[twmb]

I caution against latching onto the title and making assumptions. The bulk of the content is analyzing where the current censorship position came from and the conclusion is for Google to be more open with their stance and also be more equal with applying it.

As for the why:

  Why the shift toward censorship?
  - User Demands
    - before, In the absence of rules, bad behaviour thrived
    - now, Appease users, maintain platform loyalty
  - Government Demands
    - before, Governments were unhappy to cede power to corporations
    - now, Respond to regulatory demands, maintain global expansion
  - Commercial Demands
    - before, It’s impossible to neutrally promote content and info
    - now, Monetize content through its organisation, increase revenues
    - before, Advertisers were wary of unintended placement and endorsement
    - now, Protect advertisers from controversial content, increase revenues

As for the conclusions:

  Don’t take sides
  Police tone instead of content
  Enforce standards and policies clearly
  Justify global positions
  Explain the technology
  Improve communications
  Take problems seriously
  Positive guidelines
  Better signposts

Most of the document is non-controversial. There are places where it can be seen as obviously left leaning, but there are also places where it acknowledges that sometimes the right has been treated worse:

  “[Richard] Spencer doesn't get to be a verified speaker; Milo gets kicked off, but I know 
  plenty of pretty abusive feminist users or left wing users,
  expressing themselves in exactly the same way
  that the right is being penalised for,
  who are permitted
  to perform certain kinds of speech. That’s going to get Twitter into

[noobermin]

I don't know where you got "left leaning" from unless you're bending over backwards to be fair, they are if anything centrists which makes sense since they're Google. For heaven's sake, the slide about conversations of free speech, I see establishment centrist media pieces on the same plot as Breitbart and WorldNetDaily. An equivalent would be listing the Young Turks or alternet.

[twmb]

I think it is fair, but I can imagine a scenario where a person reads a line and thinks "this is obviously leftist".

Personally, I think company's have been bending over backwards to prove they aren't biasing against the right.

[tropo]

On the two pages titled "But recent global events have undermined this utopian narrative" there are a total of 8 events depicted. The viewer is expected to think that the events are problems. About 4 or 5 of the events would be considered good by many on the right, but bad by the left. The remaining events are just gross, weird, and otherwise unrelated to the US political spectrum.

[shittyadmin]

Yeah, honestly I don't think Breitbart and similar can really play this as negative for Google when it acknowledges many actions have been taken even against right wingers unfairly and encourages "Don't take sides" as a top point.

The biggest thing to complain about would probably be the title... they couldn't have picked a worse title.

[WillPostForFood]

The negative for Google isn't what the briefing suggests, it is that it documents bias, it notes the impossible tension between the US and European values, and says that Google has been leaning away from US values. I think that's what Breitbart would be primarily reacting to.

[adventured]

There's a larger question that Breitbart is raising: should we tolerate Google - or any company - as a monopolist with censorship power over information distribution. In this case, they're an extraordinarily powerful, expansive monopolist at that. Who decides the degree to which they censor, who gets censored, what information gets censored, etc. Google isn't just a company policing its own platform. Imagine Microsoft aggressively censoring what people could browse, upload to the Internet or write on its operating system in ~2001 (or any time during peak Windows monopoly): it'd be an obvious monopoly abuse, harm to consumers, and as an extension of that monopoly position a form of censorship. Google, through the leverage of its multiple monopolies (search, YouTube, Android), is pushing toward that sort of behavior.

[shittyadmin]

I was going to say that they're not really doing it on Android, but then I remembered that both Apple and Google banned the free speech absolutist social network Gab's official app.

At least on Android you can still install it without Google's consent if you so choose. Overall though what you're saying still has more validity to it than I'd like to admit.