Google Management: Moving Forward One Promise at a Time
June 5, 2019
It looks like Google has made good on one of the promises it made after last year’s outcry from employees—“Google Updates Misconduct Reporting Amid Employee Discontent,” reports Phys.org. The company had already heeded calls to end mandatory arbitration and to modify benefit rules for some workers. Still, this is too little too late for some. Reporter Rachel Lerman writes:
“Google said Thursday it has updated the way it investigates misconduct claims—changes the company pledged to make after employees called for action last year. The company is simultaneously facing backlash from two employees who say they faced corporate retaliation after helping to organizing the November walkout protests.
We noted:
“Thursday’s changes are designed to make it simpler for employees to file complaints about sexual misconduct or other issues. Google also issued guidelines to tell employees what to expect during an investigation, and added a policy that allows workers to bring along a colleague for support during the reporting process. Google CEO Sundar Pichai promised to make these changes last fall after thousands of Google employees at company offices around the world briefly walked out to protest the company’s handling of sexual misconduct investigations and payouts to executives facing misconduct allegations.”
The charges of retaliation for spearheading last autumn’s walkout reached some employees via an email from those two organizers. One said she was commanded to stop her outside research into AI ethics, while the other says she was effectively demoted (until she brought in her own lawyer. Now she simply faces a “hostile” work environment, she says.) For its part, Google claims those actions had nothing to do with the protests. Naturally.
Cynthia Murrell, June 5, 2019
Reflecting about New Zealand
June 5, 2019
Following the recent attacks in two New Zealand mosques, during which a suspected terrorist successfully live-streamed horrific video of their onslaught for over a quarter-hour, many are asking why the AI tasked with keeping such content off social media failed us. As it turns out, context is key. CNN explains “Why AI Is Still Terrible at Spotting Violence Online.” Reporter Rachel Metz writes:
“A big reason is that whether it’s hateful written posts, pornography, or violent images or videos, artificial intelligence still isn’t great at spotting objectionable content online. That’s largely because, while humans are great at figuring out the context surrounding a status update or YouTube, context is a tricky thing for AI to grasp.”
Sites currently try to account for that shortfall with a combination of AI and human moderators, but they have trouble keeping up with the enormous influx of postings. For example, we’re told YouTube users alone upload more than 400 hours of video per minute. Without enough people to provide context, AI is simply at a loss. Metz notes:
“AI is not good at understanding things such as who’s writing or uploading an image, or what might be important in the surrounding social or cultural environment. … Comments may superficially sound very violent but actually be satire in protest of violence. Or they may sound benign but be identifiable as dangerous to someone with knowledge about recent news or the local culture in which they were created.
We also noted:
“… Even if violence appears to be shown in a video, it isn’t always so straightforward that a human — let alone a trained machine — can spot it or decide what best to do with it. A weapon might not be visible in a video or photo, or what appears to be violence could actually be a simulation.”
On top of that, factors that may not be apparent to human viewers, like lighting, background images, or even frames per seconds, complicate matters for AI. It appears it will be some time before we can rely on algorithms to shield social media from abhorrent content. Can platforms come up with some effective alternative in the meantime? The pressure is on.
Cynthia Murrell, June 5, 2019
Google: Cracks in the Facade of Smart
June 2, 2019
I find it amusing that a company with the smartest people in the world cannot fail gracefully. When the GOOG goes down hard. I discovered this chugging along from rural Kentucky to a rural location in South Carolina. Google did not deliver. Once I was able to fire up a connection which actually worked, I read “Google Outage Takes Down YouTube, Gmail, and Snapchat in Parts of US.” I learned:
Discord, Snapchat, and Vimeo users are also experiencing issues logging into the apps, and these all use Google Cloud on the backend. “We are experiencing high levels of network congestion in the eastern USA, affecting multiple services in Google Cloud, GSuite and YouTube,” says a Google spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. “Users may see slow performance or intermittent errors. We believe we have identified the root cause of the congestion and expect to return to normal service shortly.”
Now about those smart people. Are too many trying to abandon assignments which have zero future for the zippier work? Of course not. Google does not have Android fragmentation or other technical weaknesses. I would suggest that some work needs to be done on foundational services.
Stephen E Arnold, June 2, 2019
Amazon Twitch: Streaming Copyright Protected Content? You Betcha!
