Google Supports Outraged Scholars
October 2, 2017
Google has taken issue with a recent list from the Campaign for Accountability (CfA), TechCrunch reports in, “Google Responds to Academic Funding Controversy—with a GIF.” Writer Frederic Lardinois reports that the CfA recently released a list of policy experts and academics who, they say, had received Googley dollars last year. The only problem—many who found themselves on the list dispute their inclusion, saying they had not received any funding from Google or, if they had, it was unrelated to the work the CfA specified. Google issued a response, supporting the protesting experts and academics as well as defending its support of researchers in general. The company also struck back; the article explains:
And in a direct attack on CfA, Google also notes that while the group advocates for transparency, its own corporate funders remain in the shadows. The only backer we know of is Oracle, which is obviously competing with Google in many areas. The group has also recently taken on SolarCity/Tesla. In its blog post, Google also argues that ‘AT&T, the MPAA, ICOMP, FairSearch and dozens more’ fund similar campaigns.
Google later created a GIF in response to requests for elaboration. It shares a series of tweets from some of the affected scholars, in which they detail just where the CfA went wrong in each of their cases. Lardinois continues:
It’s not often that a company like Google makes its own GIF in response to a request for comment, but I gather this goes to show that Google wants to move on from this discussion and let the academics speak for themselves. While the CfA’s methods are less than ideal, there are legitimate questions about how even small amounts of funding can influence research.
So far, Lardinois notes, public discussion on how funding can influence research have centered around pharmaceuticals. He projects it will soon grow, however, to include policy research as tech companies ramp up their funding programs
Cynthia Murrell, October 2, 2017
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Hey there deliah!