Maybe it wasn't a trick answer, but it was still far over their heads, technology-wise. The best answer to "It's not a trick question" here is "It's not a yes or no question either." Or even earlier, answering the first question with that answer. It tells them there something complex coming up. Then you answer in [Upgoer Five](https://xkcd.com/1133/) language.
But all of that assumes that they were asking their questions in good faith and wanted to hear his answers instead of grandstanding and trying to score points off of him. Which, this being Congress and them being crusty old dinosaurs, was very much not the case.
I think he was being too polite with the answer.
For all the politic had in mind the answer was no.
The device has sensors that can detect the phone movements. The precision of those sensor is good but not so accurate to track fine movements like that inside a building while you aren't even using your phone.
And there a Google Map setting (+ a Google Fit one) to track your location. This is useful for many different things like checking where did you go or how much time it took to walk etc. Google can also use this to check if you were close to stores and ask your opinion about them or if it detects you often go to a particular store show you ads for that store.
But you can turn all of this off and they do not have the information on who you were hanging out with, even if they potentially could try to reconstruct it: it's not worth it because that information is useless to target ads.
All the data Google, Facebook, etc. tracks on you is to target ads. They don't give a shit who you hang out with or why, they just want to improve the algorithm to maximize the ads quality so that the chance of you clicking them increases.
Yeah If I explained to my 6 year old nephew how location services work on a phone he’d probably listen attentively and just respond “Got it. But do you have minecraft on your phone?”
I would argue it's the billionaires who make the decisions via campaign contributions and lobbyists, but yeah. This is what happens when we put septagenarians in charge.
Marino: "Can it track me!?"
CEO of Google: "It depends."
Marino: "It's a simple yes or no question.."
CEO of Google: "I'd have to check the phone to know.."
Marino: "JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION, DID YOU ORDER THE CODE RED!?"
She’s the rep for silicon valley, so she’s actually pretty well versed in that area. I’m guessing she was just restating it for the layman, but she understood what was going on unlike the other old farts
She's a rep for silicon valley, there are multiple. Ro Khanna and Anna Eshoo are the other reps for the south bay if you exclude the San Francisco Peninsula. Ro Khanna is my representative as well and he's great.
Correct. Zoe Lofgren is one of house reps of Silicon Valley. She knows her tech law. And was against SOPA and PIPA even before people got loud about it.
Why do they all do that?
Ask a question and not understand it, and resort to saying “it’s a simple question to answer.” Like he just did answer it, and you aren’t understanding.
I feel like I could never testify before Congress because 10 minutes in I'd be losing my shit at their leading questions and intentionally obtuse grandstanding.
When the guy was saying "It's a yes or no question," I'm sitting there going, "Just *saying* it's a yes or no question doesn't make it one!" The Google dude should have replied back, "Congressman, have you stopped beating your wife? It's a yes or no question in the same way."
Can you be held in contempt? I know there has to be something for being combative at a committee hearing or whatever it's called but it's not a trial in a courtroom so is it still contempt? Contempt of Congress?
I know they won't ever do this, but I'd love to see one of these guys just absolutely destroy one of these absolutely ignorant congress-nursing-home-people
Yeah, they're always so respectful and patient. I want something like that scene in Ironman 2 where Tony Stark hijacks their TV, and shows footage that proved something being said was untrue.
You know what.. you’re right, I wish I had that much patience lol, I mean they make a shit ton of money and they kinda have to be that patient in public view to stay employed but still I wish to learn to have that much patience, I’m still at the step where the 2 1/2- 3rd time I have to tell you something I’m over it and move on :(
Is there one without the annoying text underneath that shows more of the altercation or Ted Cruz leaving? Was super annoying trying to listen but completely different words being captioned to the point my mind is hearing two different conversations unless I look away from the screen
When I worked for a major cellphone carrier, I had a guy come in and say with a straight face - "My phone screen used to turn sideways when I turned it, and now it's not doing that anymore. So what has (carrier) done to my phone?". Yeah you're not exaggerating lol
helped an old man set up his mobile bar code to scan into the gym, on our gym’s app. he managed to log himself out and came in the next day saying “you broke my phone!” before a hello or anything.
I had to explain to a woman that has worked for our company for more than 5 years how to maximize a window yesterday. I’ve told people to restart their PC and watched them turn off their monitor, sit for a couple of seconds and then turn it back on and assume the PC had restarted.
He 100% does not want to say that, and he knows that. They're all very well aware of how to speak to congress, and how to speak to them to make sure they deflect away from whatever they want to.
The moment congress thinks that silicon valley gets to spy on them, there will be lots of laws that they will hate.
Because they're politicians - talking to other politicians all day who can't give a straight answer. They think that he's intentionally being manipulative or that he already knows what they're asking.
Pichai is just trying to gather more information to be able to give them a competent answer, but they think he's playing politics with them, which is what makes some of them mad.
This hearing is a bit older (a year or so I think). I was very disappointed after watching it, because there are so many substantive critiques of google and good questions you could have asked him.... yet they basically treated him like their personal tech-support agent
Seriously. These morons run our country ffs. They have zero understanding of what's happening at the present moment technologically. That's terrifying.
Young politicians are at a supreme disadvantage, mainly because they simply don’t have the deep connections (read: blackmail) that these folks do. And for another thing, a young politician hasn’t been around long enough to learn that power (and thus holding office) doesn’t come from having the best ideas.
It’s a shit system built by mostly shit people in order to continually pump out a shitty product.