May 30, 2019
I found the “insight” in “Twitch Is Temporarily Suspending New Creators from Streaming after Troll Attack” amusing. The least popular game on Twitch, an Amazon property, has been outed as a streamer of copyright protected content. Yeah, that’s news.
I would point out at 0733 am US Eastern on May 30, 2019, that Ciklonica, one of Twitch’s more interesting chat performers, is eating and streaming the Big Bang television program dubbed in Russian.
Here’s a snap taken at 0730 am US Eastern on May 20, 2019:
How is Amazon’s SageMaker artificial intelligence system doing when it comes to recognizing streaming content with titling? What about the human reviewers who are working valiantly to manage the game lovers?
Maybe Google’s decision to kill its game streaming service is the equivalent of a mixed martial art corner man throwing in the towel.
I describe some of the more interesting content in my Dark Web 2.0 lecture next week at the TechnoSecurity & Digital Forensics Conference. The scope of copyright protected content theft is remarkable. Amazon Twitch is just a chuckle because regular Amazon does what it can to prevent its customers from stealing the “regular” service’s content.
Maybe the Amazon smart software technology can’t police Twitch? Maybe Amazon is looking the other way so it can assert plausible deniability about SweetSaltyPeach chatting? Maybe Amazon simply lacks the management expertise to deal with Twitch’s “how to cheat your friends at cards” information.
Games. Let them begin at the “real” news outfits and in the Twitch-verse.
Stephen E Arnold, May 30, 2019
Silicon Valley Digital Protest: Another Challenge to Modern Management Methods?
May 24, 2019
One thing you never want to do, and I highly stress never, is anger a tech savvy individual. One famous example is Seth Rogen’s 2011 film, The Interview. The film was about an American talk show host tasked with assassinating North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. North Koran was not happy about The Interview. Although they denied involvement, North Korea hackers were the alleged culprits hacking the inventor of the Walkman.
Gizmodo tells another allegedly true story in the article, “Palantir’s Github Page Is The New Battleground In The Fight Against ICE.” Tech activists support hot button issues, such as immigration, global warming, and abortion. Palantir has garnered tech activists’ attention, because mom activities dubbed nefarious. Under the Freedom of Information Act, tech activists have learned that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) used Palantir’s technology. Many people do not like ICE, among them are tech activists.
Palantir’s case management app was used by ICE on apprehended people at the Mexican-US border. Tech activists want Palantir employees to be aware of how there products are used. We noted this statement:
“Raising an issue on the collaborative software repositories of Github is an option open to any user, and is usually for the purpose of reporting a bug or requesting a feature. ‘The issue we are planning to raise is obvious a moral issue and an ethical issue with Palantir’s ties to ICE,’ TWC’s Noah Gordon told Gizmodo. ‘This is an appeal from tech workers to tech workers to take a principled stand against family separation and deportation.’
And we circled this passage as well:
‘We believe Palantir has certain policies when it comes to maintenance of their open-source repositories, so Palantir employees will have to manually review these issues,’ Gordon continued, ‘Our belief is if we put the honest facts of the situation directly in the face of Palantir workers they will follow up by making the right decision at work and organizing against ICE.’”
Does tech activism does work. Its impact may be increased when an initial public offering is the subject of speculation. Worth monitoring this particular example of employee action and Palantir management’s response.
Whitney Grace, May 24, 2019
Google: Whom Does One Believe?
May 24, 2019
Apparently, what is good for China is situational for Google. The Intercept declares, “Google’s Censored Search Would Help China ‘Be More Open,’ Said Ex-CEO Eric Schmidt.” Writer Ryan Gallagher points to a recent BBC News interview with Eric Schmidt in which the former Google CEO, and current board member, seemed to defend his company’s choice to build a censored search platform just for China. To be fair, Schmidt’s opinion is a bit more nuanced than the above headline suggests: the theory seems to be that, by cozying up to China, Google might influence that country to embrace internet freedom. Seems reasonable? Gallagher writes:
“During Schmidt’s tenure as CEO, in 2006, Google launched a search engine in China but pulled out of the country in 2010, due to concerns about Chinese government interference. At that time, [co-founder Sergey] Brin said the decision to stop operating search in the country was mainly about ‘opposing censorship and speaking out for the freedom of political dissent.’ Schmidt revealed in his BBC interview that he had argued against Brin — believing that the company should remain in China, despite the censorship requirements. He said he felt that it was better ‘to stay in China and help change China to be more open.’
