Google CEO Pichai denies company’s political bias in congressional hearing

“Google’s chief executive officer Sundar Pichai rejected claims of political bias against conservatives while emphasizing the American roots of the internet company in his first-ever appearance before Congress,” Jessica Guynn reports for USA TODAY. “Again and again, Pichai stressed during the Tuesday hearing that Google operates ‘without political bias,’ as Republican lawmakers hammered him over allegations that the search engine manipulates results to show conservatives in a negative light or suppresses the viewpoints of right-leaning voices.”
Alphabet Inc.’s then-executive chairman Eric Schmidt wearing staff badge at Hillary Clinton “victory” party on election night, Tuesday, November 8, 2016“Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, signaled the hearing’s focus on political bias in his opening statement, raising allegations that Google’s search algorithms favor ‘the political party it likes, the ideas it likes or the products it likes,'” Guynn reports. “Rep. Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the panel, fired back, calling charges of censorship ‘fantasy’ and part of a ‘right-wing conspiracy theory.'”
“A number of other questions from the House Judiciary Committee centered on Google’s massive collection of personal information, raising the issue of whether American consumers should consent to it, rather than forcing them to opt out of it,” Guynn reports. “Of particular interest to lawmakers was whether consumers understand how much and how often Google’s mobile Android operating system and Google apps collect data about their location. Pichai told lawmakers Google offers users controls to limit that kind of data collection but sidestepped questions on how Google exploits that data to sell advertising. He avoided making any commitments to altering Google’s privacy policies during the hearing that ran more than three hours.”
“President Donald Trump and his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, have accused Silicon Valley companies of liberal bias that has led to the suppression and censorship of conservative voices,” Guynn reports. “In August, Trump claimed search results for ‘Trump News’ were ‘RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD​.’ Google has repeatedly denied any political bias in Internet search results.”

Google search results for “Trump News” shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 28, 2018

 
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“Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, said in an email to employees on Friday that the company has never and will never bias its search results for political purposes,” Kate Conger reported for The New York Times in September.
“Mr. Pichai’s message followed a report in The Wall Street Journal this week about an internal email thread from early 2017 in which Google employees discussed President Trump’s travel ban, enacted by executive order shortly after his inauguration,” Conger reported. “On an internal email thread at Google, employees discussed the possibility of including pro-immigration content in search, according to The Journal [Google Workers Discussed Tweaking Search Function to Counter Travel Ban – WSJ, Sept. 20, 2018].”
“‘Recent news stories reference an internal email to suggest that we would compromise the integrity of our Search results for a political end. This is absolutely false,’ Mr. Pichai wrote in the email, which was obtained by The New York Times,” Conger reported.
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MacDailyNews Take: Groupthink is the product of lazy minds.
Question everything.
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