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Project Veritas and Politicians Accuse Google of Anti-Trump Bias

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2 years ago

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  • Project Veritas released a report with documents from an anonymous source within Google and secretly recorded footage of a Google employee, Jen Gennai, speaking about the company’s policies.
  • Both Project Veritas and the source claim that Google has a liberal bias, is silencing conservative voices, and trying to prevent leaders like Donald Trump from gaining power. 
  • Gennai wrote that her words were taken out of context and edited to make her sound like she was working to get Trump out of office. 
  • A Google executive also spoke in a Senate hearing where she was asked about the report, and she said the company builds for everyone, regardless of political ideology. 

Project Veritas Video Shows Google Employee

Google has been accused of harboring a liberal bias after a Project Veritas report showed leaked company documents and secretly recorded footage with a Google employee.

Project Veritas uploaded a video Monday with footage they shot “undercover” of Jen Gennai, who they identify as the Head of Responsible Innovation at Google. In the video, she can be seen speaking about a number of things, ranging from politics to Google’s policy. They claim her words convey that the company has an anti-Trump attitude. 

“We all got screwed over in 2016, again it wasn’t just us,” she says in one clip.  “It was, the people got screwed over, the news media got screwed over, like, everybody got screwed over so we’re rapidly been like, what happened there and how do we prevent it from happening again.”

“2020, certainly on top of my old organization, Trust and Safety, top of mind, they’ve been working on it since 2016, to make sure we’re ready for 2020,” she later says. “We’re also training our algorithms, like, if 2016 happened again, would we have, would the outcome be different?” 

Gennai also speaks about politicians’ desires to intervene with Google. She said that Google has ignored requests to speak with Congress because they don’t intend on changing their practices. 

“Elizabeth Warren is saying we should break up Google,” Gennai says in a clip. “And like, I love her but she’s very misguided, like that will not make it better it will make it worse, because all these smaller companies who don’t have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation, it’s like a small company cannot do that.” 

She can also be heard speaking about political bias when it comes to what Google considers to be a credible news source.

“We have gotten accusations of…around fairness is that we’re unfair to conservatives because we’re choosing what we find as credible news sources and those sources don’t necessarily overlap with conservative sources,” said Gennai. 

The video has been removed from YouTube. YouTube told Rogue Rocket that it violated their privacy guidelines by depicting someone’s face and likeness who was being filmed without their consent. Had Gennai’s face been blurred and name been removed, it would not have violated this policy. 

Anonymous Source Leaks Documents

In addition to this footage, an anonymous source sat down with Project Veritas. The source said that Google was highly biased and wanted to prevent Trump from being re-elected in 2020.

They also brought forward documents about Google’s practices. One of those documents was internal information on Google’s position when it comes to news. It states that their goal is to “Establish a ‘single point of truth’ for definition of ‘news’ across Google products.”

Other documents explain a concept that they call Algorithmic Unfairness and explains how they are trying to address this. According to the documents that the source brought forward, Algorithmic Unfairness means “unjust or prejudicial treatment of people that is related to sensitive characteristics such as race, income, sexual orientation, or gender, through algorithmic systems or algorithmically aided decision making.” 

One example the document provides states that if you search CEOs into Google Images you will see mainly men. Even though this would be factually accurate, it would be algorithmic unfairness because it reinforces stereotypes about men and women’s roles in the workplace. 

However, it also says that in some cases, it may be “appropriate to take no action if the system accurately affects current reality.”

While in other cases, they could consider how to “help society reach a more fair and equitable state, via either product intervention or broader corporate social responsibility efforts.” 

To see what happens when this example is put into practice, Rogue Rocket, typed CEOs into Google Images. The photos were mainly of men, though “woman” is a suggestion up top.

The source also says that Google is furthering an agenda in its search suggestions. 

In the video, they show that when you type “women can” into the engine, you get things like “women can vote,” “women can do anything,” and “women can fly.” When typing “men can” you get things like “men can have babies,” “men can cook,” and “men can get pregnant.” The source says this pushes a progressive agenda. 

Rogue Rocket typed those phrases into Google to see if the suggestions are universal and got overlapping results, with varying differences. 

Another search example Project Veritas shows was typing “Hillary Clinton’s e-mails are” versus “Donald Trump’s e-mails” into the Google search engine. The engine gives no suggestions for Clinton but does for Trump. The source claims that this is intentional. 

“Well, according to them, Hillary Clinton’s emails are a conspiracy theory and its unfair to return results based on her emails,” the source said. 

The source goes on to say that they are training AI to turn up results like this. Rogue Rocket typed the phrases in as well and found that no suggestions came up for Clinton, but did for Trump. However, once the search on Clinton’s e-mails is entered, there are results including archives from WikiLeaks, Politico, and NPR, as well as pages from Wikipedia and Fox News. 

Search results show no suggestions for Clinton’s emails
Search results that appear for Trump.

Project Veritas’ report also brings up Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which allows companies like Google to not be held accountable for the content they provide. This is because they are a platform, not a publisher. However, the source says they believe Google should be considered a publisher and should be held accountable.

