http://bit.ly/dragonfly-considered-harmful

I have never been on the inside of Google, but I do share the same feeling of loss regarding the internet as this author. He describes a sense of hope for what the “information superhighway” could have meant, only to have lost it.

Traditionally, I have ascribed this feeling to being an old man, sitting on his porch, shaking my cane at the kids on my lawn: the world will change, the way information is consumed will change, at some point I will be uncomfortable with the change. This article describes something much deeper, and for me, more disturbing.

as +Christian Gruber says, I share some of the sentiments. For me the more general ones regarding information technology.

Originally shared by Christian Gruber

While I have places where I would quibble with this ex googler’s side commentary, the fundamental points here I resonate with pretty strongly.

I “won’t be making the same mistake again” as he puts it. I had already been close to accepting a position at another firm when this story broke, but even had I not, this would probably have been the straw that broke the camel’ back. I can’t claim total moral high ground here, but the pressure was certainly mounting.

There are lots of issues I’ve had with Google and YouTube policy, but activate and deliberately enabling state-directed censorship is the opposite of everything I love about the internet, it’s potential for human flourishing, and the opposite of the change I want to see in the world.