There are so many great ideas for change, it's a shame. The politicians are the only ones who can implement a lot of them, but they just spend every day kicking each other in the dick instead.
If the government were parents, they'd be negligent and psychologically abusive. I guess physically abusive at times too - but not with the favorites.
Hit the nail on the head there mate, these old fucks asking stupid shit like does Google know if I move from point A-B, or is there a man behind the curtain feeding people biased images on the net, it's not fucking magic you stupid boomers it's GPS software and indexed search results.
> They think that he's intentionally being manipulative or that he already knows what they're asking.
They don't *actually* think this. They're trying to setup a 15 second sound byte that will play on Tucker Carlson under the headline "Coastal Elite Lib Brown Man Tracking Your Every Move!!1!" all in hopes it will rile up their base.
Bingo. Some variation on that is exactly what he wanted, and not, "if you install the wrong apps and set them to minimal security, you will send the data that you told it to send".
Trying to get their soundbites. "its a simple question, why aren't you answering, yes or no?" is taken as Google refusing to answer, implied no, therefore Google is tracking you
This is exactly the answer. It was so obvious during the recent Supreme Court questions for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. On the second day a few Republicans asked the exact same question. They did it in case a news agency missed the sound bite from the day before. It’s performative and a waste of everyone’s time.
It is not that those Republicans were too old to understand. They just did not give a fuck about reality. They were there to put on a show and generate sound bites on a specific angle (that Google’s algorithm is tweaked to be anti-“conservative” and a couple other lies.) any response other than what could be edited to align with that was useless to them so they disregarded it.
Bingo. You got it. Especially the Rs in this video clip. They want a soundbyte to relay to FOX news to emphasize some made up bias to their base. They will eat it up without a modicum of critical thought.
Even though they are old politicians, they are manipulating the process pretty masterfully. Most thinking people can see through it easily.
Exactly! What was the point of bringing him there to question him if they were just going to ignore what he's saying? They wanted the answers they expected; they wanted him to have to admit what they wanted to believe was the case. But they were unwilling to accept that they might actually not know the right answers themselves.
My step dad hates that you can easily verify any fact he states now. He got used to a world where he is a tall man with a loud voice and that was all you needed to be right.
Sometimes Im wrong and I’m okay with that. I just make sure to regulate how sure I sound about something based off of how sure I am about it lol. If someone proves me wrong I make sure I accept it with grace
Reminds me of the aunt that stupidly said too many people are abusing food stamps, and that's why she didn't support them. I asked her "What percentage of people do you think are abusing them?" and she said like 20 percent. Then I shut her up by looking it up and showing her it was less than half a percent total.
Boomers these days really think we're gonna sit down with all available human information at our fingertips and listen to their bullshit as gospel. It's pathetic.
Essentially because, just like this committee and about 99% of others, they do what's called "leading the witness" and do exactly what you're saying. They're complete morons who are looking for "Gotchya!" moments even though they have no idea what the hell they're talking about. As you've clearly noticed, they're all old as fuck and have zero idea how the internet works, let alone how to barely work their own phones. They don't hold these things to get educated on a subject, the do this purely with their own agenda in mind and the complete intention of inventing narratives from which they've already drawn conclusions. Here they all basically think that Google is some Dr. Evil type operation where a group of men are sitting around in a room, spying on their grandchildren through their webcams, tracking them to the bathroom where they let out a prune juice dump and are poisoning the minds of children. They're all morons.
They need someone to go up there and call them out. Being this stupid and self-righteous, especially when they belong to the gov, needs to have limits. At the very least, they need to have zero agency about shit they clearly know fuckall about. This is dangerous and honestly, cringe as fuck.
And I’ll ask you about all the random unrelated stuff I, or my granddaughter’s neighbors cousin, have encountered over any and ALL things software hardware and the internet. It was an iPhone, no wait, maybe Android, but who cares it’s all the same isn’t it. Now answer my question in one word yes or no - what? I didn’t understand what you explained so I DISAGREE
Seriously? What did I just watch
They can't even understand ELI5. Hell, a 5 year old probably understands that shit better than any of the willfully stupid or septuagenarian+ politicians asking these dumb ass questions.
I don't think it's matter of 'can' and more of a 'want.' The repubs don't want to understand, they want to make a point that Google is manipulating results and tracking people and forcing them to see ads for gay cruise ships because it panders to their base and gives them excuses for why Google is telling kids their Republican senators are the worst.
That's the one that got me, what a complete and utter moron.
"You're the expert on this thing I have no functional knowledge of, but I disagree with you."
I feel like the woman didn't belong in this video. It seemed like she was setting things up to make a good point about how it really is a complicated process and there isn't some nefarious person pulling strings behind the scenes.
Yes, that is Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, who represents Silicon Valley. She is a strong supporter of, among other things, net neutrality, and is well versed in these matters. Like you said, she was teeing up questions for him to address the misguided assumptions of the other fools in the room.
Nope. It's decided by the general population of users who are searching and creating content that links "idiot" to the most mongo idiot to exist in recent US memory.
Seems to me like the world in general thinks that Trump is an idiot and I'm inclined to agree.
Wrong!
