Peter Thiel Slams "Treasonous" Google For Choosing China Over US Military
Peter Thiel Slams "Treasonous" Google For
Choosing China Over US Military
by Tyler Durden Mon, 07/15/2019 - 09:02
During a talk Sunday at the National Conservatism
conference in Washington, Peter Thiel, perhaps the most visible tech
entrepreneur to back President Donald Trump, earning the eternal enmity of his
fellow Silicon Valley denizens (and necessitating a move to LA), had some harsh
words for his one-time friends.
The billionaire investor singled out Google for agreeing
to work closely with China, trying to get its search engine back into the
Chinese market, while deciding to let a US defense department contract that
gave the military access to its artificial intelligence tools lapse.
These actions by Google, Thiel suggested, were
"seemingly treasonous," he said during the opening of his speech.
Even going so far as to question whether Google parent Alphabet's AI research
program had been "infiltrated" by foreign intelligence.
"These questions need to be asked by the FBI and the
CIA," Thiel said, "And I’d like them to be asked in a not excessively
gentle manner."
This wouldn't be the first time suspicions of treasonous
activity have dogged American tech companies. Who could forget CFUS's recent
decision to force a Chinese company to sell its entire ownership in Grindr for
security reasons.
On a more positive note, Thiel praised Trump on Sunday
for his efforts to win a trade deal with China, which he termed a
"signature achievement" of the administration, along with the detente
with North Korea.
By the standards of the event, Thiel was more mild than
many of the tech bashers in attendance - unsurprisingly, Thiel doesn't support
the breakup of big tech companies, given that he still sits on Facebook's
board.
Instead, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican who’s
proposed reforming Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which
frees tech companies from responsibility for any content posted on their sites.
"I think Facebook and Google are a good examples of
what is it we’re talking about," Hazony said in an interview on Sunday.
"These are spectacularly impressive entrepreneurs, but you need to ask the
question if Americans are better off with [Google and Facebook] single-handedly
determining what should be censored?"
The event wasn't focused on tech, but coming so soon
after President Trump's social media summit, it's hardly surprising that the
abuse of social media would factor heavily.
Comments
Post a Comment