For some reason, when a human being is confused about something, they typically respond by getting frustrated. Forgive my lack of understanding of the intricacies that make up the human condition, but I find this incredibly interesting. Rather than remaining calm and trying to assess the situation, the majority of individuals who struggle to understand a concept or an idea will be angered by this. If you really think about it, this makes perfect sense. We inherently fear what we don’t know. We fear change, any semblance of breaking off from our daily routines, and any new idea that seeks to challenge what we historically know to be true. I can only imagine the confusion taking place on Capitol Hill right now as the House Judiciary Committee questions Google’s (GOOGL) chief executive Sundar Pichai on issues related to data privacy.
According to a survey conducted on the demographics of the 114th Congress (those currently serving our country), “the average age of Members of the House (of Representatives) at the beginning of the 114th Congress was 61 years.” That survey was taken roughly two years ago, meaning that the majority of our legislative branch is not, what experts refer to as, “digital natives.” In laymen’s terms, a “digital native” is anyone born during the advent of digital technology, therefore made privy to understanding the function of said devices.
After an axiomatically difficult year for the tech industry, with consumers and lawmakers increasingly becoming hypercritical of whether tech companies are doing their part to protect user data, Congress decided it was time to ascertain some answers and naturally chose to “google” their questions via grilling of the search engine’s chief executive officer. According to sources present at the hearing, committee members asked Pichai an assortment of questions covering a wide array of issue areas, including potential left-leaning biases on its platforms, company plans for a censored search engine in China, and its recent data breaches. Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader began the q & a session with Google’s (GOOGL) chief executive with a question, “are America’s technology companies serving as instruments of freedom or instruments of control? Because a free world depends on a free internet, we need to know that Google is on the side of the free world.”
On Monday, Google (GOOGL) announced plans to shut down its social media platform, Google+, sooner than originally scheduled because of a massive data breach, resulting in the potential infiltration into 52.1 million user profiles.
“Our investigation into the impact of the bug is ongoing, but here is what we have learned so far…We have confirmed that the bug impacted approximately 52.5 million users in connection with a Google + API. With respect to this API, apps that requested permission to view profile information that a user added to their Google + profile — like their name, email address, occupation, age — were granted permission to view profile information about that user even when set to not-public.”
–Google Official Announcement Concerning Google + Data Breach
Given the untimely nature of this breach, one would assume the House Judiciary Committee would have a myriad of questions relating to the recent headline, but the committee members expressed satisfaction with Google’s (GOOGL) response. Rather, the committee members, specifically those affiliated with the Democratic Party, focused their concerns on Google’s plan for the censored search app in China. Pichai quickly responded, saying that “right now, we have no plans to launch search in China.”
The growing distrust in Google (GOOGL), and the tech industry as a whole emanates largely from the Republican Party for reasons unbeknownst to me. If I were to suggest a reasoning for their collective doubts, I would say that typically the creative individuals responsible for a majority of silicon valley’s most successful tech companies are, for all intents and purposes, fairly liberal. The Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Representative Robert W. Goodlatte, echoed this sentiment in his statement on Tuesday:
“This committee is very interested in what justifies filtering. Given the revelation that top executives at Google have discussed how the results of the 2016 elections do not comply with Google’s values, these questions have become all the more important.”
–Representative Robert W. Goodlatte (R-VA)
From what I understand, Google (GOOGL), as a search engine, is wholly unbiased. For transparency sake, when writing content, I admit to using Google (GOOGL) to find relevant articles and research. I wouldn’t go as for as to say that the results populated from my searches are inherently biased towards any one perspective, but it really depends on what you’re looking for. If someone searches with terms like “alt-right fan club meetings in the NYC metropolitan area,” it is Google’s (GOOGL) responsibility to return searches that reflect those terms. As unsavory and bigoted as this individual may be, they have the right to freely access information on whatever they choose.
