[hwillis]

You're conflating New America with Open Markets. Google is one of New America's funders, and Open Markets is a group inside New America. Google is using it's funds to influence New America's behavior.

Do you think it's ethical for a company funding a news agency to influence what they publish? The same would logically go for research. Google should be free to chose to fund or not fund New America, but they should not be able to use that funding for influence. That's unethical.

Furthermore there definitely is an argument for Google's behavior being unethical regardless. Acting in your self-interest is not unconditionally ethical. By analogy: a person absolutely has a personal responsibility to inform others if they are dangerous. It would be unethical to hide the fact that I'm not a safe driver, or that I'm prone to psychotic rages. Google is not ethically excused if their monopoly is deleterious to the public good just because saying it would affect their bottom line.

[melikeburgers]

But New America isn't a news agency. It's a public policy think tank. So it isn't at all unethical for Google to stop funding a think tank if it disagrees with it's research.

[hwillis]

It's not unethical to not donate. It's unethical to direct their research. They're an independent entity.

Even more important than that though is that think tanks are supposed to produce objective truth through rational arguments. It is unethical to interfere with objective truth. Google can argue the subjective validity of what New America produces, but they can't just block things they don't agree with. By influencing New America to avoid statements condemning Google, that's what they are doing.

I'll admit it's a fine line between withdrawing funding and using it as a threat to influence a think tank, but I think the difference is obvious.

[melikeburgers]

Corporations often invest in public policy groups that further their own goals. Once they realize the funding is antithetical to the corporate goals, it's in the company's best interest to defund it.

The onus here to protect the Open Markets work, IMO, isn't on Google. It should be on the New America foundation. They had 2 choices: 1, Tell Google goodbye and raise money elsewhere while keeping to fund the Open Market initiative. Or 2, Keep Google's funding while defunding and disbanding the Open Markets team.

The ire, I believe, should be directed at the New America foundation and their leadership. Google seemed to just protect their best interests.

[EGreg]

"Do you think it's ethical for a company funding a news agency to influence what they publish?"

Every news agency's owners and advertisers influence what they publish. The argument from ethics is an interesting one. I know many advertisers who pull their funding from a show whose host said something controversial. They make the network fire the host and cancel a show etc.

[hwillis]

Just because something is controversial doesn't mean it's journalistically valuable. For instance if a host does something that the company considers unethical (eg a controversial statement that may or may not be true but is definitely damaging), they have an ethical responsibility to pull their business, even if it's actually against their own self interest. If you instead consider truth to be more important, then companies are also justified in pulling their business if they think the controversial statement is obviously false.

The unethical part of what google is doing is that there is very little chance they are not acting entirely in their own self-interest. There is an entire additional stratum of arguments underneath that which are about the real truth, freedom of speech, and whether it is okay to block what people think based on your opinions.

[EGreg]

"May or may not be true, but definitely damaging" sounds like what these guys were publishing.

Lots of opinions are damaging to someone or someone's agenda if taken seriously by enough people.

Do you really think these other corporate sponsors don't think about what's good for them and their image when they pull funding? You have to compare apples to apples. Google should be compared to other corporate sponsors of projects.

[musage]

> Every news agency's owners and advertisers influence what they publish.

That answers whether they think it's ethical. However, they weren't asked.