Google 作為全球最大的搜索引擎，在最近卻爆出了一個很嚴重的問題，根據《快公司》雜誌的報導，最近《華爾街日報》截獲到了一些來自 Google 員工群體的內部討論郵件。在這些郵件中，出現了一個敏感問題，那就是討論如何通過調整 Google 搜索功能，來影響對特朗普總統簽署2017旅遊禁令的相關搜索結果。
對於這些郵件，郵件裡沒有明確說明是哪一位員工，但是很可能是搜索產品營銷部門任職的 Google 員工，在這些郵件裡，說了應當通過調整 Google 搜索的結果，來突顯支持移民政策的組織和諸如美國公民自由聯盟(ACLU)的公益機構捐款鏈接。
當然，也存在著想法相左的意見。對「將個別組織的搜索權重調整至高過其它組織」的想法不滿意，說到：「在我看來，這種單單在政治意見衝突的時刻，突顯出那些支持某一方觀點的組織的做法，打破了我們的慣例。」
最後 Google 發表聲明稱「這些電子郵件只是在進行一場頭腦風暴，這些想法中沒有任何一條主意被真正執行過。 Google 從來沒有為了推崇某個特別的政治意識形態，而去操縱過它的搜索結果，或者去調整任何它的產品，——這種事既沒出現在目前的競選季裡，也沒出現在2016年的總統大選裡，當然，它也不可能會發生在特朗普頒布針對移民政策的總統令後。無論是以何種形式，我們的辦事流程和我們的相關政策都不會允許我們操縱搜索結果，從而去推崇某些政治意識。」
對於現如今人們敏感的情況下爆出的鬧劇，再一次引發了人們的激烈爭論。
官方原文：
Hi Googlers,
Recently there have been some news stories about how we approach our work—in particular, how we present our Search results. We feel privileged to be building a product that provides instant access to information for everyone, everywhere—whether you’re a PhD from MIT, or a student on the other side of the world using a computer for the first time. We have billions of people relying on us for accurate information and we feel a deep sense of responsibility to deliver the highest quality results.
It’s important to me that our internal culture continues to reinforce our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Recent news stories reference an internal email to suggest that we would compromise the integrity of our Search results for a political end. This is absolutely false. We do not bias our products to favor any political agenda. The trust our users place in us is our greatest asset and we must always protect it. If any Googler ever undermines that trust, we will hold them accountable.
As we advance our mission, we must stay grounded in our values—the first of which is to Respect the User. Not just one user … everyone. We build products for people of every background and belief, and we have strong policies to ensure that our products remain free of bias. As we head into election season in the U.S., it’s worth reaffirming that commitment. While we will stay true to our long-held principles, Google itself is and must continue to be non-partisan.
Our second value is to Respect the Opportunity. Working at Google comes with tremendous responsibility—not only to do the right thing, but to accomplish things that matter. The decisions you make have the potential to affect many people and each decision (big and small) defines what Google is. We have a long-term incentive to make the right decisions to ensure our products work for everyone.
Our third value is to Respect Each Other. We are a global company with more than 80,000 employees across nearly 60 countries who hold a wide range of political views. But we all have something very important in common: we joined Google to build products that improve the lives of as many people as possible. Google isn’t a place where we can resolve all of our individual differences. It’s a place where we come together in spite of our differences to pursue our mission.
We need to make sure that our culture continues to reinforce that purpose. I look forward to working with all of you to that end.
— Sundar Pichai
