Author: Silicon Valley Sleuthhound

Required reading:

The one U.S. tech company that’s partnered more than any other over the last 10 years with Vladimir Putin’s censorship machine is the one that adopted the early slogan “Don’t be evil” – Google and its YouTube unit.

Google has provided substantially more user data to the Russian government and censored far more content than Apple, Facebook, Microsoft or Twitter at the request of Kremlin departments.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last week, U.S. tech giants have stopped providing some services to Russians. Apple ceased product sales, Google cut Russians off from advertising revenues, and both removed Russian news outlet RT from their app stores, as did Microsoft.

Still, digital rights groups are calling on U.S. tech firms to go even further and stop censoring content in response to Kremlin requests, which has been a precondition for doing business in Russia. None of the biggest – Apple, Google, Facebook or Twitter – responded immediately to Forbes’ requests for comment.

It’s just good business … well, at least until geopolitical conditions change and it’s not so good anymore.

Just as Apple is really into China, Google seems to be really into Russia. Its YouTube platform is quite popular with Russians, and Google likes that. But, of course, operating in a market like Russia means having to do what the Kremlin says. And acceding to the demands of a dictator and warmonger like Vladimir Putin is evil and immoral.

So if Google doesn’t want to be evil, it’s going to have to change its position.

This is an unexpected, striking, and welcome development:

More than 80 fact checking organizations are calling on YouTube to address what they say is rampant misinformation on the platform.

In a letter to CEO Susan Wojcicki published Wednesday, the groups say the Google-owned video platform is “one of the major conduits of online disinformation and misinformation worldwide.” 

YouTube’s efforts to address the problem, they say, are proving insufficient.

“What we do not see is much effort by YouTube to implement policies that address the problem,” the letter says. “On the contrary, YouTube is allowing its platform to be weaponized by unscrupulous actors to manipulate and exploit others, and to organize and fundraise themselves.” 

Wow! Talk about speaking truth to power… this is a truly impressive collective action. Good on these fact checking groups! It’s not so easy to call a spade a spade when it belongs to one of the world’s largest and most profitable tech giants. But that is precisely what they’ve done.

And what a great characterization of the problem… “allowing its platform to be weaponized by unscrupulous actors.” That is, indeed, what is going on here, and it’s important that be recognized. YouTube’s algorithms are notorious for dragging users down conspiracy theory rabbit holes. If you watch one flat earth video, YouTube will recommend a bunch more to you. Because YouTube’s proprietors want you to spend all day — or at least as much of your day as you are willing to give up — consuming content. The more you stream, the better. And if you get exposed to disinformation along the way, well, that’s just a cost of doing business, isn’t it?

Just shameful:

Russian opposition activists said Google had taken down videos and documents they were using to organize a protest vote in this weekend’s elections, the latest sign of rising pressure from the Kremlin on American internet giants.

The actions by Google in response to government demands involved blocking access inside Russia to several YouTube and Google Docs links being used by allies of the imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny to coordinate protest voting in each of the country’s 225 electoral districts, said the activists, members of Mr. Navalny’s team. On Friday, Google and Apple removed the activist group’s protest-voting app after Russian officials threatened to prosecute the American companies’ employees inside the country.

Google did not immediately respond on Sunday to a request for comment.

Apple, of course, did it too.

It just goes to show that powerful Silicon Valley companies cannot be trusted to stand up for their users against authoritarian governments like those in Russia or China. They fold because the bottom line is more important than people’s rights and freedoms. And because they’re afraid of the power those regimes have over their operations beyond U.S. shores.

Protecting your privacy isn’t the only reason not to install Google Chrome:

Short story: Google Chrome installs something called Keystone on your computer, which nefariously hides itself from Activity Monitor[1] and makes your whole computer slow even when Chrome isn’t running. Deleting Chrome and Keystone makes your computer way, way faster, all the time. Click here for instructions.

Long story: I noticed my brand new 16″ MacBook Pro started acting sluggishly doing even trivial things like scrolling. Activity Monitor showed *nothing* from Google using the CPU, but WindowServer was taking ~80%, which is abnormally high (it should use <10% normally).

Big, big props to Loren Brichter for making this website and thoroughly documenting this issue. 

Loren is a former Apple employee who created Tweetie and Letterpress earlier this century. There is a Wikipedia entry with more information about him, written from somewhat of a fan perspective.