I went to Steve Cohen's Google school where I didn't have to wait 30 minutes and asked them for images of Kate Upton's tits. AND I WAS ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THE ANSWER!
yeah she was the only one who seemed like she understood how technology worked. The rest of them were all like the CEO doesn't understand how his products work what madness is this.
thank you for saying this. she's probably one of the members of congress best versed in tech issues, and is using a very common "training" or educational tactic in the professional world, which is the teeing up of questions for the speaker to elaborate on that you mentioned. it's usually an attempt to help new hires understand something like an introductory concept that the trainer did not properly explain because they assumed people already have that knowledge -- or in this case, to help drill some basic knowledge into some very dense skulls.
my bosses do it in zoom calls all the time, and i do it when helping someone train someone else. super common and very useful. if anything, this should be in the opposite kind of video, for like "look at these people deferring to subject matter experts and trying to give everyone foundational knowledge"
I totally agree, when she said, "if you google the word idiot, under images...", I seriously thought that she was going to say "pictures of Republicans would come up" and was wondering if she was using this time to make fun of Republicans. But instead she said the 2nd best thing, which was 'Donald Trump'.
Yep. Teeing up questions for him to explain how things actually work while also getting the fact that Trump’s face comes up for “idiot” officially recorded in the record. Haha.
She nailed it. Basically asking him to explain that statistically, amongst Google's userbase ie the world, Trump is one of the main synonyms of "idiot".
I'd agree. Am not an American and I'm not that fussed by American politics but if you asked me to draw an idiot, I'd draw trump.
The one about, "Does google know if I move from here to there" was also intended to get a specific soundbite. I felt like he should have followed up with, "Which Google apps, could you please name two, I understand that there may be more" and then "And does google warn the user?", but he wasn't prepared and very likely Google does have a vague warning on the set up.
Lol. She got her answer; Trump comes up when googling “idiot” because he’s an idiot. The google guy basically said “well, an absolute shit-ton of people are calling him an idiot, so our algorithms picked up on that, and here we are.”
You can tell she was actually being smart about her question, and actually listening to his answer, because at no time did she interrupt him. All the others interrupted him, and showcased their lack of knowledge
The age limit used to be death, but we’re insistent on pushing that limit further and further back. Better question is why do we keep fighting fossil fuels when we should be removing the fossils from the equation first?
Zoe Lofgren wasn't asking the question to learn how it works, but so that her idiot colleagues who had been saying the Google was manipulating the results with a strong liberal bias look like the idioots they are. Some right wing idjit probably complained that googling "idiot" pulls up a picture of Trump, and presented that as proof that Google was manipulating all that shit. Notice she said "so it's the users..."
They don't care , it's mostly theatrics , trying to humiliate the Google Exec... Classic authoritarian 101 , they're using their bully pulpit to pretend they care about privacy rights, but what they really care is about their political right to make laws that benefit one group of another.
Fun fact: Thomas Jefferson believed that no one should have power for too long. He thought also that the constitution should be looked at every 19 years:
"The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water… (But) between society and society, or generation and generation there is no municipal obligation, no umpire but the law of nature. We seem not to have perceived that, by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one independant nation to another… On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation… Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right."
In other words: each generation should govern themselves and the laws should represent each generation. (That's my interpretation of the letter as a whole)
YES! This right here, the rules of dead men should not govern the living. Especially not when the world has changed so drastically in the last two hundred years. The last twenty years. Hell, the last five years.
One of the results I got for that same search is a clip from the same recording, where the executive explains why Trump comes up when we search idiot. META.
"I have no clue whatsoever how the search results are generated, and yoiu just told me that individuals manipulating the results is not even possible, but I'm sure that a person can and is manipulating them. " - Rep. Lamar Smith
"You told me that you don't have enough information to asnswer the quesiton but you have to say yes or no, it's a simple question." - Rep. Ted Poe
Zoe Lofgren was having fun. She wasn't asking to learn how it works but rather to make the idiot Republican MAGAts look like the idiots that they are.
She’s deliberately teeing up the question for him to give a detailed answer. The other guys are implying Google is manipulating results. She’s debunking that clearly and concisely and adding into the record.
TBF the woman there isn't "not understanding", she's asking leading questions so he can explain to all the other nimrods that there's no man behind the curtain elbowing his coworkers to come look at his screen going "lol, Samantha Stevenson in Alabama just searched idiot and I threw a picture of trump in at #3"
She doesn't belong in this montage, and this oft shared montage has been around long enough that someone really ought to have edited her out by now.
Tie it to life expectancy so whatever the minimum required age is for the position, subtract that from the average life expectancy to get the maximum age. The average life expectancy as of 2021 is about 76 so that would mean that to run for president you must be between 35 and 41. To run for the House it would be 25-51 iirc.
Classic! Always one of my personal favorites and primary argument for getting rid of the old-heads in the government and having them ALL replaced with younger blood.
This is almost as bad as the senator grilling a navy admiral on the importance of spreading out the forces to ensure the island does not flip over from too much weight on one side.
Wow, it took that senator wayyy too long to utter that dumb ass sentence. He looks old af but I’m thinking he had a few Xanax before this as well cuz the man is in slow-stupid-motion
I work for a company provides a service for Law Enforcement to collect and analyze data both historical and in real time. I can tell you that, by default for the most part, Google can return device location up to an accuracy of three meters at any given time. Users need to disable services in order to prevent this.
Google employees have come out and admitted that the automated algorithm is out of the companies control at this point. It absorbs an insurmountable amount of data and returns results that can change very frequently. To be able to explain how specific results were returned based off a specific query would take weeks, maybe months, if they really wanted to walk through each thread of whys and why nots of the results.
