An Analysis of Google's "don't be evil" slogan

The phrase “don’t be evil” has been a part of Google’s motto since its creation. It is meant to convey the moral guidelines for which Google, and its employees, should follow. In the book, How Google Work’s, the phrase is further explained as meaning that:

"…it genuinely expresses a company value and aspiration that is deeply felt by employees. But “Don’t be evil” is mainly another way to empower employees… Googlers do regularly check their moral compass when making decisions"

To me “don’t be evil” sounds a lot like “do no harm,” which is associated with the physicians Hippocratic oath, and I would argue that is why Google phrased it the way they did. Already we have a problem. Because by using this phraseology, and slight of linguistics, Google is trying to associate the trust that it has with its users with that of a doctor and patient. Already Google is brushing up into that grey zone which divides good from evil. Google’s motto has a further complication which arises from its loosely defined motto. In, “do no harm” doctors are forbidden from causing physical and mental harm, and there is very little argument over what constitutes harm. However, the definition of ‘evil’ is very subjective; after all, one person’s terrorist is another’s a freedom fighter. Despite what Google may say, their motto is a flexible one and its interpretation open to situational and preferential change.

As the story goes, the motto “don’t be evil” comes from some meeting that Google had in its early days when one engineer stood up, banged his hand on the table and declared that one action or another that Google was planning to take was, “evil.” Since then it has been a part of Google’s code of conduct[1]. Well, okay then it should be a no brainer that one should avoid performing an act of evil, but what does Google mean by evil? According to Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO and current CEO of its parent company Alphabet have said that:

"Evil," says Google CEO Eric Schmidt, "is what Sergey says is evil."[2]

He is referring to Brin Sergey, Google’s former head policymaker and Alphabet’s current President. Sergey has determined that this means that Google must “do good by its users.” So Google will avoid being evil by being good. Okay, well again a no brainer, but what does Google consider to be good then? Well, I think we can gain some insight into this by looking at Google’s politics. Google is a proud progressive company and is attached to the Democratic party at the hip. All of the Google executives are heavy Democrat donors, Eric Schmidt was a huge hilldog fan in the 2016 election, and Google practically had a satellite office in the White House during the Obama administration. Heck, when the Obamacare website ended up a total disaster, it was a former Google engineer which fixed it. Google aligns itself with the Democrat party because the leadership of both parties is old hippies and die-hard progressives. So to understand what Google might mean by “evil” and “good” we have to define what progressivism is.

The hallmark of progressivism is that they stick up for the little guy. The little guy is the poor, the downtrodden, racial and gender minorities which have been for eon abused by society. For decades, and longer, the progressives have bemoaned the suffering of these unfortunate socially outcast groups. They lament the unfairness, the cruelty and the uncarrying attitude of society to the suffering and declare that they (if elected) will set things right and even things out. By garnering political power, the progressive seeks to even out the scale and make things fair thus making society just. All of this is a noble goal. Who can be against fairness?

Using our definition of progressivism as a guide, we can determine that what Google means by “do no evil” they mean “not hurting the little guy.” Which, quite frankly, isn’t a bad motto to have. It is (unironically) a noble goal to use one’s power to protect those who don’t have any; the strong should protect the weak. However, I’m afraid, and we run into yet another problem. If you profess to “not be evil” abstinence from the act is not enough. If you witness evil, or what you perceive to be evil, then you must act against it for as St. Aquinas once said, “…if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust.” In other words, if you do not commit evil, but allow the evil of others to be committed then you are committing evil by proxy; there is no being a Switzerland in the conflict against evil. Thus, if Google allows evil as defined by their progressive ideology to be committed by its users, it is the same as if they were committing the evil themselves.

But, I think we can take this logic one step further. If we assume that inaction against evil is the same as assisting evil then to not commit evil by proxy one must take an active role against evil; therefore, any action, including being proactive, as long as it is against evil, is justified; in other words, the ends justify the means. Further, any proactive measure not only as a defense for the little guy but oneself, for as Martin Niemoller said:

“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists but I was not one of them, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews but I was not Jewish, so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Niemoeller is talking about the Nazis of course, and you could argue that if proactive measures had been taken the rise of the Nazis, then the Holocaust and World War II could have been prevented. So, any proactive measure not taken against evil is in of itself evil, and potentially you could be, by proxy, assisting in the rebirth of the Nazi party, which could, possibly, as suggested in the quote above, come after you and throw you into a concentration camp. But, it wouldn’t matter because then you would, by virtue of you not proactively having prevented their rise, be a Nazi. So, good!? Cause don’t Nazis deserve to be put into concentration camps? Anyways, by the law of proactively stopping evil, you are required if you ever, in the hypothetical situation, come into possession of a time travel device you are required to travel back in time and kill Hitler. Just shoot him, kill him right in the crib if you have to, the time-space continuum is damned. Because if you don’t, then you are a Nazi, you’re Adolf Hitler. However, its silly to think that time travel exists, but if the modern-day equivalent of Hitler rose up and he just happened to be a toupe wearing real estate tycoon from New York City, you’d be obligated to use all the power at your disposal to stop him now wouldn’t you? Otherwise, you’d be assisting in the rebirth of the Nazi party in America, you evil racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic and islamophobic nazi.

It seems that the modern-day progressive movement, and Google, as several leaks [3] to the Daily Caller shows, are none too happy about the election of Donald Trump. In a leaked recording of a company-wide staff meeting, the top Google executives expressed their disbelief at Trump’s 2016 Presidential victory. They discussed how they would use their great power to continue to push forward important values and how they would combat fake news using A.I. However, we should not be surprised because Google is simply following their ethical code and moral system; Google is simply consistent. Their consistency continues as several other leaks have shown several Google employees discussed how to censor[4] media which could be considered sympathetic to the Trump administration. Google has even made it, so a picture of Donald Trump turns up when the word “stupid” is run through their image search.

Upon Donald Trump has been heaped upon all the perceived evils of the progressive movement, capitalism, whiteness, and masculinity, but the sublime irony of Google’s simple three-word motto of “don’t be evil” is that Google has permission itself to act as a white knight, very masculine imagery. Does Google fancy itself like Sir Lancelot? Off to save the kingdom and rescue the beautiful princess from the clutches of evil? Google, through its social white knighting, is combating masculinity with its masculinity which is akin to attempting to cast out Satan with Satan.

There is a reason why the Hippocratic oath has “do not harm.” If your goal was to end all illness the easiest way to do that is to kill the patient. Doctor’s swear to “do no harm” because it is a simple, but easily definable phrase. However, Google’s “don’t be evil” is so subjective and twistable that you can quickly end up becoming the thing which you claim to fight.
Though Google may have already realized this contradiction because in 2015 after Google went public and became Alphabet, they dropped “don’t be evil” from its code of conduct. Which begs the question, “If Google was unwilling to be evil, is Alphabet?”

[1] https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/
[2] https://www.wired.com/2003/01/google-10/
[3] https://dailycaller.com/2018/09/13/google-trump-election-video-sergey-brin/
[4] https://dailycaller.com/2018/11/29/google-censorship-conservative-media/