I’ve Worked at Google for Decades. I’m Sickened by What It’s Doing.
(www.thenation.com)
from Tea@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world on 16 Apr 20:27
https://programming.dev/post/28731344
from Tea@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world on 16 Apr 20:27
https://programming.dev/post/28731344
For the first time, I feel driven to speak publicly, because our company is now powering state violence across the globe.
threaded - newest
Aaaaand she’s fired.
Or worse, “accidentally” fell out of the window. Crazy times.
She works at Google, not Yandex.
Though I’m sure Google could manage something equally mysterious.
Like ship her to El Salvador
For a sabbatical, right?
Is that what is happening here?
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/4e868bcd-6b1f-425f-93ac-9207f71946bb.jpeg">
Gods below
What’s the source of this photo? I saw a different comment mention bodies and a satellite photo, is this what they were referring to?
It’s a Google satellite. That’s what you see on theirs. If you use Apple Maps satellite view, it looks so clean.
Literally on Google Maps right now. It’s called Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo.
It’s America’s concentration camp for undesirables.
For anyone who actually cares enough to look this up for themselves,
13°32’1" N 88°48’18" W
Or,
13.53361°N 88.80500° W
Maps is clean but Google Earth has a historical view. The OTHERWISE UNATTRIBUTED PICTURE (therefore invalid as a source) is from March 2024.
Fuck you guys, learn to read and research, fuck!
Yeah good thing she’s not a Boeing engineer
Now that they have their own Putin, why not?
After 20y of equity I think she’ll be fine (financially).
Project Nimbus: wired.com/…/amazon-google-project-nimbus-israel-i…
.
“Dont be evil” was never a promise it always had been a warning to the users.
An AI arms embargo sounds great.
How the fuck are you going to implement an arms embargo on software that is literally designed and developed and run on the cloud?
How do you literally develop from a cloud? Are jetpacks involved?
Well. I can guarantee you those Chromebooks they make devs use are not doing the processing locally.
Can’t be many of us who thought the web search engine company would turn into the killbot company.
Yup, but around the time they came out with Google Desktop I started to wonder what the future held.
I got a little suspicious when they stopped using “Don’t be evil”.
At least they didn’t keep up the farce and exaggerate it: “Don’t be evil. Ever. We’re still not evil. Nuh uh, nope.”
How about yall start to be the change you want to see in the world and go to gaza and do something
<img alt="Animated GIF from Pink Floyd’s The Wall showing people walking into a meat grinder" src="https://discuss.tchncs.de/pictrs/image/b322156d-f0cd-4087-bf4c-f3126d5209fe.gif">
I don’t think providing more meat for the grinder will suddenly make anyone change their minds on the subject.
If they (the rich) dont grind your meat, they can’t have any pudding. How can they have any pudding if they don’t grind your meat?
Fighting on the inrernet has a negligible impact. The alternative is going to gaza.
Don’t you think they could do more good in the USA, since they’re the ones paying for it?
That idea go any further on the something other than “get shot and dragged into a van”?
Vandalising public spaces in your country will probably have about the same outcome
IBM : Nazi Party :: Google : IDF
techwontsave.us/…/235_no_tech_for_apartheid_w_moh…
The author should have quit long ago. Many employees are complicit.
all* employees
They get paid 500k a year.
Yeah, I get paid 1/10th of that and I could do a lot better - and I used to - but I work for a nonprofit I care about. Greed is a hell of a drug.
It’s not the same google.
always has been
Project Maven started in 2017. Stop making evil people famous and expecting something will change.
Google/Alphabet’s previous CEO and Chairman Eric Schmidt was best friends with Henry Kissinger.
Absolute monsters, they need to be culled, removed from power and influence.
If you still use Chrome uninstall it now
Ive been using Vivaldi for over 3 years and never been happier plus I don’t have any google account and degoogled my devices.
Vivaldi is closed-source, and it still uses Google’s engine. Good for you for moving away from Google, but you have much better options available to you: FireDragon, Zen, and the rest of the Mozilla browsers.
For me? It’s Qwant and <INSERT FIREFOX FORK>.
Do they feel heartbreak over the millions of dollars in compensation and stock options they’ve collected in those decades? Easy to write piece like this and go back to your comfortable lifestyle and just feel the fuzzy feeling of speaking out about a bad guy.
