This YouTube video by Matt (a great catholic communicator) prompted me to write this post
Matt recently talked about his experience of being banned by Google’s office from giving a talk on the ill effects of pornography on it’s campus. He was invited to speak in the first place by a group among the employees themselves, but was later stopped from doing so by the company citing concerns raised by it’s employees regarding what he had said earlier. The exact reference is in the video linked above; but suffice to say that he said nothing wrong.
In this post I am thinking out loud on the whole episode in the wider context of Tech and the influence it wields on society. (Just noting here that the seed for this post is the very many comments to Matt’s video including one my own.)
There are a few questions to be answered:
How much of influence does Google have on the culture ? What are Google’s moral biases ? What can be done by Catholics to influence how Google influences the culture ?
First, let’s briefly consider the question of Google’s influence on the culture.
Google search is how most of us find information of all kinds. It is safe to say that Google has replaced the old encyclopedias. It is the key to the combined wealth of information held in the millions of web pages written by thousands of people around the world.
However, I doubt how much of influence the Britannica encyclopedia, had on the culture in the yonder years. Similarly, as an encyclopedia replacement, Google’s influence in shaping the culture is quite limited.
The real influence is in it’s role as the modern day newspaper. News – the stories, the people and reactions essentially define the public discourse; and many people find all of those through Google platforms and it’s kin – the facebooks, twitters etc.
In this role, there is absolutely no doubt that Google has the potential to wield a very big influence. In fact, with the Internet, Influence itself has become far more important than ever.
My guess is that, the Internet (and it’s product Google) has no historical analogue in it’s ability to simultaneously influence the near entirety of human race from a single place. This, in my opinion is the real danger. That, cultural winds can sweep across the globe in no time and effortlessly, without having to stop at any checkpoints to be subjected to close scrutiny and introspection has altered the very definition of culture. But am digressing here …
Coming back to Google, it suffices to say that, for someone seeking to influence the culture (for good or for bad), Google’s position in the cultural landscape appears to be really strategic indeed; and something to be made use of.
Now let’s move on to the question of what are the inherent moral biases of Google. To be done.