Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011 and current executive chairman who recently received a $106 million bonus wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times, How to Build a Better Web.
Schmidt and Google have a colorful history.
In late 2009 and early 2012, entering "Islam is" into Google would return absolutely nothing, while entering "Christianity is" would result in "Christianity is crap" or something similar. Google tried to dismiss it as some sort of technical error, but any software engineer can assure you that Google was lying and intentionally excluded Islam from derogatory results.
In 2013, Schmidt visited North Korea ostensibly to open the country up and perhaps free a political prisoner. None of that was accomplished but he did attempt to convince the DPRK to allow the Google Car to take videos of the entire country, which would have earned Google a tidy sum when people around the world vicariously visited the Hermit Kingdom via Google Maps.
It offered Gmail to all schools and convinced many of them to accept. Many schools made the use of Gmail mandatory for schoolwork and of course students used it for personal purposes as well. It wasn't until later that we discovered that Google was mining the emails, crossing a "creepy line" by using information gleaned from the scans to build "surreptitious" profiles of Apps for Education users that could be used for such purposes as targeted advertising.
Referring to email in general, Google declared that "[email] providers like Google must scan the emails sent to and from their systems as part of providing their services." This both true and misleading because emails must be scanned for viruses, but nothing more. Google scans them for profit, with it being a very profitable company.
In his NYT opinion piece, Schmidt quoted John Perry Barlow's essay A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace: "that the Internet promised 'a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.' In many ways, that promise has been realized."
But that is pie-in-the-sky nonsense. In 2014, Mozilla Chief Executive Brendan Eich was hounded out of his position because he donated $1000 to oppose the legalization of gay marriage in California.
Schmidt continued with: "We should target social accounts for terrorist groups like the Islamic State, and remove videos before they spread, or help those countering terrorist messages to find their voice."
But who will be the ones to determine if something is hate speech? Will it be Black Lives Matter or the groups which demand free tuition for African Americans? Will it be the groups which tried to force a university to withdraw a speaking invitation for a former Secretary of State? Will it be GLAAD, lobbyist group for LGBTs, which is pushing for 25% representation of LGBTs on television even though the population only consists of 1-2% homosexuals? Or will it be Google which already demonstrated its position on censorship of matters related to Islam?
Schmidt finished with: "It's up to us to make sure that when the young girl reading this in Indonesia on her tablet moves on from this page, the Web that awaits her is a safe and vibrant place, free from coercion and conformity."
But we have a conflict between privacy and law enforcement. That young girl Schmidt mentioned might be at risk of playing an unwilling role in child pornography, but if encryption is perfectly secure, the parasites who peddle it will no longer have to worry about prosecution.
We should be wary of accepting advice from Google or one of its shills.
Schmidt and Google have a colorful history.
In late 2009 and early 2012, entering "Islam is" into Google would return absolutely nothing, while entering "Christianity is" would result in "Christianity is crap" or something similar. Google tried to dismiss it as some sort of technical error, but any software engineer can assure you that Google was lying and intentionally excluded Islam from derogatory results.
In 2013, Schmidt visited North Korea ostensibly to open the country up and perhaps free a political prisoner. None of that was accomplished but he did attempt to convince the DPRK to allow the Google Car to take videos of the entire country, which would have earned Google a tidy sum when people around the world vicariously visited the Hermit Kingdom via Google Maps.
It offered Gmail to all schools and convinced many of them to accept. Many schools made the use of Gmail mandatory for schoolwork and of course students used it for personal purposes as well. It wasn't until later that we discovered that Google was mining the emails, crossing a "creepy line" by using information gleaned from the scans to build "surreptitious" profiles of Apps for Education users that could be used for such purposes as targeted advertising.
Referring to email in general, Google declared that "[email] providers like Google must scan the emails sent to and from their systems as part of providing their services." This both true and misleading because emails must be scanned for viruses, but nothing more. Google scans them for profit, with it being a very profitable company.
In his NYT opinion piece, Schmidt quoted John Perry Barlow's essay A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace: "that the Internet promised 'a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.' In many ways, that promise has been realized."
But that is pie-in-the-sky nonsense. In 2014, Mozilla Chief Executive Brendan Eich was hounded out of his position because he donated $1000 to oppose the legalization of gay marriage in California.
Schmidt continued with: "We should target social accounts for terrorist groups like the Islamic State, and remove videos before they spread, or help those countering terrorist messages to find their voice."
But who will be the ones to determine if something is hate speech? Will it be Black Lives Matter or the groups which demand free tuition for African Americans? Will it be the groups which tried to force a university to withdraw a speaking invitation for a former Secretary of State? Will it be GLAAD, lobbyist group for LGBTs, which is pushing for 25% representation of LGBTs on television even though the population only consists of 1-2% homosexuals? Or will it be Google which already demonstrated its position on censorship of matters related to Islam?
Schmidt finished with: "It's up to us to make sure that when the young girl reading this in Indonesia on her tablet moves on from this page, the Web that awaits her is a safe and vibrant place, free from coercion and conformity."
But we have a conflict between privacy and law enforcement. That young girl Schmidt mentioned might be at risk of playing an unwilling role in child pornography, but if encryption is perfectly secure, the parasites who peddle it will no longer have to worry about prosecution.
We should be wary of accepting advice from Google or one of its shills.