[ajross]

To devil's advocate your devil's advocacy: let's just assume Google is encouraging people to vote because they know that more democrats will see that message, that they want democrats to win, and that's the only reason for them doing so.

What is wrong with that, and how would you propose to fix it via a mechanism that didn't also e.g. outlaw FOX News?

[marcosdumay]

Can FOX News (or any other media organization) do a campaign with the same impact as Google?

If they can, then this is just a random guy making things out of proportion and there's nothing useful there. If they can't, and Google can indeed change people's mind in a level unparalleled to any other organization, then you go looking for why and you either takes that power away, or makes sure it's available for everybody.

[mc32]

To play devil's advocate to your advocacy of the devil's advocate, what if Exxon or a right-leaning org offered discounts to people who "promise to vote Republican". Nothing binding, simply an unenforceable promise (gentleman's or lady's agreement) to vote for a party in exchange for a 20% discount on your fuel.

[ajross]

> what if Exxon or a right-leaning org offered discounts to people who "promise to vote Republican"

Vote selling is election fraud, which is a crime. Anyone who took those discounts would go to jail. Sounds fair to me.

I don't see how "Please vote" is remotely comparable to vote buying. Can you elaborate?

[ikeyany]

A better example would be what if Google gave out 'I Voted!' awards that, upon proof that you voted, gave you access to special Google features.

[ajross]

OK, I guess. But... they don't. So what's the argument here?

[agar]

This is a fascinating rabbit hole to go down.

When you consider some of the recent decisions about what constitutes "speech," it raises the important question of whether a private company influencing its customers' voting preferences would actually be protected.

How much different is it for a company to use its speech to influence a politician directly (donations, lobbying, PACs, etc.) vs. stating its political opinions on its own private "property" potentially to influence politics indirectly?

In physical space, is it legal to:

* Have a sign promoting a social position in the window of your private store? ("Say no to drugs!") * Have a sign promoting a political position? ("Say no to the Iraq war!") * Have a sign promoting a candidate? ("I like Ike!") * Tell customers who to vote for? ("Have a nice day, vote for JFK!") * Tell only customers that "look a certain way" who to vote for? ("As someone in a wheelchair, you should vote for FDR!")

Now convert all this to the online world with banner ads, user targeting, and personalization. Isn't it just free speech at scale?

[em-bee]

it's the scale that may tip the balance from voicing your opinion to mass-manipulation. i am not saying that online speech is mass-manipulation, but it has the potential to be, whereas the other has not. and because of this potential they need to be considered separately.

fwiw, an online "go vote" is not manipulation if it's not targeted even if the audience is an uneven demographic, but "i like ike" is. and while google search may have a younger demographic, they certainly don't intentionally limit that, since they want everyone to use google search.