So, amidst the veritable and wild flurry of Google news yesterday, turns out Google neglected to broadcast one teeny little project they’ve been working on: ending violent extremism. No, seriously. The event started two days ago in Dublin. Google says they’re bringing together “former gang members, right-wing extremists, jihadists and militants in Dublin for three days of debates and workshops.” Sounds fun!
The project is coming out of the Google Ideas think tank. A think tank brought together by Google “to tackle some of the world’s most intractable problems.” Sounds like a pretty noble goal. Though we’re not quite sure what this summit will do that any of the other various peace summits haven’t been able to do.
The motley crew of guest speakers and attendees range from the interesting to the bizarre, including former gang members, family members of those who died in attacks like those on the WTC on September 11th, and former jihad extremists. The scope of perspectives that are going into this summit, that’s taking place right now, is perhaps one of the most fascinating groups of people brought together. It’d certainly be nice if some of these talks made it online.
In any case, it’s busy week for Google, I’d say! Re-inventing the way we share information and socialize on the web, ending the violence inherent in the human heart, and oh yeah, in the two days since the summit began, they’ve activated a million more Android phones.
Come on Google, cut it out. You’re making the rest of us look bad.
Sources: Irish Times, Google Public Policy Blog
Those fools they’re just giving Google advertising data for violent extremist users.
Sorry, but as long as you believe your invisible man in the sky commands you to blow up people that believe in a different invisible man in the sky, and you’re stupid enough to blow yourself up in the process, a “summit” from Google isn’t going to accomplish shit.
Will a summit convince extremists to not be extreme? Perhaps not. Could a summit proliferate information from people who have changed their ways and help learn more effective ways to combat said extremists and perhaps keep them from killing more people? That’s a bit more likely.
Call me crazy, but I wouldn’t fault ’em for trying.