Google Project Maven

U.S. Tech Giants Are Too Big, Too Powerful and Now Are Running Into Serious Trouble

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Within Google, knowledge about Dragonfly has been restricted to just a few hundred members of the internet giant’s 88,000-strong workforce, said a source with knowledge of the project. The source spoke to The Intercept on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to contact the media. The source said that they had moral and ethical concerns about Google’s role in the censorship, which is being planned by a handful of top executives and managers at the company with no public scrutiny.

“I’m against large companies and governments collaborating in the oppression of their people, and feel like transparency around what’s being done is in the public interest,” the source said, adding that they feared “what is done in China will become a template for many other nations.”

From The Intercept article: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal

Today’s post will explain why I think the U.S. tech giants are in the early stages of destroying themselves. It will focus on two of the biggest names in the space, Facebook and Google. Both face serious issues that are only now truly coming to a head and rooted in two primary factors, size and politics.

Facebook is further along in the process of being in serious trouble, so let’s start there. The social media company currently has 2.2 billion active users worldwide, which amounts to well over half of all human beings online at the moment (estimated at 3-4 billion). In other words, the company already has a tremendous share of global potential users. Since everybody already knows what Facebook is, you have to assume those who aren’t using it (like me), aren’t using it for a reason. Thus, you have to ask whether or not meaningful growth in active users is remotely realistic for Facebook. I would argue not.

There are many reasons to bet against Facebook significantly growing active users in the years ahead, but the main hurdle seems to be keeping the users it already has actively engaged. Specifically, I think there are two types of users Facebook risks losing going forward. These people might not “delete Facebook” per se, but their engagement with the platform may drop meaningfully.

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Preach Less, Live Your Values More

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The employees who are resigning in protest, several of whom discussed their decision to leave with Gizmodo, say that executives have become less transparent with their workforce about controversial business decisions and seem less interested in listening to workers’ objections than they once did. In the case of Maven, Google is helping the Defense Department implement machine learning to classify images gathered by drones. But some employees believe humans, not algorithms, should be responsible for this sensitive and potentially lethal work—and that Google shouldn’t be involved in military work at all.

Historically, Google has promoted an open culture that encourages employees to challenge and debate product decisions. But some employees feel that their leadership no longer as attentive to their concerns, leaving them to face the fallout. “Over the last couple of months, I’ve been less and less impressed with the response and the way people’s concerns are being treated and listened to,” one employee who resigned said.

– Gizmodo: Google Employees Resign in Protest Against Pentagon Contract

Today’s post will revisit a theme I spent considerable time and energy on last year. Namely, the tendency of human beings to focus on words versus deeds.

In case you haven’t noticed, very few people on social media are out there talking about how much they love exploitation, or admit that they’d unflinchingly put aside all ethical considerations in the pursuit of money and power. In contrast, everyone’s ranting and raving about how great they are, how right about everything their political tribe is, and how morally superior they are to the evil and corrupt “other side.” The problem is someone has to be wrong in a world where everyone’s convinced they’re right.

Much of the political conversation out there, if we can call it that, revolves around demonizing the other side. Diehard Trump supporters show very little inclination for introspection, nor does the rabid anti-Trump crowd. In such an environment, people spend very little time actually discussing the big, existential issues of the day in a rational manner. Instead, we’re reduced to incessant tribal bickering which more closely resembles sports team fanaticism than productive debate.

While I can accept some degree of this behavior as unavoidable during an actual campaign, it never really ends. We basically exist in a twisted political world that functions like a never-ending campaign. Democrats will harshly admonish anyone who dares criticize and challenge awful Democratic incumbents because it might “help Trump.” Meanwhile, many Trump supporters claiming to be against pointless imperial wars explain away his hiring of interventionist creeps like Pompeo or Bolton as intricate moves in some imaginary game of “5D-chess.” It’s all just counterproductive noise that incessantly emanates from all corners of our infantile political environment.

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