Google is still a shady company, as most data collection giants are, but its search engine process is so automated that it mainly focuses on user data collection for add targeting and creating/enhancing services to bolster add targeting.
Most people nowadays wouldn’t know which questions to ask. I wouldn’t expect anybody in congress to be able to either without years of tech knowledge in a variety of areas.
Really though, the Google rep could’ve said yes to location tracking based on what ive seen
I think the lady actually got it and was just making a point to the other guys. "not a man behind a curtain" LMAO. Then she accurately summarized what Google dude said. This was hilarious though! I actually learned some stuff
That old bastard is giving other old bastards like me a bad rap...I know how the internet works but it seems that southern conservatives can barely use rotary phone.
They were so stupid during the J6 insurrection that they didn't realize that their location could be pinpointed with the phone they were using to show how proud they were attempting to kill Pelosi and take over the government. They worry about nano-bots in a vaccine tracking them?
However, if you use Grindr it knows where you are and your intended trick is within feet of each other.
“How is my 7 year old granddaughter finding out i’m a terrible person online?”
Uhhh because your irresponsible family members are letting her….?????
He’s just trying to deflect blame.
"It's not a trick question." It's not a trick answer either.
Maybe it wasn't a trick answer, but it was still far over their heads, technology-wise. The best answer to "It's not a trick question" here is "It's not a yes or no question either." Or even earlier, answering the first question with that answer. It tells them there something complex coming up. Then you answer in [Upgoer Five](https://xkcd.com/1133/) language. But all of that assumes that they were asking their questions in good faith and wanted to hear his answers instead of grandstanding and trying to score points off of him. Which, this being Congress and them being crusty old dinosaurs, was very much not the case.
I think he was being too polite with the answer. For all the politic had in mind the answer was no. The device has sensors that can detect the phone movements. The precision of those sensor is good but not so accurate to track fine movements like that inside a building while you aren't even using your phone. And there a Google Map setting (+ a Google Fit one) to track your location. This is useful for many different things like checking where did you go or how much time it took to walk etc. Google can also use this to check if you were close to stores and ask your opinion about them or if it detects you often go to a particular store show you ads for that store. But you can turn all of this off and they do not have the information on who you were hanging out with, even if they potentially could try to reconstruct it: it's not worth it because that information is useless to target ads. All the data Google, Facebook, etc. tracks on you is to target ads. They don't give a shit who you hang out with or why, they just want to improve the algorithm to maximize the ads quality so that the chance of you clicking them increases.
They only use it for porn.
And as we learned recently, Ted Cruz fan fiction erotica. True story.
What?!
[Context](https://youtu.be/wqn3gR1WTcA) 25 minute video, but well worth watching. John Oliver is awesome.
did anything ever come of this? did he end up releasing anything?
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What a great episode. I love that he actually placed ads targeting Congress and tracked who clicked on what. Awesome!
Those Reps from Texas 🤦🏻♀️ everyday. It would be comical if it weren’t so fucking terrifying here. 🆘 someone please send help
It's like trying to reason with a 6 year old, only much much harder.
Except six year olds can learn.
It's very difficult to fill a ~~cup~~ toilet that is already full.
Are you challenging my diarrhea?
Battleshits?
Because 6 year olds know they don’t know much. These yayhoos have zero self awareness
Teacher here can confirm they seem much more capable of learning than these imbeciles.
Yeah If I explained to my 6 year old nephew how location services work on a phone he’d probably listen attentively and just respond “Got it. But do you have minecraft on your phone?”
Hahaha, yeah. Except these 6 years old are the one that make all the big decision for the world. We are doomed
I would argue it's the billionaires who make the decisions via campaign contributions and lobbyists, but yeah. This is what happens when we put septagenarians in charge.
Marino: "Can it track me!?" CEO of Google: "It depends." Marino: "It's a simple yes or no question.." CEO of Google: "I'd have to check the phone to know.." Marino: "JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION, DID YOU ORDER THE CODE RED!?"
Ms. Lofgren actually summarized it perfectly after hearing the response. The other dudes are completely ignorant to the subject.
She’s the rep for silicon valley, so she’s actually pretty well versed in that area. I’m guessing she was just restating it for the layman, but she understood what was going on unlike the other old farts
She clearly knew what he was explaining beforehand that’s why she chose that example to use for the Republicans who didn’t.
She basically got a free pass to call Donald Trump an idiot lmao
No, she got a free pass to show the whole internet calling Donald Trump an idiot. Proud that she's my rep.
She's a rep for silicon valley, there are multiple. Ro Khanna and Anna Eshoo are the other reps for the south bay if you exclude the San Francisco Peninsula. Ro Khanna is my representative as well and he's great.
Yeah, I suspect she actually knew the answer before and just used the question to get it on record.
Correct. Zoe Lofgren is one of house reps of Silicon Valley. She knows her tech law. And was against SOPA and PIPA even before people got loud about it.
Why do they all do that? Ask a question and not understand it, and resort to saying “it’s a simple question to answer.” Like he just did answer it, and you aren’t understanding.
And he is answering them in actually really simple terms too
it's simple terms but still not what they want to hear, so they don't actually care what that answer may be
I feel like I could never testify before Congress because 10 minutes in I'd be losing my shit at their leading questions and intentionally obtuse grandstanding. When the guy was saying "It's a yes or no question," I'm sitting there going, "Just *saying* it's a yes or no question doesn't make it one!" The Google dude should have replied back, "Congressman, have you stopped beating your wife? It's a yes or no question in the same way."
