>That harm and those people are apparently not as important as some business goal. That offends me.
I understand your point.
> Why would an insult convey more offense than all the criticism in the article already does?
That really depends on the aim of the article. If it is to express a feeling, fine, she did express her feeling. If it is to make a point, she shouldn't, or one might simply say she cannot have a rational discussion, because it simply doesn't prove anything. Google didn't use insult, it undisclosed private information. While it is senseless, it's not an offense, in the sense that there's no proof that it was intended to hurt. I don't believe that S. Brin woke up one day with the idea of harming people, or do you think that is what happened? If it were the case: if I had been the victim of a deliberate attempt at hurting me by disclosing things about me that I consider private, I would be seriously pissed. The question is: was it deliberate, or was it simply an error, or a misunderstanding? People make mistakes, that's unfortunate, but it's understandable. She, otoh, cursed voluntarily.
> It's also a particularly harmless insult that as far as I can tell
That's anyone's appreciation. In a different culture, it might well be the worse thing you could say to someone. The fact that it carry already a insulting connotation is enough: there's no way someone could take it as a compliment, thus whether it is harmless or the worse one could say is besides the point, the message is clear.
> That's a lot of words about this sidetrack
For a minor issue, that happened in _the title_, but I surely don't care that much.
> If it is to make a point, she shouldn't, or one might simply say she cannot have a rational discussion, because it simply doesn't prove anything.
One might say that, but I don't think that would delegitimatize her position at all. If someone seeks to be offended to avoid having to engage with the actual argument, that's on them, and they probably didn't need the pretense of caring about the insult to begin with.
> The question is: was it deliberate, or was it simply an error, or a misunderstanding? People make mistakes, that's unfortunate, but it's understandable.
The problems with google's approach have been pointed out almost immediately after their policy became known. If it was a simple mistake in the sense of an accident, it would have been corrected then. Google might not have set out to cause harm, but drafting their policies and sticking to them in contempt of the harm they are causing is a deliberate, voluntary move.
For a hamhanded car analogy, if someone parks in a parking space for the disabled out of laziness, and now some guy in a wheelchair has to cover another block's worth of distance because he had to park elsewhere, it's not okay just because they didn't do it to cause him harm, it's still bad because they didn't care enough about not causing him harm to avoid it. Something that hurts a disadvantaged group out of disregard for their needs rather than out of malice is still cause for offense and not just a mistake.
> In a different culture, it might well be the worse thing you could say to someone.
I think that's really unlikely. I might conjecture a hypothetical culture where insults are expected and polite, but I think it's sufficient to look at the actual cultural context. Correct me if I am missing something, but "jerkface" is the blandest, least serious insult I can think of. It doesn't invoke gross body parts, religion, sexual language, the subject's intelligence, morals, looks or status. In fact, I cannot imagine anyone using it without irony, going intentionally for a weak and childish insult.
> For a minor issue, that happened in _the title_, but I surely don't care that much.
Yeah, just to be clear, I didn't mean to complain that you started talking about the title, just that I needed so many words to respond.
> The problems with google's approach have been pointed out almost immediately after their policy became known.
I've been the devil's advocate til now, I will not give up so easily. If people knew about this policy, then they couldn't have opt out of the service and look for something more amenable to their needs of privacy, couldn't they?
>For a hamhanded car analogy, if someone parks in a parking space for the disabled out of laziness, and now some guy in a wheelchair has to cover another block's worth of distance because he had to park elsewhere,
The policy there wasn't that someone took that reserved parking place, it's that the place simply disappeared from that parking lot. So yeah, it does suck, but there are other parking lots to use (which also mean other shops, if that guy in a wheelchair liked Google's ones, tough luck).
> I think that's really unlikely. I might conjecture a hypothetical culture where insults are expected and polite, but I think it's sufficient to look at the actual cultural context. Correct me if I am missing something, but "jerkface" is the blandest, least serious insult I can think of. It doesn't invoke gross body parts, religion, sexual language, the subject's intelligence, morals, looks or status. In fact, I cannot imagine anyone using it without irony, going intentionally for a weak and childish insult.
Really? Do kids use that insult? Well, I don't speak English fluently enough (especially cursing), and I'm not going to pull a dictionary definition to verify it. If indeed it's as you say, then that's a misunderstanding on my side, and I clearly deserved a downvote for that. I'll take your word for it.
I understand your point.
> Why would an insult convey more offense than all the criticism in the article already does?
That really depends on the aim of the article. If it is to express a feeling, fine, she did express her feeling. If it is to make a point, she shouldn't, or one might simply say she cannot have a rational discussion, because it simply doesn't prove anything. Google didn't use insult, it undisclosed private information. While it is senseless, it's not an offense, in the sense that there's no proof that it was intended to hurt. I don't believe that S. Brin woke up one day with the idea of harming people, or do you think that is what happened? If it were the case: if I had been the victim of a deliberate attempt at hurting me by disclosing things about me that I consider private, I would be seriously pissed. The question is: was it deliberate, or was it simply an error, or a misunderstanding? People make mistakes, that's unfortunate, but it's understandable. She, otoh, cursed voluntarily.
> It's also a particularly harmless insult that as far as I can tell
That's anyone's appreciation. In a different culture, it might well be the worse thing you could say to someone. The fact that it carry already a insulting connotation is enough: there's no way someone could take it as a compliment, thus whether it is harmless or the worse one could say is besides the point, the message is clear.
> That's a lot of words about this sidetrack
For a minor issue, that happened in _the title_, but I surely don't care that much.