Scholar Says Google Criticism Cost Him Job: "People Are Waking up to Its Power"

Megalith

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Journalist Barry Lynn has been ousted from think tank New America after applauding the European Commission’s recent finding against Google for abuse of dominance: after authoring a post that supported the idea of the search giant being a monopoly, his entire Open Markets division was terminated. Being that New America has received more than $21 million from Google, it is obvious why Lynn was exiled – the search giant is now going after critics in academia and journalism.

…is Google a monopoly? Barry Lynn, until this week a senior fellow at Washington thinktank the New America Foundation, has spent years studying the growing power of tech giants like Google and Facebook. He believes the answer is yes. And that opinion, he argues, has cost him his job. This week Lynn and his team were ousted from New America after the New York Times published emails that suggested Google was unhappy with his research. The tech giant, along with executive chairman Eric Schmidt, have donated $21M to New America since 1999.
 
auntjemima said:
You cannot directly attack a company that financially supports you and then be surprised when you are fired. Seriously.
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Agreed. Don't bite the hand that feeds you. That includes journalists. Kyle is a good example. He does and says what he wants and if someone does not like it then whatever happens happens. He does not bitch and moan. I don't know if H gets paid by companies or not but if they do they do not become shills. If you want to have integrity then you man up and deal with the consequences.
 
DarthBeavis said:
Agreed. Don't bite the hand that feeds you. That includes journalists. Kyle is a good example. He does and says what he wants and if someone does not like it then whatever happens happens. He does not bitch and moan. I don't know if H gets paid by companies or not but if they do they do not become shills. If you want to have integrity then you man up and deal with the consequences.
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Of course, due to that, the journalists that have that integrity are highly regarded. I'll take Kyle's word when it comes to PC stuff. The guy isn't going to sugar coat something for a small kickback.

This guy talking about Google? With that kind of response, I think I'll take his word. Not that it matters much. I already using Bing. Me and 7 others.
 
Oh god, I cant believe I'm about to defend a corporate giant like Google... but here goes nothing.

Actually I started typing a ramble and then desired to do a little more research. Anne-Marie Slaughter (President and CEO of New America) fired Barry C. Lynn because she believed his writings would endanger New Americas chances of expanded funding from Google.

Google isn't even a part of this story except by association. No need to defend them in the first place.

In my brief research I found a quote of Anne-Marie's from 2012 stating, "We will pay a high price if we do not arm Syria's rebels." This was while she worked at the state department, doing 'thinking' for other people who maybe should have spent their time thinking for themselves.
 
Ur_Mom said:
Of course, due to that, the journalists that have that integrity are highly regarded. I'll take Kyle's word when it comes to PC stuff. The guy isn't going to sugar coat something for a small kickback.

This guy talking about Google? With that kind of response, I think I'll take his word. Not that it matters much. I already using Bing. Me and 7 others.
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I switched to DuckDuckGo. Especially at work because when I am searching for information about the chemicals used in the lab I am more interested in the properties of the chemical than I am the best place to purchase it online.
 
I finally got my dad using DuckDuckGo after the recent employee termination misadventure from Goolag.

That was a long row to hoe.

I kept telling him he wouldn't even notice the difference.
 
Tribalism has reached unfortunate levels. An organization can do something obviously wrong and unless there's a smoking gun of child molestation people will obfuscate and deny the problem. We've become a society where who you are is more important than the ideas you represent or what you did. People have different levels of seriousness when they say there's a coming civil war. I believe it. People have abandoned principle for alliances.
 
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auntjemima said:
You cannot directly attack a company that financially supports you and then be surprised when you are fired. Seriously.
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Which is why advertisements in media is so dangerous to truthfulness and integrity.