The source also goes on to talk about YouTube, a Google-owned company.  They say that YouTube is demonetizing conservative voices and using AI to suppress their videos. The source claims that because of this, since a conference in May, many have seen their view counts go down. 

Gennai Responds

Later on Monday, Gennai responded to the video, saying she had been receiving threats since it was uploaded. She wrote a Medium post about what happened and claimed her words were taken out of context.

“In late May, I accepted an invitation to meet with a few people who claimed to be from ‘2 Step Tech Solutions’. They said they wanted to chat to me about a mentoring program for young women of color in tech, an area I’ve long been passionate about,” Gennai wrote. 

“Unfortunately, I now know that these people lied about their true identities, filmed me without my consent, selectively edited and spliced the video to distort my words and the actions of my employer, and published it widely online,” she added. 

Gennai specifically explained that in terms of talking about the election, her words had been misconstrued. 

“I was explaining how Google’s Trust and Safety team (a team I used to work on) is working to help prevent the types of online foreign interference that happened in 2016. Google has been very public about the work that our teams have done since 2016 on this, so it’s hardly a revelation,” Gennai said. 

Gennai also said that the video brought up debunked conspiracy theories and that Google has no “notion of political ideology.” 

Second Project Veritas Report

On Tuesday Project Veritas released another report with what they say are emails from a Google employee. In those emails, someone refers to PragerU, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro as Nazis. 

“I don’t think correctly identifying far-right content is beyond our capabilities. But if it is, why not go with Meredith’s suggestion of disabling the suggestion feature?” the e-mail continues. 

According to their report, they say this implies that they should be removed from suggested content. 

PragerU then launched a petition to stop big tech bias, saying that conservative ideas are under attack. 

Shapiro also tweeted at YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki about the matter. 

Peterson also called Google out.

Regarding these reports, YouTube Insider tweeted that the site has no political bias. 

A YouTube representative also told Rogue Rocket that Google has an open culture and several large e-mail groups about a number of topics from things like pets to politics. This allows employees to voice their opinions with one another. 

YouTube added that the leaked e-mails did not come from a YouTube employee, and that this person does not speak on behalf of the company, and that this is not an official company position.

Politicians Respond

On Tuesday, U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation had a hearing.  During the hearing, Maggie Stanphill, the Director of User Experiences at Google spoke as a witness.

Senator Ted Cruz brought up the Project Veritas report and the claim it makes about the company being anti-Trump. 

“Do you think its Google’s job to make sure somebody like Donald Trump never comes into power again?” Cruz asked Stanphill.

“No sir, I don’t think, I don’t think that is Google’s job,” Stanphill responded. “And we build for everyone, including every single religious belief, every single demographic every single region, and certainly every political affiliation.” 

President Donald Trump spoke about Google on Wednesday in a phone interview with Fox Business. 

“Look, we should be suing Google and Facebook and all that, which perhaps we will, okay,” Trump said. 

He did not say why the companies should be sued, but he did say Google was trying to rig the 2020 election.

The Washington Post ran a statement from a Google spokesperson in response. That statement claims that the company seeks “to be a trustworthy source of information for everyone, without any regard for political viewpoint.”

See what others are saying: (The Hill) (Fox News) (Washington Post)

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Florida Breaks Its Record for New Daily COVID-19 Cases and Hospitalizations

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1 day ago

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August 2, 2021

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The Sunshine State now accounts for 20% of all new COVID-19 cases nationwide.

Florida Becomes COVID Epicenter

Florida reported 10,207 COVID-19 hospitalizations on Sunday, marking its largest single-day count to date. The grim record comes just one day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data showing that the state had counted 21,683 new infections Friday, its highest record of daily cases since the start of the pandemic.


Florida has become the new epicenter of the most recent U.S. outbreaks driven by the delta variant. The state now accounts for one out of every five new cases, and the weekend numbers are highly significant because they surpass previous records that were logged before vaccines were readily available.

Notably, Florida’s vaccination rate is actually the exact same as the nationwide average of 49% fully vaccinated, according to The New York Times tracker. In fact, Florida’s rate is the highest among the top 10 states currently reporting the most COVID cases.

While Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has encouraged Florida residents to get vaccinated, he and the state’s legislature have also made it much harder for local officials to enforce protections to mitigate further spread.

DeSantis Bars Masking in Schools

On the same day that the state reported its highest cases ever, DeSantis signed an executive order banning school districts from requiring students to wear a mask when they go back to school later this month.

The move directly contradicts guidance issued by the CDC last week, which recommended that everyone inside K-12 schools wear a face covering.

DeSantis, for his part, has repeatedly claimed the spikes are part of “seasonal” increases driven by more people being indoors and air-conditioning systems circulating the virus. Still, he argued also Friday that he did not think masks were necessary to prevent children from transmitting COVID in the classroom, where they are inside with air conditioning.

At the same time, last week, Florida reported more than 21,000 infections among children younger than 19.

