The right to free speech isn’t a license to threaten, harass, or intimidate.
A protest group calling itself Counterforce on Tuesday demonstrated in front of the Berkeley, Calif., home of Google engineer Anthony Levandowski and distributed leaflets to his neighbors to bring attention to “the evil he brings into this world” through involvement in technology projects like Google’s self-driving car and investment in a neighborhood condominium development (with required low-income units). To fight this evil, the gang advocates that folk “steal from the techies you babysit for” and vandalize surveillance cameras.
In a post on local news website Indybay, a presumed representative of the gang conflates several different issues into one vague, anti-capitalist platform: dissatisfaction with the buses tech companies use to shuttle workers; with real estate development, gentrification, and high tech-industry salaries; with the NSA and surveillance; with the labor conditions in Congo mines that supply the raw materials of electronics; and with the “out-of-touch and indulgent lifestyles” of Google employees.
“Our problem is with Google, its pervasive surveillance capabilities used by the NSA, the technologies it’s developing, and the gentrification its employees are causing in every city they inhabit,” the post states. “But our problem doesn’t stop with Google. All of you other tech companies, all of you other developers, and everybody else building the brand new surveillance state — We’re coming for you next.”
[Will connected devices put your individual safety in danger? Read: Watch out for The net Of Things’ Despicable Side.]
We now present for you a scene from “Monty Python’s Lifetime of Brian.” Today, the role of the People’s Front of Judea could be played by Counterforce (CF) and the role of the Rome Empire may be played by everyone’s favorite whipping boy, Google.
CF Leader: Google bled us white, the bastards. Its employees have bought property in our neighborhoods, where they pay taxes, and its buses occasionally cause us inconvenience… And what has Google ever given us in return?
CF Follower One: The quest engine?
CF Leader: What?
CF Follower One: Google Search. It’s free and it really works rather well.
CF Leader: Oh, yeah, they did give us that.
CF Follower Two: And Gmail.
CF Lieutenant: Oh, yeah Reg, remember how bad the spam was before Gmail?
CF Leader: Alright. I’ll grant you that Search and Gmail are two things Google has done…
CF Follower Three: And YouTube.
CF Leader: Well, obviously there’s YouTube. I mean YouTube goes without saying, doesn’t it? But aside from Search, Gmail, and YouTube …
CF Follower Four: Free WiFi in spots round the Bay Area.
CF Follower Five: Google Maps. And Chrome.
CF Follower Six: Android, let alone other Google open source projects, and hundreds of millions in grants to academic and nonprofit institutions.
CF Lieutenant #2: Oh yeah, that’s something we’ve really misrated that Google has given us.
I could go on. But Counterforce isn’t funny. Its arguments could be farcical, but its methods are misdirected and inappropriate. The crowd has managed to squander the chance for legitimate democratic speech by endorsing intimidation, harassment, and theft. The group’s pamphlet, handed out to neighbors to convince them that Levandowski is a proxy for all that’s wrong with the realm, describes how group members surveilled Levandowski’s home in preparation for his or her protest:
“Preparing for the action, we watched Levandowski step out of his front door. He had Google Glasses over his eyes, carried his baby in his arm, and held a tablet together with his free hand. As he descended the steps together with his baby, his eyes were at the tablet throughout the prism of his Google Glasses, not at the life against his chest. He appeared on this moment just like the robot he admits that he’s.”
Stalking folks that really have little or no to do with any of the things Counterforce objects to is just not cool. Bringing people’s kids into your anti-capitalist exercise will never be cool. Suggesting that Levandowski is somehow not up to human because he wasn’t gazing his child is simply asinine. Such behavior makes legitimate public advocacy more challenging by hardening the general public and government officials against those seeking more reasonable the right way to address social issues.
Google isn’t the problem and its employees deserve the similar respect as anyone who gets up and goes to work everyday to make cash.
Thomas Claburn is editor-at-large for InformationWeek. He have been writing about business and technology since 1996, for publications akin to New Architect, PC Computing, InformationWeek, Salon, Wired, and Ziff Davis Smart Business. Before that, he worked in film and tv. He’s the writer of a science fiction novel, Reflecting Fires, and his mobile game Blocfall Free is obtainable for iOS, Android, and Kindle Fire.
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