How Bad is Life for Google? They Advertise in Conservative Magazines That Attack Them

WASHINGTON, December 11, 2018 – This is how bad it’s gotten for Google in Washington: The company is taking out ads on the back of the conservative National Review while, and the same time, the story suggests gaslighting the company.

The ad picks a conservative-friendly theme: “Now you can search ‘jobs for veterans’ and enter your MOS code to find civilian jobs that match your skills.”

Inside the article, “The populism Trump needs,” by Michael Brendan Dougherty, two of the six points are directly or indirectly aimed at Google: “Take the conflict with China to Silicon Valley,” and “Make Gavin Newsom defend Silicon Valley and the California Model.”

In the point about China, which is actually quote potent, Dougherty says:

• The big Silicon Valley target should be Google, whose social utility is running out…. And now its political effect is threatening to become toxic. First, Google’s dominance across the Internet has effectively made it the world’s most powerful spy agency. That’s already a vulnerability that American rivals could exploit. But Google is planning on making things worse, as it actively explores a partnership with the Chinese government. Already Google has done work creating a censored version of the Internet for China. It has been caught compiling user data to help the Chinese government fill out its blacklists. This partnership is likely to be great in the short  term for Google, but it may give a geopolitical rival access to technologies and data that are vital to U.S. national security.

The point about Gov.-elect Newsom and the “California Model” is much more vapid. The big point seems to be that in California, life and real estate are expensive. And that is something for which the Democrats should be blamed?

(Photo of the December 17, 2018, edition of the National Review by Drew Clark.)