Google's free speech double standard "for the good of humanity"

A Bloomberg article highlights yet another Google double standard.

• A Bloomberg article by Janine Zacharia reports on how Google takes down content that is found objectionable by individual countries in: "Google Diplomats Bend Free Expression to Preserve Global Power."

The Google double standard is that Google takes down content objectional to other countries but refuses to largely comply with the legitimate bipartisan request of the Senate Homeland Security Committee to take down terrorist branded content designed to incite violence against Americans and others around the world. 

• While Google says it respects local laws and requirements, it clearly is not respecting the "local officials" that determine what the what free speech is in the U.S. -- because the U.S. Supreme Court does not recognize freedom of speech if it incites harm against people -- which is what terrorist content is all about.  

  I was also intrigued with the sweeping implications of the quote at the end of the Bloomberg article:

  • "Some say Google is in a unique position to take a tougher line in its Web diplomacy. "Google may be the first entity humankind has ever known with the global economic power and social influence to take the ethical high road and to treat free and open expression like a moral absolute,'' says Jonathan Askin, a Brooklyn Law School professor and lawyer for Internet and telecommunications clients. "If Google doesn't have the wherewithal to exert its influence for the good of humanity, I don't know who will have the courage going forward,'' he says." [bold added]

  • This fits with some of my recent discriptions of Google:

    • "Google increasingly operates like a self-declared, virtual sovereign nation, largely unaccountable to the rules and mores of the rest of the world."

    • post: "...Google has extraordinary market power in a critical bottleneck control position of the World's Information Economy."

  • It is also telling that Google is looked to for "moral absolutes" and "the good of humanity." 

    • I guess that would make Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, the final arbiter of "moral absolutes" -- given that Google CEO Eric Schmidt famously said: "evil is whatever Sergey says is evil."  (The Google Story, David A. Vise, p.211)