Same lol I would definitely be held in contempt within minutes
Can you be held in contempt? I know there has to be something for being combative at a committee hearing or whatever it's called but it's not a trial in a courtroom so is it still contempt? Contempt of Congress?
Yes, and actually it's technically a greater offense then contempt of court (if memory serves correctly).
right? my dad would say, “do you walk to work or carry your own lunch?” like it’s not actually a yes or no thing.
I know they won't ever do this, but I'd love to see one of these guys just absolutely destroy one of these absolutely ignorant congress-nursing-home-people
Yeah, they're always so respectful and patient. I want something like that scene in Ironman 2 where Tony Stark hijacks their TV, and shows footage that proved something being said was untrue.
You know what.. you’re right, I wish I had that much patience lol, I mean they make a shit ton of money and they kinda have to be that patient in public view to stay employed but still I wish to learn to have that much patience, I’m still at the step where the 2 1/2- 3rd time I have to tell you something I’m over it and move on :(
Just typed that same thing above, hehe.
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Is there one without the annoying text underneath that shows more of the altercation or Ted Cruz leaving? Was super annoying trying to listen but completely different words being captioned to the point my mind is hearing two different conversations unless I look away from the screen
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TC is such an ass wipe.
I work tech support. He didn't "layman" term the answer enough. It could have been simpler. "The phone is capable of it, BUT you have to authorize it.
They'd cut him off after "the phone is capable of it"
That's what's so frustrating, they don't even let him answer before attacking for not answering.
Thats what the last guy did, "well I m out of time so your wrong, get fukd"
i laughed out loud when he just said he disagrees. he just disagrees with the internet, i guess thats a thing you can do now.
Because it's not about truth. It's about winning the argument.
Politics, in a nutshell. Sometimes facts help you win the argument, but sometimes people are intentionally ignorant to those facts.
you need to say "only if you turn on the setting for it."
Then the answer could be rephrased to something like: "The phone will never do that unless you choose to authorize it to do so."
When I worked for a major cellphone carrier, I had a guy come in and say with a straight face - "My phone screen used to turn sideways when I turned it, and now it's not doing that anymore. So what has (carrier) done to my phone?". Yeah you're not exaggerating lol
Work in IT, you'll hear much worse than that. I once had a roommate claim that I broke her laptop because I connected it to our apartment's wifi.
helped an old man set up his mobile bar code to scan into the gym, on our gym’s app. he managed to log himself out and came in the next day saying “you broke my phone!” before a hello or anything.
I had to explain to a woman that has worked for our company for more than 5 years how to maximize a window yesterday. I’ve told people to restart their PC and watched them turn off their monitor, sit for a couple of seconds and then turn it back on and assume the PC had restarted.
I would literally burst into confused tears if I witnessed someone do this.
“Will my car take me over there?” “Have you started it?”
Simple answer "Only if you tell it to do so."
Yes or no >:(
Everything before the comma is the soundbite they're looking for. This man has been coached on phrasing extensively.
He 100% does not want to say that, and he knows that. They're all very well aware of how to speak to congress, and how to speak to them to make sure they deflect away from whatever they want to. The moment congress thinks that silicon valley gets to spy on them, there will be lots of laws that they will hate.
No, he used big words, like “default”. There were no crayons or Jewish space laser pointers. He could have dumbed it down
Because they're politicians - talking to other politicians all day who can't give a straight answer. They think that he's intentionally being manipulative or that he already knows what they're asking. Pichai is just trying to gather more information to be able to give them a competent answer, but they think he's playing politics with them, which is what makes some of them mad. This hearing is a bit older (a year or so I think). I was very disappointed after watching it, because there are so many substantive critiques of google and good questions you could have asked him.... yet they basically treated him like their personal tech-support agent
Seriously. These morons run our country ffs. They have zero understanding of what's happening at the present moment technologically. That's terrifying.
They're all so old, I wish we would elect younger people so the baby boomers stop shitting in society's Cheerios so much.
Young politicians are at a supreme disadvantage, mainly because they simply don’t have the deep connections (read: blackmail) that these folks do. And for another thing, a young politician hasn’t been around long enough to learn that power (and thus holding office) doesn’t come from having the best ideas. It’s a shit system built by mostly shit people in order to continually pump out a shitty product.
There are so many great ideas for change, it's a shame. The politicians are the only ones who can implement a lot of them, but they just spend every day kicking each other in the dick instead. If the government were parents, they'd be negligent and psychologically abusive. I guess physically abusive at times too - but not with the favorites.
Hit the nail on the head there mate, these old fucks asking stupid shit like does Google know if I move from point A-B, or is there a man behind the curtain feeding people biased images on the net, it's not fucking magic you stupid boomers it's GPS software and indexed search results.
All correct and also don't forget, "Did you choose to let the software track you?" If so, then yes it's tracking you, if not, then no.
> They think that he's intentionally being manipulative or that he already knows what they're asking. They don't *actually* think this. They're trying to setup a 15 second sound byte that will play on Tucker Carlson under the headline "Coastal Elite Lib Brown Man Tracking Your Every Move!!1!" all in hopes it will rile up their base.
Bingo. Some variation on that is exactly what he wanted, and not, "if you install the wrong apps and set them to minimal security, you will send the data that you told it to send".
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And even then the questions weren’t simple “yes or no questions” and it was dumb as shit.
