I want to tell you the story of a situation I ran into with a Google employee named Tab Atkins Jr.
So what do you get if you combine a petty little man like Tab Atkins Jr. and a culture that promotes defaming people who don't share your ideology? The answer: Manipulated search results to punish those they believe "deserve it".
With the increasing evidence that Google some employees have no problem trying to ruin the careers of those that they disagree with, it is not surprising that its employees feel comfortable using their privileged position at Google to smite those guilty of wrong-think.
Take the case of Google search employee Tab Atkins Jr. After a Twitter spat with Zoe Quinn, Atkins decided that social justice needed to be served and wrote a libelous smear of me on his blog with the title "Brad Wardell is a douchebag"...three years ago.
As a semi-public figure I'm pretty used to someone, somewhere writing something unpleasant about me. What I was not prepared for, however, was someone who knew Google's search algorithms well enough to keep their little blog post up at the top of Google (but no other search engine's) search results for three years.
Compare the difference:
BING:
No where to be found.
DuckDuckGo:
GOOGLE:
Right at the top just behind my Twitter and Wikipedia pages.
Now mind you, I've been featured in a lot of newspapers, magazines and websites over the years from Time Magazine to the WSJ to USA Today and of course frequently in the technology news sector. None of those articles come up. LinkedIn.com doesn't even come up. Even the infamous false allegation of "sexual harassment" that certain gaming journalists latched onto (and later apologized for) can't beat it.
Either the SEO managers at LinkedIn, FaceBook, Kotaku, USAToday.com, Time.com, etc. need to recruit this guy...or, more likely, this guy knows how to manipulate Google search results. I don't know if Google gives preferential treatment to results from its employees or not. What is known is that the results are unique to Google and have managed to survive 3 years at the top despite his blog not being notable.
However, the issue I have isn't just about Tab bt rather, what it says about Google's culture. I don't think anyone I have ever worked with would feel comfortable doing this to someone. I'm the publisher of Neowin and it's never occurred to me to use my power to try to ruin an individual. What is the mindset of someone who writes something like that and then uses what appears to be insider SEO knowledge to ensure it nears the top? What it says to me is that there's something gross about Google's culture and that they have a pretty high confidence that they can mete our social justice at those they feel deserve it.
Now, imagine if I weren't already a successful CEO that will never have to find a new job but instead was just "some guy". What Tab did would be catastrophic. It sends a chilling message to those who participate in social media: Piss off an SJW at Google and they will use their privileged position to harm you.
Now, you might ask "Have I reached out to Tab?" and the answer is, yes:
That was two years ago. In which he responded "he'd think about it".
Perhaps Google has some other explanation as to how their employee's 3 year-old blog gets to the top only on Google and no other site. I have my own opinions.
In the meantime, consider this: Imagine if an employee at Google had written such an article about say Zoe Quinn or some other SJW darlying? What do you think would happen to them?
Up until the revelation that Google employees will actively banish people who don't share their politics I was willing to think that Tab was just an isolated "bad apple". But now, I feel very uncomfortable at that thought that anyone out there with the "wrong opinion" is only a few keystrokes away from being smeared by Google employees in the online search results.
I am hopeful that this current trend of using the Internet to deplatform, defame and otherwise attempt to harm people comes to an end.
The irony of returning the favor by naming this post after Tab isn't lost on me. However, since Tab doesn't seem to be familiar with the concept of empathy or decency, the best I can do is make sure that others know the kind of unethical behavior being engaged in by Google employees.
Your opinions are welcome.
Update:
You may have heard that Zoe Quinn's accusations against someone resulted in that person killing themselves. It's just a reminder that SJWs are not the "good guys". They're often horrible people who virtue signal in order to distract from the fact that they are, themselves, terrible people.
The Damon thing pi***s me off. I'm not nearly as pessimistic about Google's financial future, but it's because I'm pessimistic about humanity in general. I know of a mutual fund that follows the stocks in Congress' retirement plans, and mirrors that. I have to admit, it makes sense. Socially responsible? Not so much. But in terms of pure numbers going up, it seems a viable strategy to me. It's the sort of thing I would do in a heartbeat if it were just a computer game, where only computer bits get hurt.
I remember when during the GW Bush presidency if you searched for miserable failure it would direct you to the white house website. Google claimed it wasn't manipulating the results. Mysteriously, on January 20th 2009, Obama's inauguration day, the same search no longer pointed to the White House. This is not an urban legened!
Let's avoid politics...
The problem of course is that those of us who don't like politics shoved down our throats are having it shoved down our throats when simply want to search for something.
The short time I was in DC, the culture was interesting. The media really is just a tool, and you really are just a number in all the lobby games they play. It's like sure, there is free speech and free thought in America--just that you're being manipulated every step of the way. The NSA and CIA are even developing these elaborate machine learning algorithms to anticipate exactly how you will behave in such-and-such a scenario. They only need to be 90% right--it's just a numbers game. And you are just a number. It's no secret that Facebook and Google are very heavy into machine learning. The sheep are this big ship, and they only tilt the little rudder this-or-that way a little bit.
The lawsuit against Google by the former employee has started. I suspect a lot will be revealed.
The NSA has had two very powerful things on internet for a very long time now, Echelon and Spider. Both are very powerful and can do a lot of things that most people wouldn't think are possible.
