I don't think Google was targeting climate change, denial, but rather the reasoning is found in another article: The obscure law that explains why Google backs climate deniers.
Google and other large internet companies rely on section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to avoid liability for what people like me publish on my Google-owned blogs. This part of the CDA offers the internet giant legal immunity for content I create using their platform "in effect treating them as distributors of content and not publishers". And this seems fair enough. Google owns Blogger. There are millions of blogs on this platform and Google cannot reasonably moderate them expect retroactively if people complain. Google merely distribute my words. And I should be the one who has the liability.
Still, this doesn't explain why Google are giving a lot of money to quite so many right-wing think tanks. Nor why Google have been so defensive about being caught out.
“We’re hardly alone among companies that contribute to organisations while strongly disagreeing with them on climate policy,” the spokesperson said.
The reason they have been making contributions is that Republican senators, particular Ted Cruz have been calling for repeal of §320. And in particular Cruz argues that Google is biased in favour of the Democrats. That is that Google search results are biased. Here is Cruz grilling a Google representative on 16 July 2019:
Make no mistake, this is a disaster for Google! Because senators have power to change laws. If Google were deemed to be a publisher then they would be open to vast number of lawsuits from Republican supporters.
In Aug 2019 Slate ran an article with a bit more information on this.
"Fox News’ sister network Fox Business had discussed the July Senate testimony of a psychologist named Robert Epstein, who said that “Google’s search algorithm likely impacted undecided voters in a way that gave at least 2.6 million votes to Hillary Clinton.”
And President translated this into a Tweet that said in part "Google manipulated from 2.6 million to 16 million votes for Hillary Clinton in 2016 Election!" Now this is an obvious distortion of the facts and one of tens of thousands of lies that Trump has told.
Epstein works at the American Institute for Behavioral Research. But Epstein was already in a long standing conflict with Google: "In 2012, Epstein publicly disputed with Google Search over a security warning placed on links to his website" (NYTimes). He subsequently made a career of criticizing Google and other big internet companies. And of course in the increasingly divided and paranoid politics of the US, Republicans latched onto this idea that Google had manipulated search results.
Epstein works at the American Institute for Behavioral Research. But Epstein was already in a long standing conflict with Google: "In 2012, Epstein publicly disputed with Google Search over a security warning placed on links to his website" (NYTimes). He subsequently made a career of criticizing Google and other big internet companies. And of course in the increasingly divided and paranoid politics of the US, Republicans latched onto this idea that Google had manipulated search results.
Of course Google has responded through the usual channels - the mainstream media. They have testified in But the parts of the media controlled by Republicans of the extreme views we associate with Cruz and Trump are not bound to give Google a fair hearing. The comments under that Ted Cruz video are disturbing in their partisan credulity and paranoia.
The original liberal country, the home of liberal democracy, the nation that has inscribed liberalism into the very fabric of their constitution has produced a generation, of mainly younger white men, who hate liberalism. I saw yesterday that young white men have issued death threats to Greta Thunberg who they see as representing a vast conspiracy against them. Angry older white men like Jordan Peterson have only stoked the fire higher by confirming their fears of a liberal conspiracy. It's not quite clear what this liberal conspiracy will achieve apart from free healthcare and green energy, but the paranoiacs associate it with gun control and with progressive social values.
We often see negative comments about Google bowing to political pressure to censor results in China. We seldom see analysis of the kind of political pressure that Google has to deal with in the USA where society was always economically right wing, but has become increasingly socially conservative and authoritarian. And make no mistake, Epstein has put Google firmly in the cross hairs.
We often see negative comments about Google bowing to political pressure to censor results in China. We seldom see analysis of the kind of political pressure that Google has to deal with in the USA where society was always economically right wing, but has become increasingly socially conservative and authoritarian. And make no mistake, Epstein has put Google firmly in the cross hairs.
Google should be scrutinised. It enjoys a monopoly on the market and it is not always a friend to the individual citizen. Issues about privacy, data, metadata, and censorship are important and Google should be seen to be conforming to social norms on these issues, or at the very least complying with relevant law.
But the pressure Google face from paranoid Republicans and the rednecks who support Trump is something else. We can perhaps understand why they have resorted to giving large (but undisclosed sums) to right-wing think tanks. Google is fighting for survival and needs allies in the Republican Party to help thwart the insane clown posse that is Trump and his supporters. They cannot simply make a rational argument and present evidence because the other side don't operate on facts and reason. They operate on emotions and prejudice.
Still there is something fundamentally immoral about supporting these organisations that are contributing to climate change denial. Sure, other big companies are doing it, but since when has that been a valid moral argument? Two wrongs don't make a right. Climate change is the issue of our time. And even if we are wrong about everything and we clean up the environment only to realise that we needn't have, we still have clean air, clean water, lower deaths from pollution, and so on. We have to make the transition to a Green Economy anyway. Climate change just makes it urgent.
Still there is something fundamentally immoral about supporting these organisations that are contributing to climate change denial. Sure, other big companies are doing it, but since when has that been a valid moral argument? Two wrongs don't make a right. Climate change is the issue of our time. And even if we are wrong about everything and we clean up the environment only to realise that we needn't have, we still have clean air, clean water, lower deaths from pollution, and so on. We have to make the transition to a Green Economy anyway. Climate change just makes it urgent.
Lewis Powell argued in 1971 that the American free enterprise system was under attack by progressive social attitudes (by which he specifically meant the environmental movement, but at that time presumably also the civil rights movement as well).
The freedom of economic liberals has always been about the freedom to exploit the people and world for profit. The so-called free enterprise system only ever worked well for large multinationals that pursued and gained monopoly power. It wasn't free for anyone else. The free market ideology that combined classical economic liberalism and the new economic theory of monetarism never really addressed the complete lack of freedom of markets. Google is fighting to survive and against a pernicious trend led by a corrupt politician who is misusing his office, but they are using their wealth to buy political influence. This is the flaw in the free market system: those who could, always have manipulated markets for their own benefit.
Capitalism always ends up being about the elites fighting for power over the workers. If that means drafting our workers to kill your workers, then so be it. The various factions get involved in the deluded idea that by backing the right tyrant they will get special treatment in the new dispensation. So suddenly the young right-wing white men of the USA are against Google, even though Google's contribution to their lives far exceeds that of senator Cruz and this cronies. It's all part of a sinister plot.
All this is frankly terrifying. Trump, Cruz, the Republican Party, are corrupt and disinterested in dealing with climate change because it shifts profit making to other industries. Google, in a shameless attempt to buy political influence with the allies of these corrupt politicians in order to stave off a disadvantageous change i the law, are making large contributions to the very think tanks that fuel the Republican climate change denial. The only winner here is climate change denial.
The UK where I live is scarcely any better. Venal millionaire politicians are destroying democracy for money.
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Keep is seemly & on-topic. Thanks.