We also noted this passage:
“Brin has previously said that he felt the same way for a period of time — that Google could help China embrace greater internet freedom. But he watched as the company, over a number of years, faced increasing censorship requests from the Chinese government. ‘Things started going downhill, especially after the Olympics [in Beijing in 2008],’ Brin said in a 2010 interview. ‘And there’s been a lot more blocking going on since then. … [S]o the situation really took a turn for the worse.’”
At least Google’s workers understand that cooperating with China’s censorship efforts will do nothing to dampen China’s enthusiasm for censorship. Once word of the search platform tailor-made for China, code named Dragonfly, got out, workers protested. Many of them were unhappy to learn they had unwittingly supported censorship through their work, and called for more transparency and employee input. In that BBC interview, Schmidt says Google is “no longer pursuing Dragonfly,” but could not rule out a return to the project in the future.
Meanwhile, censorship has only gotten worse in China since Brin’s 2010 concerns; according to the Human Rights Watch, a 2016 cybersecurity law has brought internet control to “new heights.”
Now Google has complied with the US government’s directive about Huawei. Compliance and an apparent leadership position. Google’s diplomacy may be tested, and the firm’s leadership will have opportunities to craft other statements.
But whom does one believe when it comes to reading tea leaves about Google and its intentions?
Cynthia Murrell, May 24, 2019
Microsoft and Misconduct
May 20, 2019
Microsoft acknowledges it has a problem with workplace misconduct, and is dedicating resources to get to the bottom of it. Quartz reports, “Microsoft Is Tripling the Size of its Team Investigating Workplace Misconduct.” Since March 2019, the company has been coping with reports of harassment and discrimination that were first expressed on their internal message board. Within a week of those reports, some preliminary changes were implemented, including increased manager training and a promise of more data transparency. Writer Dave Gershgorn tells us:
“Microsoft’s head of HR, Kathleen Hogan, told employees she had met with 100 men and women who have come forward about misconduct inside the company, a number Microsoft confirmed to Quartz. Hogan will focus on reforming five areas of internal culture: behavior, manager expectations, investigations, accountability, and data transparency. Each of those areas was also mentioned in a letter Nadella sent to Microsoft employees last month. Microsoft chief legal officer Brad Smith also told employees that the company is expanding its Corporate, External, & Legal Affairs (CELA) team, which investigates these matters, from 7 people to 23. The senior leadership team (SLT) now meets every week about this topic, employees were told, though a Microsoft representative notes that company culture has long been a staple of the weekly SLT meetings.”
Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella allegedly said: “I want people to point out my flaws.”
Admitting there is a problem and making an effort to fix it is often the wisest course. We shall see where Microsoft takes it from here.
Cynthia Murrell, May 20, 2019
HSSCMM: Real Media Notices That Alphabet Management Misspells Stability
May 19, 2019
HSSCMM means in my small world in rural Kentucky the “high school science club management method.” HSSCMM is a wonderful acronym for many reasons. First, it requires that one have multi-year experience as a member and “officer” of an American high school science club from an era when high schools (public and private) had a Science Club. Second, appreciation blossoms when one thinks about the pranks the high school science club talked about and sometimes pulled off. A modern manifestation of the prank has been MIT students’ putting horses, autos, and MIT on a roof. Heh heh heh. Third, understanding is enriched with a modest brush with honest to goodness Googlers and seeing up close and personal the way in which adolescent thinking and global power blend in delicious ways.
Reading “Inside Google’s Civil War” does take a step in right direction on the path to Googletown. I learned:
Google paid former executive Andy Rubin a $90 million exit package, despite facing a sexual misconduct accusation Google deemed credible.
Intriguing, but were there other interactions of significance between “super” Googlers and the “peasant” Googlers? That might be something to explore.
I noted this insight about the GOOG:
Google was purpose-built to amplify employee voices.
Who knew? How could the HSSCMM foster insider behavior among insiders? How could the shining star of the Silicon Valley implementation of HSSCMM become a digital shibboleth? Perhaps the “we’re better” tendencies extended to the individuals who really were part of the true in crowd. The one percent of the one percent is a reasonable way to visualize the partitioning of the GOOG.
