This is one of the most important "event" in the present online arena and there is a lot to learn from it.
(source- the street)
As you might know, Google has already fired the employee James Damore who wrote the internal memo which was leaked. It was the obvious consequence and the engineer was probably ready for it. Google has been on the extreme left since the start of this year because being open to both the sides was really affecting its profits.
It all started since the Wall Street Journal author Jack Nicas wrote an article about the YouTube's algorithm that ran ads of big brands alongside objectionable videos. It had a snowball effect and big brands like coke, amazon and Microsoft pulled off their ads from YouTube. See, capitalism is very direct and leaves no room for mistakes. Most of the online american population is liberal. conservatives have never been much interested in online community because of the structure of conservatism which forces them to get a real job and spend more time with people. Extremism is the root cause of any destruction and I'll explain it further.
While online population is mostly liberal, and the ads of "amazon" and "Microsoft" are directed towards liberals too, running ads with controversial videos affects the goodwill of the companies. When these giants pull off their advertisements from the YouTube, google earns less money and no business wants this. Google was essentially forced into Left.
Since that time, YouTube has "demonetized" most of the videos and channels which had controversial content like anti-feminism, trump supporters, trolling, pranks, etc. At first, it might seem like a good thing because it clears the antisocial content from online community. On thinking more, we realize that the feminist content which included verbal abuse and explicit words doesn't get demonetized. Even the channels bashing trump supporters weren't demonetized. So there is a partiality and it is not subtle. You can go on YouTube and see for yourself.
What happened next was not expected, most of the "controversial" channels didn't shut down their account, they used patreon account to earn money. others included independent advertisements from small businesses in their videos and earned money.
Fast forward to now, google is still on the extreme left trying to retain the traffic and this memo gets leaked. Here are some of the highlights of the memo(source - http://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320)-
- Google has several biases and honest discussion about these biases is being silenced by the dominant ideology.
- At Google, we talk so much about unconscious bias as it applies to race and gender, but we rarely discuss our moral biases. Political orientation is actually a result of deep moral preferences and thus biases. Considering that the overwhelming majority of the social sciences, media, and Google lean left, we should critically examine these prejudices.
- Then he wrote a great deal about the gender bias that has been popularized within google and how it is not correct.
- Philosophically, I don’t think we should do arbitrary social engineering of tech just to make it appealing to equal portions of both men and women. For each of these changes, we need principles reasons for why it helps Google; that is, we should be optimizing for Google—with Google’s diversity being a component of that. For example currently those trying to work extra hours or take extra stress will inevitably get ahead and if we try to change that too much, it may have disastrous consequences. Also, when considering the costs and benefits, we should keep in mind that Google’s funding is finite so its allocation is more zero-sum than is generally acknowledged.
- As soon as we start to moralize an issue, we stop thinking about it in terms of costs and benefits, dismiss anyone that disagrees as immoral, and harshly punish those we see as villains to protect the “victims.”
Article was very direct and was not extremely right or left. It was very objective. but still the person got silenced(fired) because it contradicted the "group think". Google is too big to fail right now and the emotional and economic codes are forcing it to lean on the left. I am not saying that anything is wrong or right with what google is doing, any other company would have done the same. the question is, how far are we willing to go in order to support the left?