Google 作为全球最大的搜索引擎,在最近却爆出了一个很严重的问题,根据《快公司》杂志的报导,最近《华尔街日报》截获到了一些来自 Google 员工群体的内部讨论邮件。在这些邮件中,出现了一个敏感问题,那就是讨论如何通过调整 Google 搜索功能,来影响对特朗普总统签署2017旅游禁令的相关搜索结果。
对于这些邮件,邮件里没有明确说明是哪一位员工,但是很可能是搜索产品营销部门任职的 Google 员工,在这些邮件里,说了应当通过调整 Google 搜索的结果,来突显支持移民政策的组织和诸如美国公民自由联盟(ACLU)的公益机构捐款链接。
当然,也存在着想法相左的意见。对“将个别组织的搜索权重调整至高过其它组织”的想法不满意,说到:“在我看来,这种单单在政治意见冲突的时刻,突显出那些支持某一方观点的组织的做法,打破了我们的惯例。”
最后 Google 发表声明称“这些电子邮件只是在进行一场头脑风暴,这些想法中没有任何一条主意被真正执行过。 Google 从来没有为了推崇某个特别的政治意识形态,而去操纵过它的搜索结果,或者去调整任何它的产品,——这种事既没出现在目前的竞选季里,也没出现在2016年的总统大选里,当然,它也不可能会发生在特朗普颁布针对移民政策的总统令后。无论是以何种形式,我们的办事流程和我们的相关政策都不会允许我们操纵搜索结果,从而去推崇某些政治意识。”
对于现如今人们敏感的情况下爆出的闹剧,再一次引发了人们的激烈争论。
官方原文:
Hi Googlers,
Recently there have been some news stories about how we approach our work—in particular, how we present our Search results. We feel privileged to be building a product that provides instant access to information for everyone, everywhere—whether you’re a PhD from MIT, or a student on the other side of the world using a computer for the first time. We have billions of people relying on us for accurate information and we feel a deep sense of responsibility to deliver the highest quality results.
It’s important to me that our internal culture continues to reinforce our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Recent news stories reference an internal email to suggest that we would compromise the integrity of our Search results for a political end. This is absolutely false. We do not bias our products to favor any political agenda. The trust our users place in us is our greatest asset and we must always protect it. If any Googler ever undermines that trust, we will hold them accountable.
As we advance our mission, we must stay grounded in our values—the first of which is to Respect the User. Not just one user … everyone. We build products for people of every background and belief, and we have strong policies to ensure that our products remain free of bias. As we head into election season in the U.S., it’s worth reaffirming that commitment. While we will stay true to our long-held principles, Google itself is and must continue to be non-partisan.
Our second value is to Respect the Opportunity. Working at Google comes with tremendous responsibility—not only to do the right thing, but to accomplish things that matter. The decisions you make have the potential to affect many people and each decision (big and small) defines what Google is. We have a long-term incentive to make the right decisions to ensure our products work for everyone.
Our third value is to Respect Each Other. We are a global company with more than 80,000 employees across nearly 60 countries who hold a wide range of political views. But we all have something very important in common: we joined Google to build products that improve the lives of as many people as possible. Google isn’t a place where we can resolve all of our individual differences. It’s a place where we come together in spite of our differences to pursue our mission.
We need to make sure that our culture continues to reinforce that purpose. I look forward to working with all of you to that end.
— Sundar Pichai