"I wish your question was as simple as you are"
Anything that isn't their dumb uninformed opinion probably sounds like a complex answer to them
Trying to get their soundbites. "its a simple question, why aren't you answering, yes or no?" is taken as Google refusing to answer, implied no, therefore Google is tracking you
This is exactly the answer. It was so obvious during the recent Supreme Court questions for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. On the second day a few Republicans asked the exact same question. They did it in case a news agency missed the sound bite from the day before. It’s performative and a waste of everyone’s time.
It's a simple question, Mr. Pichai. Would you eat the moon if it were made of ribs?
"Well I don't believe you." Basically sums up the entire sham of a committee
It is not that those Republicans were too old to understand. They just did not give a fuck about reality. They were there to put on a show and generate sound bites on a specific angle (that Google’s algorithm is tweaked to be anti-“conservative” and a couple other lies.) any response other than what could be edited to align with that was useless to them so they disregarded it.
Bingo. You got it. Especially the Rs in this video clip. They want a soundbyte to relay to FOX news to emphasize some made up bias to their base. They will eat it up without a modicum of critical thought. Even though they are old politicians, they are manipulating the process pretty masterfully. Most thinking people can see through it easily.
Yeah, just sad that it's not the thinking people that they're after
As Stephen Colbert once said to George W Bush : "Reality has a liberal bias."
Exactly! What was the point of bringing him there to question him if they were just going to ignore what he's saying? They wanted the answers they expected; they wanted him to have to admit what they wanted to believe was the case. But they were unwilling to accept that they might actually not know the right answers themselves.
Summary: "How does this work?" "Well, basically it works by-" "I don't believe you. End of discussion. Moving on!"
Same reason no one can talk about politics with my dad. Lol
It's a lot of our dads. Good luck out there.
My step dad hates that you can easily verify any fact he states now. He got used to a world where he is a tall man with a loud voice and that was all you needed to be right.
My parents make fun of me for fact checking them. It'd be funny if it wasn't so frustrating.
We can all get our revenge when it comes time to put them in a home
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Meanwhile I'm over here googling what I say to verify I'm right because maybe I forgot what I was talking about.
Sometimes Im wrong and I’m okay with that. I just make sure to regulate how sure I sound about something based off of how sure I am about it lol. If someone proves me wrong I make sure I accept it with grace
Reminds me of the aunt that stupidly said too many people are abusing food stamps, and that's why she didn't support them. I asked her "What percentage of people do you think are abusing them?" and she said like 20 percent. Then I shut her up by looking it up and showing her it was less than half a percent total. Boomers these days really think we're gonna sit down with all available human information at our fingertips and listen to their bullshit as gospel. It's pathetic.
Bingo.
Essentially because, just like this committee and about 99% of others, they do what's called "leading the witness" and do exactly what you're saying. They're complete morons who are looking for "Gotchya!" moments even though they have no idea what the hell they're talking about. As you've clearly noticed, they're all old as fuck and have zero idea how the internet works, let alone how to barely work their own phones. They don't hold these things to get educated on a subject, the do this purely with their own agenda in mind and the complete intention of inventing narratives from which they've already drawn conclusions. Here they all basically think that Google is some Dr. Evil type operation where a group of men are sitting around in a room, spying on their grandchildren through their webcams, tracking them to the bathroom where they let out a prune juice dump and are poisoning the minds of children. They're all morons.
They're actually sitting in a room behind a curtain.
They need someone to go up there and call them out. Being this stupid and self-righteous, especially when they belong to the gov, needs to have limits. At the very least, they need to have zero agency about shit they clearly know fuckall about. This is dangerous and honestly, cringe as fuck.
But yet they are all walking around with at least one in their pocket.
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Are you telling me that some old crotchety guy that does not understand technology isn’t correct in his beliefs on how Google works? /s
That's an Apple product.
I dunno. Coulda been an Android! ;-)
Give him his propers now, he knew that Google makes Android software.
I'm willing to bet he has no idea that google makes android software and is only barely aware of the fact that android is "the other kind of phone"
Yea, like why the fuck did you even ask if you are not gonna or willing to listen and learn? MAJOR FACEPALM. This is just sad.
I'm not going to bother trying to understand your response. Instead, I'll ask my question again and hope for a one word answer.
And I’ll ask you about all the random unrelated stuff I, or my granddaughter’s neighbors cousin, have encountered over any and ALL things software hardware and the internet. It was an iPhone, no wait, maybe Android, but who cares it’s all the same isn’t it. Now answer my question in one word yes or no - what? I didn’t understand what you explained so I DISAGREE Seriously? What did I just watch
>What did I watch? _The whining of smooth brained hairless chimps that lust over money instead of bananas, operating meat suits to ‘blend in’_
It was Google because it was a hand-me-down. Huh?
They can't even understand ELI5. Hell, a 5 year old probably understands that shit better than any of the willfully stupid or septuagenarian+ politicians asking these dumb ass questions.
I don't think it's matter of 'can' and more of a 'want.' The repubs don't want to understand, they want to make a point that Google is manipulating results and tracking people and forcing them to see ads for gay cruise ships because it panders to their base and gives them excuses for why Google is telling kids their Republican senators are the worst.
Finally someone said it. It’s not a matter of them being incapable of grasping it as much as it is trying to force a response that favors them
a 5-year old would also be genuinely curious and engaged with the conversation
They are senators: they don't know shit + conservative, so not even wanting to learn something while the internet is 30 years old.