I’m still glad they wrote the piece.
Nothing is enough for guys that comment on the internet. Maybe they should post comments on lemmy. That’ll show the world.
She is still working there. Yeah, sure, maybe she is taking a risk now that her name is out there publicly criticizing, but this article is just for her to feel good about herself. “But look guys, I think Google sucks too, I am not bad like them. I just help them accomplish their goals and get paid for it 🙃”
She could have said nothing and kept quiet like the thousands of other workers at Google, this could not only get her fired but maybe even blacklisted in the industry, that’s far more than you’ve ever done or will ever do to bring attention to this issue, so how about you keep that cynicism in check.
100% will get her fired. 100%. Not now as it’s too connectable to the post she made, but in 6 months, they’ll find a reason to can her that can’t be traced to this.
I recall reading about one senior on the search team who had worked there for over a decade criticizing the changes G keeps making to favor their own interests (ads mostly) saying it degrades search results (he was right too as G has fallen to the same levels of DDG/Bing and Yahoo).
He got shuffled into a dead roll over the course of a year so he could no longer deter the project.
Now that’s a guy who didn’t want to build a bad product. What happens to people who take political stances that could hurt G’s revenue and stock prices? Yeah. She’s toast.
Well she’s been working their since 2005. So she doesn’t need the job. Or money. Or anything. She’s just there.
Maybe you’re the one who should keep the cynicism in check if you think people who have everything they could ever have wanted and have benefited on the evil deeds of their employer to the tune of millions and millions of dollars wouldn’t speak out.
Ohh nooo. Poor her with all the stock options she got while working there from basically their startup days. Whatever this poor damsel will do with 20+ years of experience working in one of the biggest tech companies in the world.
I might not have the platform to bring attention to this issue, but hey, at least I don’t actively help them, do their work and then reap the benefits of all the evil they do anyways.
Unlike her, my issues with Google does not end with the Israel issue. Google is evil regardless of this single issue.
If all the people who disagreed left, there would be no chance of opposition
You can’t change things from the inside. A level 3 software developer isn’t changing what google is doing.
She has more power if she’s been there 20 years, but probably not much.
That may be true, but you know who has less influence than a level 3 software developer working at Google? Someone who doesn’t work at Google :)
No that’s too general a claim
The opposition comes from us, the consumers who refuse to use Google products.
I just pulled the levers in the gas chambers! I’m not a bad guy!!!
As if working at Google is remotely close to directly participating in the fucking Holocaust.
Yes you’re right. One overtly murders people in gruesome fashion. The other, does it insidiously by destroying the social fabric of communities so mass corporations can swoop in and own everything, forcing you into a further existence of consumption or death. Enjoy working 16h a day under your corporate overlords.
I understand your point, but that was insensitive
Googlecide?
For some reason I don’t find her sudden change of heart convincing. & I am happy to know that the rest of you feel the same.
Google is evil
I remember getting a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach when Google removed “Don’t be evil” from their Code of Conduct
Why else would you need to remove that phrase unless you wanted to do something bad?
When you start hiring less intelligent people who can’t help but actually believe the propaganda.
I degoogled for the first time two days ago aaaaand, it’s actually way easier than I expected and actually, dare I say… fun?
Fun in that I have new apps to try, all over the place. I spent that whole evening combing f-droid for everything I need and got it all sorted out.
SMS? Backed up
Contacts? Backed up
Photos? Syncthing’d
Passwords? I’m a card carrying Keepass user.
Music? Pulled down my streaming service from Aurora and it just works.
Email? Thunderbird’d’d
Cloud? Mini PC’d and NFS’d
Google? Gone and not missed.
Thunderbird is only a mail client. Don’t forget to actually move from gmail if you want to degoogle.
I got that disroot joint, homie. My googs is only temporary while I slowly migrate the sites I have it registered to.
So the author was fine with every other fucked up, privacy invading, monopolistic practice from Google, but it was a tenuous relationship with Israel that they can’t forgive?
Listen pal, I was fine with invading Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark and the Netherlands, but I draw the line at France!
As much I care about privacy and free market, I still consider war or genocide to be worse. Call me crazy 🤷♂️
i mean monopolistic and privacy invading versus associating with something that is slaughtering women and children in their own land, it’s not the same in my opinion.