Florida is not the only state that has banned schools from requiring masks. In fact, many of the states suffering the biggest spikes have done the same, including Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas — which all currently rank among the top 10 states with the highest per capita COVID cases.

See what others are saying: (The Washington Post) (NPR) (Axios)

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Biden to Mandate COVID Vaccines for Federal Workers as CDC Changes Masking Guidance

Published

6 days ago

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July 28, 2021

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News of the efforts came on the same day that the U.S. reported more than 100,000 new daily COVID cases for the first time since February.

Federal Vaccine Mandate

President Joe Biden will announce Thursday that all federal employees must get vaccinated against COVID-19 or consent to strict testing and other safety precautions, White House officials told reporters Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, Biden said he was considering the requirement but did not provide any more information.

While the officials also said the details are still being hashed out, they did note that the policy would be similar to ones recently put in place by California and New York City, which respectively required state and city workers to get the jab or submit to regular testing.

Also on Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated their guidelines to recommend that Americans who live in areas “of substantial or high transmission,” as well as all students and teachers, wear masks indoors regardless of their vaccination status.

Delta Causes Spikes, But Vaccines Still Prove Effective

The renewed COVID mitigation efforts come as the delta variant is driving massive surges all over the country.

Coronavirus cases have quadrupled throughout July, jumping from a weekly average of 11,799 on the first day of the month to 63,248 on Tuesday, according to The New York Times tracker. Tuesday also saw new daily infections topping 100,000 for the first time since February, with more than 108,000 reported, per The Times.

While the vast majority of new infections are among people who have not been vaccinated, there have also been increasing reports of breakthrough cases in people who have received the jab. 

Those cases, however, do not mean that the vaccines are not effective. 

No vaccine prevents 100% of infections. Health officials have said time and time again that the jabs are intended to prevent severe disease and death, and they are doing just that.

According to the most recent data for July 19, the CDC reported that only 5,914 of the more than 161 million Americans who have gotten the vaccine were hospitalized or died from COVID-19 — a figure that represents 0.0036% of vaccinated people.

While safety precautions may be recommended for some people who have received the vaccine, many media narratives have overstated the role breakthrough cases play in the recent spikes. As New York Magazine explains, it is imperative to understand these new mask recommendations are not happening because the vaccine is not effective, but because not enough people are getting the vaccine.

“Because breakthrough infections have so often made the news due to their novelty, that can create a perception of more cases than are actually happening — particularly without more robust tracking of the actual cases to provide context,” the outlet wrote.

See what others are saying: (The Washington Post) (The New York Times) (CNBC)

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Wisconsin Police Deny Planting Evidence in Viral Video, Release Their Own Body Cam Footage

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1 week ago

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July 26, 2021

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The footage police released shows that during a search, officers found a corner tear from a plastic bag inside a backseat passenger’s pocket. An officer then discarded it into the car after determining that it was empty.

Viral Video Appears To Show Officer Planting Evidence

The Caledonia Police Department in Wisconsin has responded to a viral cell phone video that appears to show an officer planting a small plastic baggie inside of a car during a traffic stop.

The now-viral footage was posted to Facebook by a man who goes by GlockBoy Savoo.

The user, who also filmed the clip, wrote in his post’s caption that the officer did this “just to get a reason to search the car” and said the cop didn’t know he was being recorded by the passenger.

Source: Facebook/ GlockBoy Savoo

Police Shut Down Accusations With Their Own Footage

After that video spread across social media, many were outraged, calling the Caledonia police dirty for seemingly planting evidence. All the outrage eventually prompted the department to announce an investigation Saturday.

Within hours, the department provided an update, claiming that officers didn’t actually plant any evidence or do anything illegal.

Police shared a lengthy summary of events, along with two body camera clips from the incident. That statement explained that the driver of the vehicle was pulled over for going 63 in a 45mph zone.

Two passengers in the backseat who were then spotted without seatbelts were asked to identify themselves and step out of the car. During a search of one passenger’s pockets, an officer pulled out “an empty corner tear” from a plastic baggie.

Police claim the corner tear did not contain any illegal substances, though they said this type of packaging is a common method for holding illegal drugs.

In one body cam clip, an officer can be heard briefly questioning the backseat passenger about the baggie. Then, that piece of plastic gets handed off to different officers who also determined it as empty before the officer in the original viral video discarded it into the back of the car.

The officer can also be seen explaining where the plastic came from to the passenger recording him.

“Aye, bro you just threw that in here!” the front seat passenger says, as heard in his version of the events.

“Yeah, cause it was in his pocket and I don’t want to hold onto it. It’s on their body cam that they took it off of him…I’m telling you where it came from, so. It’s an empty baggie at the moment too, so,” the officer replies.

The department went on to explain that while it would discourage officers from discarding items into a citizen’s car, this footage proves that evidence was not planted.

Authorities also noted that no arrests were made in this incident and the driver was the only one issued a citation for speeding. The statement added that since four officers were present at the scene, police have more than six hours of footage to review but they promised to release the footage in full in the near future.

See what others are saying: (Heavy)(CBS 58) (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

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