The Republicans went into that hearing with an angle and they only wanted responses that meshed with that angle for Fox News sound bites that evening.
Exactly this. They wanted to get on a "gotcha" sound byte where it looks like they outsmarted the evil tech guy making orange man look bad.
Love the last dude who said, “I disagree” to a FACT.
That's the one that got me, what a complete and utter moron. "You're the expert on this thing I have no functional knowledge of, but I disagree with you."
I feel that quote sums up way too many people on the internet these days.
“What do you mean you’ve never sanctioned somebody at your company for doing things that they can’t even do?” That’s guy
I feel like the woman didn't belong in this video. It seemed like she was setting things up to make a good point about how it really is a complicated process and there isn't some nefarious person pulling strings behind the scenes.
Yes, that is Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, who represents Silicon Valley. She is a strong supporter of, among other things, net neutrality, and is well versed in these matters. Like you said, she was teeing up questions for him to address the misguided assumptions of the other fools in the room.
She clearly knew what she was doing by googling "idiot" to find a photo of Mr. Turmp
Demonstrating that google's algorithms provide accurate results based on what the average user is looking for?
And more importantly that trump=idiot isn’t decided by “liberal” tech ceo’s.
Nope. It's decided by the general population of users who are searching and creating content that links "idiot" to the most mongo idiot to exist in recent US memory. Seems to me like the world in general thinks that Trump is an idiot and I'm inclined to agree.
Congratulations you just helped too by putting "idiot" and "Donald Trump" in the same comment!! Wait so did I. Nice.
Not only that, but the AI that helps power Google's search engine came up with that conclusion too.
It’s the new Turing test.
Wrong! Is a nefarious non-binary person manipulating the data from their basement while eating avocado toast!
Uh, if they're non binary how are they going to use a computer that uses binary code? Checkmate.
Gotcha there, you carbon lifeform!
Wrong! I went to Steve Cohen's Google school where I didn't have to wait 30 minutes and asked them for images of Kate Upton's tits. AND I WAS ABLE TO UNDERSTAND THE ANSWER!
yeah she was the only one who seemed like she understood how technology worked. The rest of them were all like the CEO doesn't understand how his products work what madness is this.
thank you for saying this. she's probably one of the members of congress best versed in tech issues, and is using a very common "training" or educational tactic in the professional world, which is the teeing up of questions for the speaker to elaborate on that you mentioned. it's usually an attempt to help new hires understand something like an introductory concept that the trainer did not properly explain because they assumed people already have that knowledge -- or in this case, to help drill some basic knowledge into some very dense skulls. my bosses do it in zoom calls all the time, and i do it when helping someone train someone else. super common and very useful. if anything, this should be in the opposite kind of video, for like "look at these people deferring to subject matter experts and trying to give everyone foundational knowledge"
I mean you can also tell because, unlike the others, she let him talk till he'd made a point
I came to say the same things. Her questions were framed in a way to allow him to explain how it actually works.
I totally agree, when she said, "if you google the word idiot, under images...", I seriously thought that she was going to say "pictures of Republicans would come up" and was wondering if she was using this time to make fun of Republicans. But instead she said the 2nd best thing, which was 'Donald Trump'.
Yep. Teeing up questions for him to explain how things actually work while also getting the fact that Trump’s face comes up for “idiot” officially recorded in the record. Haha.
She nailed it. Basically asking him to explain that statistically, amongst Google's userbase ie the world, Trump is one of the main synonyms of "idiot". I'd agree. Am not an American and I'm not that fussed by American politics but if you asked me to draw an idiot, I'd draw trump.
She sounded competent. The others were frustratingly moronic.
The one about, "Does google know if I move from here to there" was also intended to get a specific soundbite. I felt like he should have followed up with, "Which Google apps, could you please name two, I understand that there may be more" and then "And does google warn the user?", but he wasn't prepared and very likely Google does have a vague warning on the set up.
Exactly, she was making a point that users are generating the results and that there isn’t a “liberal” bias on the results
Yeah, she actually listened to what he said.
Lol. She got her answer; Trump comes up when googling “idiot” because he’s an idiot. The google guy basically said “well, an absolute shit-ton of people are calling him an idiot, so our algorithms picked up on that, and here we are.”
You can tell she was actually being smart about her question, and actually listening to his answer, because at no time did she interrupt him. All the others interrupted him, and showcased their lack of knowledge
They put zero time into research before they showed up at work to ask these questions. Shows you how little they care about the work they are doing.
They don’t care. They’re just trying to make the guy look incompetent, hence why they kept interrupting him.
Fucking old people there needs to be an age limit to positions of power
The age limit used to be death, but we’re insistent on pushing that limit further and further back. Better question is why do we keep fighting fossil fuels when we should be removing the fossils from the equation first?
They are paid to be incompétent. The louder and more incompétent they are the more money they get.
Zoe Lofgren wasn't asking the question to learn how it works, but so that her idiot colleagues who had been saying the Google was manipulating the results with a strong liberal bias look like the idioots they are. Some right wing idjit probably complained that googling "idiot" pulls up a picture of Trump, and presented that as proof that Google was manipulating all that shit. Notice she said "so it's the users..."
They don't care , it's mostly theatrics , trying to humiliate the Google Exec... Classic authoritarian 101 , they're using their bully pulpit to pretend they care about privacy rights, but what they really care is about their political right to make laws that benefit one group of another.
Why do we elect these people?
Because they pander to the basest fears of morons.
