Comment by Dojan@lemmy.world on Google won’t comment on a potentially massive leak of its search algorithm documentation

A purported leak of 2,500 pages of internal documentation from Google sheds light on how Search, the most powerful arbiter of the internet, operates.

The leaked documents touch on topics like what kind of data Google collects and uses, which sites Google elevates for sensitive topics like elections, how Google handles small websites, and more. Some information in the documents appears to be in conflict with public statements by Google representatives, according to Fishkin and King.

It’s honestly quite strange that this sort of black box system is allowed to exist. How are governments around the world OK with a vast majority of the internet being filtered through a private company’s lens without any sort of insight into how it works? That sounds skeevy as shit.

Better than those governments having control. Ideal scenario is everything is decentralized

Why is that better? It may not be ideal but governments have at least some accountability.

Because that paves a very easy path to corruption . No freaking way do i wanna live in a country where the government has absolute control over all information spread.

Don’t get me wrong, fuck Google, but government control of the Internet just sounds worse

What makes governments any more susceptible to corruption than a private organization?

I’m not actually talking about governments having absolute control. That’s a pretty extreme scenario to jump to from from the question of if it’s better for a private company or a government to control search.

Right now we think Google is misusing that data. We can’t even get information on it without a leak. The government has a flawed FOIA system but Google has nothing of the sort. The only way we’re protected from corruption at Google (and historically speaking several other large private organization) is when the government steps in and stops them.

Governments often handle corruption poorly but I can rattle of many cases where governments managed to reduce corruption on their own (ie without requiring a revolution). In many cases the source of that corruption was large private organizations.

You make some good points. But consider this. This data was publicly leaked by hackers. These hackers, if we go by precedent, will probably get away Scott free. sure it was very difficult to find this data, but not impossible. On the other hand a government if faced with a breach like this, would probably find the hackers and detain them as threats to national security, as we’ve seen with Edward Snowden.

Though our system isn’t perfect, i think that having a corrupt Google is better than a corrupt government in this case. As you said, Google can be corrupt, but the government can step in and take over, whereas, if a government decides that it’s access to citizens data is important enough, they can continue with corruption with less resistance. I mean, who guards the guards right?

FOIA requests generally don’t involve hackers or leaks. The act exists because citizens insisted that government provides visibility into its inner workings.

What is the equivalent for Google, or any other private company?

Did you notice the US President from 16 to 20?

Even after felony convictions, there is no accountability or consequences.

Have you seen the US Supreme Court?

Don’t tell me a government has any accountability when minds are twisted by misinformation engines like Fox & Friends.

Not that a company is any better, yet alone google.

It’s hard to draw meaningful conclusions form a single 4 year period. There have been several instances of corruption (and significant externalized costs) in private firms that went on for much longer than 4 years.

I agree that there is a lot of corruption in government but there’s a long gap between that and no accountability. We see various forms of government accountability on a regular basis; politicians lose elections, they get recalled, and they sometimes even get incarcerated. We also have multiple systems designed to allow any citizen to influence government.

None of these systems and safeguards are anywhere close to perfect but it must be better than organizations that don’t even have these systems in the first place.

I agree decentralized is better, but isn’t that an argument in favor of a government having more control than a corporation?

No? What I said was “better than governments have control” how is that pro government?

you said “ideal scenario is everything is decentralized”

would it be right to assume “more decentralization is better”?

if so, then which is more decentralized: a corporation or a government

yes, what you said was paradoxical, which is why i was saying “it’s actually in favor of government”

Ahh, I suppose I could see that

No it’s not better.

Do you have any sort of argument for that or is it just thoughts different, different thoughts bad?

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Google won’t comment on a potentially massive leak of its search algorithm documentation(www.theverge.com)

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