When Google Met Wikileaks
In June 2011, Julian Assange received an unusual visitor: the chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, arrived from America at Ellingham Hall, the country residence in Norfolk, England where Assange was living under house arrest. For several hours the besieged leader of the world’s most famous insurgent publishing organization and the billionaire head of the world’s largest information empire locked horns. The two men debated the political problems faced by society, and the technological solutions engendered by the global network—from the Arab Spring to Bitcoin. They outlined radically opposing perspectives: for Assange, the liberating power of the Internet is based on its freedom and statelessness. For Schmidt, emancipation is at one with US foreign policy objectives and is driven by connecting non-Western countries to American companies and markets. These differences embodied a tug-of-war over the Internet’s future that has only gathered force subsequently. When Google Met WikiLeaks presents the story of Assange and Schmidt’s encounter. Both fascinating and alarming, it contains an edited transcript of their conversation and extensive, new material, written by Assange specifically for this book, providing the best available summary of his vision for the future of the Internet.
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- See also: the entire history of Silicon Valley
When Google Met Wikileaks is a fun read, billionaire CEOs love to take Americas side.
- Julian Assange wrote an excellent book on this topic called "when Google met wikileaks" about a decade ago which i found to be eye-opening. The backdrop is the "arab spring" uprisings of the early 10s, which were widely touted by leaders in both silicon Valley and Washington as an example of the positive impacts of social media, a mere five years before this opinion was suddenly reversed when some of these positive effects came home.
The titular event is an account of when one of Google's executives came to britain to meet him in person (at this point he's fighting extradition to the United States but has not yet sequestered himself inside the Ecuadorian embassy). From the conversation Assange gets the impression that the Google exec is acting as an unofficial envoy of the US state department in hopes of convincing him to "play ball" by publishing more and more information which will advance the arab spring narrative. The rest of the book is his own personal investigation into the incestuous links between US foreign policy, social media corporations and the so-called "arab spring".
- read "when google met wikileaks", tech giants are more than happy to help with national security
- This is a feature for Google, not a bug. I suggest you read “When Google met Wikileaks” [0] for a nice read related to this topic, including discussions with former U.S. Department of State people brought in to run Google ideas.
[0] https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/when-google-met-wikileaks/
- Well, I don't know if they'd really fit the bill for you, but what comes to my mind is stuff by Jaron Lanier, and "When Google Met Wikileaks" by Julian Assange. Assange actually seems similar to Chomsky to me because of the depth and breadth of his knowledge.
- As likely is that whoever runs it (Assange or other) was always an ass, or they went off the rails, or was at the receiving end of a rubber hose interrogation, or ...
Really, at this point, it's hard to say for certain with all the spooks involved and the circumstances of the major players.
That said, I maintain that "When Google Met Wikileaks" and "Cypherpunks" are excellent reads.