You gonna do that big report on pharma addictions when Pfizer is one of your most lucrative advertisers? Probably not. Gonna be critical of that new Camry Hybrid when Toyota does full page ads in your car review magazine? Maybe not be too critical.
 
jpm100 said:
Tribalism has reached unfortunate levels. An organization can do something obviously wrong and unless there's a smoking gun of child molestation people will obfuscate and deny the problem. We've become a society where who you are is more important than the ideas you represent or what you did. People have different levels of seriousness when they say there's a coming civil war. I believe it. People have abandoned principle for alliances.
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I'd say it's more that many people lack emotional fortitude. If anything assaults them ideologically, they are affected emotionally and then react as if they've been emotionally assaulted. This isn't simply people being thin-skinned, it's people becoming unable to separate their ideals from themselves. It's... disturbing.
 
jpm100 said:
Tribalism has reached unfortunate levels. An organization can do something obviously wrong and unless there's a smoking gun of child molestation people will obfuscate and deny the problem. We've become a society where who you are is more important than the ideas you represent or what you did. People have different levels of seriousness when they say there's a coming civil war. I believe it. People have abandoned principle for alliances.
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In some ways history repeats itself. I think the difference now is that with technology the way it is we're advancing into unknown territory.
 
jpm100 said:
Tribalism has reached unfortunate levels. An organization can do something obviously wrong and unless there's a smoking gun of child molestation people will obfuscate and deny the problem. We've become a society where who you are is more important than the ideas you represent or what you did. People have different levels of seriousness when they say there's a coming civil war. I believe it. People have abandoned principle for alliances.
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I think the populace is being fed a lot of competing propaganda, which leads to a lot of dysfunctional behavior and perception of the world. Most of it aligns with big money interests, whether it's on the right or left. There's no civil war coming, that requires a whole host off conditions that aren't present. Doesn't mean we can't be as dysfunctional as possible though.
 
auntjemima said:
You cannot directly attack a company that financially supports you and then be surprised when you are fired. Seriously.
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Surprised? Maybe not. But given how naive the academic community has been about google funded research, it is a valuable public service to broadcast that fact loudly.
 
Eric Schmidt has to be one of the creepiest guys I have ever seen. I mean, you can just picture him in a windowless van driving around, handing out candy to little kids.
 
All that intelligence in one place and no one thought leaving this guy alone was the better solution. Way to shine a light on something you were trying to hide. Now journalism is paying attention.
 
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Step 1 after being fired from a job, always blame someone else instead of your own.

Seriously, the entire "Open Markets" division was cut, now you could possibly say it's Google's fault, but to think Google would request an entire area to be cut, presumably many people lose their jobs for something this one man published.
 
well this is a kinda weird situation
are they evil? they are now, yes.
did he get fired for his opinion? probably so yes... as someone previous in this thread said, you talk smak about the place that funds you, what do you expect is going to happen?
is he right in what he said? nope. he is not... so uh... i guess you could say he got fired for being wrong just as much as he got fired for what he said.

They are not a monopoly. there is nothing stopping you me or anyone else from setting up a competitive service and goin up against them. Do not mistake this for being successful at it (or not, as the case may be). they are completely different. say what you want about them, but they are not a monopoly, there are other choices out there and no one is forcing you to use them.
 
Madoc said:
I'd say it's more that many people lack emotional fortitude. If anything assaults them ideologically, they are affected emotionally and then react as if they've been emotionally assaulted. This isn't simply people being thin-skinned, it's people becoming unable to separate their ideals from themselves. It's... disturbing.
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http://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

Looks like our brain may be wired to respond to any threat, even if it's an intellectual one, as if it was physical.

https://news.usc.edu/114481/which-brain-networks-respond-when-someone-sticks-to-a-belief/
 
TwistedAegis said:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

Looks like our brain may be wired to respond to any threat, even if it's an intellectual one, as if it was physical.

https://news.usc.edu/114481/which-brain-networks-respond-when-someone-sticks-to-a-belief/
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Men's brains are also wired to beat the crap out of someone who looks at his girlfriend the wrong way, but we refrain from doing so because of how we were raised. There are a lot of things our brains are wired to do that we do not do because of our upbringing. What I get from your post is that people aren't being socialized properly -- they aren't being taught how to properly behave in an open society.
 
harbingerofdoom said:
They are not a monopoly. there is nothing stopping you me or anyone else from setting up a competitive service and goin up against them. Do not mistake this for being successful at it (or not, as the case may be). they are completely different. say what you want about them, but they are not a monopoly, there are other choices out there and no one is forcing you to use them.
Click to expand...

