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Google chief denies political bias claims
BBC News ^ | 11th December 2018 | BBC News

Posted on 12/11/2018 9:27:14 AM PST by Ennis85

Google chief Sundar Pichai has faced accusations of political bias from US politicians.

Mr Pichai was being quizzed by members of the House Judiciary Committee about the way his tech firm runs it business.

Google was accused of having "programmed" bias against conservative views into its algorithms.

Mr Pichai denied the accusation saying he had "issues" with studies that claimed to show the firm's search results excluded right-wing views.

Privacy protection

Republican committee member Lamar Smith said conservative voices were being "muted" via Google's search results.

"Such actions pose a grave threat to our democratic form of government," he said.

"This does not happen by accident, it is baked in to the algorithms."

Mr Pichai said independent studies had not uncovered any bias and added that his business was "transparent" about the way its search results were generated.

"We evaluate our studies and our research results," said Mr Pichai.

"We have a wide variety of sources, from both left and right."

He added that it was "impossible" for any individual or group of individuals to manipulate its algorithms.

In response to a further question about perceived bias, he said: "I'm confident we don't approach our work with any political bias."

He added: "It's important that we look at outcomes and assess that there's no evidence of bias."

Future search

Mr Pichai was also asked about the work Google was doing in China on the controversial "dragonfly" project.

This is believed to be a search engine drawn up under the oversight of the Chinese government that would censor topics at the behest of the regime.

Representative Sheila Jackson Lee suggested the work could "censor a Chinese person's lifeline to democracy".

She asked: "How can you do that?"

In response, Mr Pichai said: "Right now we have no plans to launch in China.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: bias; corporateamerica; denial; google; leftism; liberalfascism; political; sundarpichai
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1 posted on 12/11/2018 9:27:14 AM PST by Ennis85
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To: Ennis85

No! We aren’t ‘biased’ against evil, filthy, rotten, scumbag Republicans!

Whatever gave you THAT idea?.....................


2 posted on 12/11/2018 9:29:56 AM PST by Red Badger (We are headed for a Civil War. It won't be nice like the last one....................)
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To: Ennis85

He has “issues” with the studies?

aaawwwwwww.. Po’ baby.

What a bunch of dweebs the heads of social(ist) meddia sites are... we’re just a bunch of bovine, ripe for the milking


3 posted on 12/11/2018 9:34:58 AM PST by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi - Monthly Donors Rock!!!)
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To: Ennis85

YouTube’s removing commercial revenues from numerous conservative presenters AND putting others behind artificial barriers for ‘offensive content’ leads me to doubt these words by Alphabet/Google leadership.


4 posted on 12/11/2018 9:36:02 AM PST by SES1066 (Happiness is a depressed Washington, DC housing market!)
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To: Ennis85

Nobody’s asked him about YouTube and their demonitization policies and outright account bannings against conservatives?


5 posted on 12/11/2018 9:36:13 AM PST by Yo-Yo (Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: Ennis85

Major freakin’ lie, as usual.


6 posted on 12/11/2018 9:39:38 AM PST by EagleUSA
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To: Ennis85

An obvious lie.


7 posted on 12/11/2018 9:40:07 AM PST by I want the USA back (There are two sexes: male (pronoun HE), and female (pronoun SHE). Denial of this is insanity.)
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To: Ennis85
Well, Mr. Pikachu or whatever, we have "issues" with your statement of "no bias"....
8 posted on 12/11/2018 9:40:18 AM PST by jeffc (The U.S. media are our enemy)
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To: Ennis85

GOOGLE deliberately provides politically biased replies to search queries. Run few searches and you can see the biases in the replies.


9 posted on 12/11/2018 9:45:07 AM PST by Rapscallion (Iran's leaders are as crazy as bedbugs.)
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To: Ennis85

“No we don’t have politcal bias!
No no no no no no no no.....” he explained.


10 posted on 12/11/2018 9:47:04 AM PST by Mr. K (No consequence of repealing Obamacare is worse than Obamacare itself.)
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To: Ennis85

Baghdad Bob?


11 posted on 12/11/2018 9:49:26 AM PST by bankwalker (Immigration without assimilation is an invasion.)
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To: Ennis85

Google “American Inventors”
Nuff said.


12 posted on 12/11/2018 9:53:00 AM PST by calljack (Sometimes your worst nightmare is just a start.)
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To: Ennis85
He added that it was "impossible" for any individual or group of individuals to manipulate its algorithms.

What? It isn't even difficult, and it's a cottage industry unto itself. Has Pichai never heard of search engine optimization? Search engine poisoning? Or did he mean that the algorithms themselves are immutable and written in stone? That simply isn't an answer any IT professional would give, not if he expected his testimony to be credible.

13 posted on 12/11/2018 10:01:38 AM PST by Billthedrill
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To: Ennis85

Sundar Pichai,
LIAR,


14 posted on 12/11/2018 10:07:44 AM PST by Joe Boucher ( Molon Labe' baby, Molon Labe)
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To: Billthedrill

“He added that it was ‘impossible’ for any individual or group of individuals to manipulate its algorithms.”

foreach(searchResult) {
if searchResult.politicalCorrectness() <= HATE_SPEECH_THRESHOLD {
searchResult.delete();
}
searchResult.sortOrder = 1 / searchResult.politicalCorrectness();
}


15 posted on 12/11/2018 10:20:12 AM PST by rightwingcrazy
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To: Ennis85

You have to understand that for these people, being pro-democrat is not biased. To them, it is the norm, and anyone not agreeing with them is stupid, racist and low-life.


16 posted on 12/11/2018 10:21:09 AM PST by oldbill
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To: Ennis85

All they needed to do to catch him lying was play the post election video of him and all the top level Google management telling their employees that Trump should never have happened and they will prevent it in the future. Then let the smug moron claim he did not say those things with his top management. Imagine being an employee that voted for Trump, what a hostile work environment.


17 posted on 12/11/2018 10:26:35 AM PST by Gen-X-Dad
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To: Ennis85

LOL! Bullshit.


18 posted on 12/11/2018 10:32:40 AM PST by FLT-bird
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To: bankwalker

More like Saheed Al-Pichai.


19 posted on 12/11/2018 11:03:44 AM PST by setha (Reductio Ad Vexationes (Harassment Fallacy) - a staple of the left.)
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To: calljack

” Google “American Inventors”
Nuffsaid. “

Yeah, ‘ seen that, uneffnbelieveable !


20 posted on 12/11/2018 12:04:16 PM PST by A strike (Import Third World become Third World)
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