It's not just Google that has been manipulating your internet experience. I noticed this begin during the health care disaster. It was like an iron curtain fell onto the internet and everything started working a lot differently than it had in the past. As just one example, you've probably never heard before that the specific reason the health care law was unconstitutional was that it was a violation of the 4th Amendment. Government cannot seize your property. Commanding you to turn your property over to whatever private entity you are ordered to turn it over too, or your property will be seized and given to that company, is a clear violation of the 4th ammendment. Any mention of this was essentially erased from the internet in real time as it happened. Attmepts to make posts stating this, the posts would never appear. Any article mentioning it would not list in search engines, etc. It was, almost obviously, a massive campaign to squash any dissent of the subject and prevent anyone from explaining what the actual issue was (it was a form of slavery called "indentured servitude").Ever since then, the internet has been effectively controlled by people who decide what opinions you will see and which ones you won't see. The software that does this is far more capable than most imagine it too be, much like the NSA's Echelon and Spider. This is no longer a free country.
Was it ever? Really? Right from the get-go, powerful men like bankers, politicians and businessmen rose to the top and took control. The only difference today is that now they have assumed absolute power, and in this electronic age, it's more noticeable when your freedoms and liberties are being stripped away.
Oh, and it's not just in the US. There are other so-called democratic countries doing the same thing.... legislating against regular citizens instead of the people who should be better controlled. In many cases that's themselves - the rich and powerful - but that's not going to happen, is it?
Every time someone tells me that we can trust Google I feel the urge to remind them that they have a culture where their employees feel free to use their inside knowledge to sabotage the search results of people they have a problem with. I can't think of any other company that would tolerate that.
I saw at least a few people saying Google and all other search providers hand over their source code to the government and/or competitors for review. I for one think that's an absolutely horrible thing to suggest as it'd be like telling @Frogboy he has to give the source code to all his games to say the US Government or EA for review.What I believe needs to happen is the laws that protect us from discrimination "Gender/Race/Sexuality/Religion/Political Stance" should be expanded to state the end product served must be done so without bias in any of the above... everyone knows our news sources need to start adhering to that...
There was never a time when Google was honest or trustworthy. The sooner people accept that the better.
I swear there’s something in the drinking water out there that makes the people justify behaving like assholes in the name of virtue.
No, there's nothing in the water. Some people don't need justification, self-appraised or otherwise to behave like assholes. To some it comes naturally, others were born with it, and then there are those who picked it up along the way and thought it was too darned cool not to.
In any event, they are, or become complete assholes without remorse or regret... it's a lifestyle to them.
Isn't that politics? So the opposite of left is right. That tells me where Frogboy is at.
Just sayin'
http://time.com/5380039/trump-google/
You joined in 2005, and you're just figuring that out now?
There's a pretty big gulf between far-left and everyone else.
Yea, I completed this political compass thing a few years ago. Not sure about the accuracy of this thing. As I recall, it was easy to predict where you could "push the needle" based on your response. I landed in the green slightly to the left of the purple border about 1 square below the red. Is that where a socialist would show up on this graph?
I seriously doubt a strong advocate of Ayn Rand would truly land where you indicated below.
In any case, I thought politics where supposed to be off limits here. Nothing like breaking you're own rules, huh?
Lol. I’m an “advocate” Ayn Rand? What does that mean? I’m not an “objectivist” or whatever it’s called.
Well, this is HIS site. He can do whatever he wants here - and has proven more than once that he is willing to face the consequences. Brad may be a 'nerd' but he has my respect because he speaks his mind, something so many are unwilling or even afraid to do these days.
Second, I believe this is no longer about politics, it may only seem that way. It is literally about good vs. evil, reason vs. insanity and absolute morality (where what is good and what is bad remains unchanged) vs. moral relativism (where you - and everyone else by extension - define what is good and what is bad).
Now this something that truly pisses me off.... where people create a fake morality in their mind and try to apply it to society in general. The Politically Correct Crew, now there's a bunch of out-of-line cretins I'd like to line up and give a cat-o-nines kind of morality to for forcing their imbecilic opinions upon the World. I mean, why can't kids call their parents mum and dad? Or be told age old nursery rhymes?
And why can't I call a garden implement a hoe? It's a tool that's been around for hundreds of years, and for mine, if that's the profession they choose, then hookers need to grow a thicker skin... cos a hoe will always be a hoe to me.
However, while political correctness is damned annoying, I find things like politicians moralising over teen sexuality and changing the age of consent for girls to 12, so that paedophilia suddenly becomes legal for parasites who prefer young girls of that age.
No, the world has gone to shit when our so-called leaders start legislating to create such unthinkable laws.
There's so much more I could say on the matter, but it would just make me angry and I'd want to go bust a pollie for simply being in that profession.... couldn't say 'line of work' cos it'd be a major conflict with the truth.
Because it's a shovel...
Nope! A hoe is a long-handeled scraping tool that's pulled towards the user to remove weeds, etc. A shovel is usually a shorter handeled tool that's pushed away from the user to pick up soil, etc.
And a wooden spoon, that is awarded to somebody who's trying to have a lend of me.
Actually...it's a spade that's short handled....a shovel is the long one....
....but I digress....
The one thing that can change things is when business people can show that their business is being interfered with and begin to make formal complaints to their congressmen.
I'd really encourage you to do so...particularly if you can have some techies show some correlations for laymen.
Nope, a square mouth shovel has a short handle.... then there's the long handled shovel with a triangular head. A square nosed spade [no elevated sides like a shovel] has a long handle. Yup, I busted my gut using all of them when I was younger.
Also used one or two hoes as well.
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