Googletown has to evolve. Twenty years is a reasonable amount of time for the sprout of online advertising to take root and flourish into the mighty oaks of science club experiments nourished by rivers of cash. True, some “oaks” have withered and died or been killed to make room for new developments. WebAccelerator perished to allow Google to focus on solving death. And the progress in cracking that challenge can be viewed through Google Glass I believe.
Now the Google approach to management is attracting the attention of “real” journalists looking at “real” issues inside the company.
In my opinion, the rock to flip is the one spray painted with the graffiti “HSSCMM.” There is a management biome thriving out of the bright Mountain View sunshine. The interpersonal interaction angle is one thread which when pulled may lead to the hemp rope strong enough to pull the good ship USS Google to the dry dock.
Googletown’s demographics, its super stars, and its in- and after-school behaviors may have stories to tell and lessons to teach. I am not sure if the phrase “civil war” captures the reality of digital urbanization. HSSCMM warrants scrutiny, not laments.
Stephen E Arnold, May 19, 2019
Silicon Valley Management Crises Escalate
May 10, 2019
Early in my career I worked at Booz, Allen & Hamilton. There was lots of chatter about management from the MBAs. I listened, and I learned that management was a slippery fish.
Now the engineers, mathematicians, and scientists who are in charge of a couple of successful Silicon Valley firms are dealing with slippery fish, and some of these creatures are poisonous.
Let’s look at two examples.
The first appears in “Google Employees Ask Alphabet CEO to Address Walkout.” The idea is that employees are not happy, and they want to make this clear to colleagues and the real journalists who pay attention to real news. I learned:
The plea for Page’s involvement comes after months of worker protests against the mishandling of sexual harassment incidents, along with retaliation against those who report it, including the demotion and modifications of roles that female employees who reported harassment held.
Google denies retaliation, and some of the world’s smartest people employed by the online advertising firm are unhappy.
Unhappy employees means trouble with a capital T. There may be a Meredith Wilson opportunity here.
The second has been captured in statements from Chris Hughes, one of the “founders” of Facebook. This Facebooker has been on talking head TV, but the article “Facebook Co-Founder Chris Hughes: It’s Time to Break Up Facebook” does a good job of recycling the opinion piece Mr. Hughes crafted for the New York Times. I noted:
Hughes says that Zuckerberg has “unchecked power” and influence “far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government.”
Okay, a founder and “friend” of Facebook is criticizing the company. The fix is painful because breaking up is hard to do.
Okay, two examples.
The Google problem is a revolt from within. The Facebook problem is a revolt of the insiders.
Neither Google nor Facebook is handling the management challenges in a smooth, friction free way.
Maybe it is time to call in the MBAs along with lots of lawyers to help with this Iron Man events? The high school science club is just not working. Sure, the money is still flowing, but like a gurgling Mauna Loa, further events are inevitable. Foosballl and colorful mouse pads won’t do the job. And algorithms? Nope.
Stephen E Arnold, May 10, 2019
A Disconnect: Department of Defense and the Silicon Valley Scooter Riders
May 2, 2019
I have a short conversation with a real reporter about why Silicon Valley top dogs cannot keep their puppies in line. There are walk outs, sit ins, and dust ups about what senior managers expect and what their code monkeys do.
Defense One published an interesting summary of this jar of pickled pigs feet, the ghastly green and pale pink delights once popular in rural Kentucky.
“The Pentagon Is Flubbing Its Pitch to Silicon Valley” runs down the gap between the Silicon Valley jefes and the Department of Defense. The summary is quite useful, and it includes hot links to several high-value books.
But the highlight of the article was this observation:
Surveys have shown us for decades that tech executives are quite politically liberal, albeit rather libertarian on regulatory issues. But it’s becoming clearer how much more progressive their workers are than the bosses.
One key point is tucked behind this statement. The leaders of Silicon Valley companies are used to getting their own way. People used to getting their own way expect those whom they pay to do what they are told. Entitlement? Arrogance? Upbringing?
Probably a pinch of each stirred into an ego centric soup.
The chasm is widening and there is no easy way to cross it. The split within the large firms has been identified by Defense One. Now what will the newly privacy infused Facebook, the online ad giant Google, and the Amazon bulldozer do?
No answers from Harrod’s Creek, of course, because scooters versus smart weapons is a tough call for some to make.
Stephen E Arnold, May 2, 2019
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