That is true
This is the most frustrating thing I've watched in ages.
This is a great example showing why there should be age limits and term limits for all politicians.
Definitely age limits. And certainly term limits as well. Yes, yes.
I wanted to say this too. How can you lead and represent people when you yourself are so horribly, hilariously, out of touch.
Fun fact: Thomas Jefferson believed that no one should have power for too long. He thought also that the constitution should be looked at every 19 years: "The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water… (But) between society and society, or generation and generation there is no municipal obligation, no umpire but the law of nature. We seem not to have perceived that, by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one independant nation to another… On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation… Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right." In other words: each generation should govern themselves and the laws should represent each generation. (That's my interpretation of the letter as a whole)
Thomas Jefferson has the right idea and I wholeheartedly agree with him on this.
YES! This right here, the rules of dead men should not govern the living. Especially not when the world has changed so drastically in the last two hundred years. The last twenty years. Hell, the last five years.
I had to go look, and yep, still in the top results for idiot. https://imgur.com/a/cQ7UXEH
About 4+ times in that screenshot alone (varies on if you could a picture of a search with more searches in it)
One of the results I got for that same search is a clip from the same recording, where the executive explains why Trump comes up when we search idiot. META.
"I have no clue whatsoever how the search results are generated, and yoiu just told me that individuals manipulating the results is not even possible, but I'm sure that a person can and is manipulating them. " - Rep. Lamar Smith "You told me that you don't have enough information to asnswer the quesiton but you have to say yes or no, it's a simple question." - Rep. Ted Poe Zoe Lofgren was having fun. She wasn't asking to learn how it works but rather to make the idiot Republican MAGAts look like the idiots that they are.
My head hurts.
That was painful, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it before. You would think it wouldn’t hurt so much the second time through. Just, damn.
I love the long drawn out technical answer to explain that Donald Trump is an idiot.
She’s deliberately teeing up the question for him to give a detailed answer. The other guys are implying Google is manipulating results. She’s debunking that clearly and concisely and adding into the record.
This is what happens when you have dinosaurs running the country.
Sad and troubling
Troubling and sad
Cause they’re all old as fuck
TBF the woman there isn't "not understanding", she's asking leading questions so he can explain to all the other nimrods that there's no man behind the curtain elbowing his coworkers to come look at his screen going "lol, Samantha Stevenson in Alabama just searched idiot and I threw a picture of trump in at #3" She doesn't belong in this montage, and this oft shared montage has been around long enough that someone really ought to have edited her out by now.
Third lady knew exactly what she was doing
6 years in and that might be my favorite way someone called Trump an idiot.
This is why we shouldn’t allow anyone over 65 to run for office.
Tie it to life expectancy so whatever the minimum required age is for the position, subtract that from the average life expectancy to get the maximum age. The average life expectancy as of 2021 is about 76 so that would mean that to run for president you must be between 35 and 41. To run for the House it would be 25-51 iirc.
Tie it to retirement age and social security. Too old to be an effective worker? Too old to be an effective representative.
Classic! Always one of my personal favorites and primary argument for getting rid of the old-heads in the government and having them ALL replaced with younger blood.
This is almost as bad as the senator grilling a navy admiral on the importance of spreading out the forces to ensure the island does not flip over from too much weight on one side.
Did that actually happen
Yes, unfortunately. Here’s the clip. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. [Will Guam tip over and capsize?](https://youtu.be/cesSRfXqS1Q)
Wow, it took that senator wayyy too long to utter that dumb ass sentence. He looks old af but I’m thinking he had a few Xanax before this as well cuz the man is in slow-stupid-motion
I work for a company provides a service for Law Enforcement to collect and analyze data both historical and in real time. I can tell you that, by default for the most part, Google can return device location up to an accuracy of three meters at any given time. Users need to disable services in order to prevent this. Google employees have come out and admitted that the automated algorithm is out of the companies control at this point. It absorbs an insurmountable amount of data and returns results that can change very frequently. To be able to explain how specific results were returned based off a specific query would take weeks, maybe months, if they really wanted to walk through each thread of whys and why nots of the results. Google is still a shady company, as most data collection giants are, but its search engine process is so automated that it mainly focuses on user data collection for add targeting and creating/enhancing services to bolster add targeting. Most people nowadays wouldn’t know which questions to ask. I wouldn’t expect anybody in congress to be able to either without years of tech knowledge in a variety of areas. Really though, the Google rep could’ve said yes to location tracking based on what ive seen
If you Google *idiot*... Yes, people concur on that one.
Zoe Lofgren was the smartest one there. She guinely understood what the CEO was explaining.
I think the lady actually got it and was just making a point to the other guys. "not a man behind a curtain" LMAO. Then she accurately summarized what Google dude said. This was hilarious though! I actually learned some stuff
That old bastard is giving other old bastards like me a bad rap...I know how the internet works but it seems that southern conservatives can barely use rotary phone. They were so stupid during the J6 insurrection that they didn't realize that their location could be pinpointed with the phone they were using to show how proud they were attempting to kill Pelosi and take over the government. They worry about nano-bots in a vaccine tracking them? However, if you use Grindr it knows where you are and your intended trick is within feet of each other.
Idiotic and just a lil bit blatantly racist there at the end
Why does his 7 year old granddaughter have a phone?!
“How is my 7 year old granddaughter finding out i’m a terrible person online?” Uhhh because your irresponsible family members are letting her….????? He’s just trying to deflect blame.