p2pnet - rss feed: Google boss on ‘Personal Democracy’
p2pnet.net news:- Can the ceo of the world’s most powerful Internet company corporate underwrite an ‘open’ conference touting ‘Personal Democracy,’ acquire keynote rights to address attendees on the importance of ‘communication’ and ‘transparency,’ AND then take questions from the audience, EXCEPT for questions from those in attendance who also happen to be members of the press, AND keep a straight face all the while?
All excellent questions, and they’re posed by Donna Bogatin in her ZDNet Digital Markets column.
“Google CEO and Chairman Eric Schmidt spoke Friday about the future of search, personalization, democracy, and even China, but you wouldn’t know it from the reaction of the crowd,” says InformationWeek.
“An audience of about 1,000 people surfed, searched, texted and created content as they listened to the leader of Google.
“Pulitzer Prize winning author and New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman even noted the crowd’s activities while interviewing Schmidt on stage at the Personal Democracy Forum. ‘It looks like a Google meeting,’ Schmidt answered. ‘In Google meetings, no one is ever looking at the speaker’.”
They’re probably too embarrassed.
Anyway, Schmidt pushed all the ‘right’ politically correct buttons, says Bogatin, namely:
- Do not shut down communication, Enable democratic expression
- 18 months ago we made a decision to be more transparent,
- We use YouTube to document what we are doing,
- Criticism is healthy.
But, “Right out of Schmidt’s Q & A gate” only paid attendees were to be given a microphone,Bogatin says.
She goes on:
Immediately prior to Schmidt’s keynote, Larry Lessig happily opened up a Q & A to attendees, ALL attendees, paid or unpaid, press or amateur, citizen or not.
What were Schmidt’s undemocratic motivations at the Personal Democracy Forum that hails the banner ‘Sponsored by Google.’ Why did the Google CEO instruct conference organizers to muzzle communication?
If Google REALLY only wanted to allow questions from ‘paid,’ as opposed to ‘unpaid’ attendees, then personal democratic communication is in fact for sale, to those that ‘buy’ the right via a confernce ‘paid’ admission.
BUT, the real truth behind the unfortunately typical Google double speak is that Google’s Schmidt did not want questions from the PRESS!
Media, of course, conveniently for the Google spin, do not ‘pay’ for the privilege of being able to attend such conferences in order to to do their jobs. If Schmidt had asserted no questions from the press, he at least would have been honest about his intentions.
“Another thing discussed was censorship,” says ClickZ. Schmidt mentioned the Great Firewall set up in China, “to block content the government deems inappropriate for Chinese citizens. One interesting note on Google’s appeasement of China’s blocking requests: According to Schmidt, Google tells citizens in China what was removed from their results.”
Er, um, well …..
Also See:
ZDNet - Google CEO Schmidt on ‘Personal Democracy’: Up For Sale, May 18, 2007
InformationWeek - CEO Schmidt Ponders Google’s More ‘Personal Future’, May 18, 2007
ClickZ - Eric Schmidt at Personal Democracy Forum, May 18, 2007
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