[ditonal]

The article is a fluff piece that's comically uncritical of Google. There's obvious hypocrisy for a company that's done all sorts of user-antagonistic things to internet users as Google has, from Google AMP stealing traffic, to PRISM actively violating the 4th amendment, to Dragonfly explicitly enabling censorship. Google's gotten away with the hypocrisy due to a relentless PR engine. Maybe if you don't like predictable Hacker News snark, downvote the PR "submarine" pieces from the front page, because there's nothing of value in this article and "predictable" critique is the best it deserves.

[saurik]

If you want to try on a positive spin for AMP, it was Google's awkward attempt to defend against Facebook Instant Articles (which the feature set of AMP almost at times felt like a direct rip-off of) in a world where people preferred to read news articles inside of the Facebook app instead of a browser; which, in comparison, AMP was massively more open than. The issue is that, in the end, Google always feels like they get to decide the response of the web--with their search engine and browser standing in somewhat for the walled garden social network and app of something like Facebook--and then it all gets twisted to benefit them in some unique way, which sucks :/.

[Karrot_Kream]

> There's obvious hypocrisy for a company that's done all sorts of user-antagonistic things to internet user

Does this mean any article about Google that does not criticize Google deserves this snark? Fwiw the snark is annoying not because folks disagree with it, but that saying it again and again and doing nothing is a trite form of internet me-too-ing or signalling. That Google depends on an ethically dubious set of assumptions is obvious; now how do we fix it and why are we talking about this here?

[kelnos]

Not any article, perhaps, but an article essentially praising Google for warning about $THING when Google is a contributor to the badness of $THING, definitely deserves a healthy dose of snark tossed at it.

[threatofrain]

This article isn't a fluff piece. It's the Google CEO giving conversation on many topics such as quantum computing or AI.

[retox]

My understanding is that Google was a target of PRISM, not complicit in it.

[snowwrestler]

PRISM was just the internal NSA source designation for data obtained under FISA warrants, which are not optional.

[bpodgursky]

Please don't distort the meaning of words. PR "submarine" pieces are a very real thing, but they are exactly what the phrase suggests — an article put out by a corporate PR department for publication.

This was literally an interview by a real reporter, edited into an article. You might not like that the interviewer wasn't antagonistic (let's be real — most aren't!), but this is not a "PR submarine piece" by any sane definition of the phrase.

[travoc]

Reprinting a single person’s viewpoints without critique or counterpoint isn’t news or “real reporting.” It’s still just a PR piece.

[neolog]

That's true but parent is complaining about the use of "submarine", which I agree isn't an accurate description.

[Karrot_Kream]

Would you argue that any interview without an interview of a contra opinion is also just a PR piece?

[voakbasda]

Unbalanced reporting is biased? Yes, it is.