Hell, you have people in this very thread saying they are jumping to alternatives like DuckDuckGo and Bing. HOWEVER, its still tricky because many of those alternatives generally suck compared to Google (DuckDuckGo is a stand out in this regard). Its similar to cable ISPs claiming competition exists because DSL and dial-up are still a thing. Yes, there is "competition", but not really.
 
Megalith said:
Journalist Barry Lynn has been ousted from think tank New America after applauding the European Commission’s recent finding against Google for abuse of dominance: after authoring a post that supported the idea of the search giant being a monopoly, his entire Open Markets division was terminated. Being that New America has received more than $21 million from Google, it is obvious why Lynn was exiled – the search giant is now going after critics in academia and journalism.

…is Google a monopoly? Barry Lynn, until this week a senior fellow at Washington thinktank the New America Foundation, has spent years studying the growing power of tech giants like Google and Facebook. He believes the answer is yes. And that opinion, he argues, has cost him his job. This week Lynn and his team were ousted from New America after the New York Times published emails that suggested Google was unhappy with his research. The tech giant, along with executive chairman Eric Schmidt, have donated $21M to New America since 1999.
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And it had nothing at all to do with a senior administrator in the organization, making a determination that "biting the hand that feeds you" is bad for the organization's future :facepalm:

Mr. Schmidt, who had been chairman of New America until 2016, communicated his displeasure with the statement to the group’s president, Anne-Marie Slaughter, according to the scholar.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/us/politics/eric-schmidt-google-new-america.html

"
We call upon U.S. enforcers, including the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, and states attorneys general, to build upon this important precedent, both in respect to Google and to other dominant platform monopolists including Amazon."
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https://www.newamerica.org/

It's one thing to report on an event, and as researchers, even go so far as to "applaud" a decision. But when you say that you "call upon enforcers ...." That isn't reporting, it's not conducting analysis, it's not think tanking, it's taking sides.
 
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Madoc said:
Men's brains are also wired to beat the crap out of someone who looks at his girlfriend the wrong way, but we refrain from doing so because of how we were raised. There are a lot of things our brains are wired to do that we do not do because of our upbringing. What I get from your post is that people aren't being socialized properly -- they aren't being taught how to properly behave in an open society.
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Good point as well. I mean, we are entering a period where ignorance is being celebrated...my opinion is better than your research and knowledge.

That's why I dislike "flip flopping" being a bad thing for politicians. Someone having the same exact ideas for 30 years is not a positive thing; changing your mind based on new knowledge and experience, is, well, how the fuck we were able to evolve.
 
King of Heroes said:
Hell, you have people in this very thread saying they are jumping to alternatives like DuckDuckGo and Bing. HOWEVER, its still tricky because many of those alternatives generally suck compared to Google (DuckDuckGo is a stand out in this regard). Its similar to cable ISPs claiming competition exists because DSL and dial-up are still a thing. Yes, there is "competition", but not really.
Click to expand...

For the last 18 years I have used a hotmail email account and whatever the Microsoft search engine was at the time. I have made it this far finding the information i need with little in the way of needing to move away. Many years ago it was a little harder, but i have had no issue in years. If anything with all the BS that google gives i have found it a tad harder at times to find things with Google is anything.
 
Madoc said:
I'd say it's more that many people lack emotional fortitude. If anything assaults them ideologically, they are affected emotionally and then react as if they've been emotionally assaulted. This isn't simply people being thin-skinned, it's people becoming unable to separate their ideals from themselves. It's... disturbing.
Click to expand...

Very disturbing I believe. We raise kids these days and so completely isolate them from anything that would cause a negative emotional response, and this is destroying their ability to cope with any type of failure or hardship. Just like over use of antibiotics and hand sanitizers is lowering people's natural resistance to diseases, sanitizing the emotional hardships from life will destroy our ability to cope with those problems as well.

It makes me wonder if many of the young people today could handle having a war destroy much of our cities? Think of the people who survived the Blitz in London in WW2, or the people surviving the bombed out cities in the middle east now in that conflict, could the young people of the U.S. survive emotionally if something like that happened here?
 
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