuming we are talking about a private business and not a public mass transit program). Even if it doesn’t affect the bottom line, it’s certainly understandable when a law says “buses shall maintain a White section and a Colored section” and the bus company goes “hey wait, we never agreed to that.”
Now, if a bus company had protested a miscegenation law, and I specifically mean the company, not the owner representing himself, while I’d be on the same side I’d wonder what business it is of the company.
And the fact that Google’s business pervades society on nearly every level is not a point in its favor. It’s done some amazing things with that level of integration, but that kind of ties into my stance on this thread: I do not like it when companies are so enormous and pervasive that they wield such leverage over society.
You seem confused. Are you thinking of Yahoo, which did give the Chinese government some data that helped jail an activist? Google is notable for being the one company that has refused to censor there.
Nonsense. Google followed Chinese censorship policies until 2010, when, according to Wiki, they detected hacking apparently by the Chinese government attempting to get information on ‘forbidden’ searches.
You claim my post is “Nonsense”, but offer no rebuttal. As I stated, Google doesn’t censor, while other companies do. I never said they never censored in the past, and the discussion was clearly about the present. The initial claim that Google was doing something to cover up their guilt in China was simply ignorant of the facts.
Both censorship and non-censorship occurred in the past, and seeing as how the discussion was obviously about current practices (“the last few years” in the post I was replying to), my statement was accurate and the reverse was not. But this discussion is getting a bit silly, so let’s just leave it, since we seem to agree on the facts.
Evil 1: Corporations overreaching. AKA: every single corporation on the planet.
Evil 2: Hateful bigotry against gay people. AKA: every single country on the planet.
So if evil 1 can for a change help overcome evil 2, I’m not shedding any tears.
Google can do what they want, but they won’t win any brownie points from me. They’re like any other lobby organisation with vested interests, although they seem to be trying to manipulate the culture rather than the political system. Whatever, I don’t recall anyone voting for Google, whereas at least Poland has democracy.