Google “Machine Learning Fairness” Whistleblower Goes Public, says: “burden lifted off of my soul”
Key Points
VIDEO: “the police began looking for me…”
Google Sent Threatening Letter to Google Insider Zachary Vorhies: “they knew what I had done and that letter contained several demands”
HUNDREDS of Internal Google Documents Leaked to Project Veritas… news blacklist, “human raters,” YouTube CEO video…
Google Insider Wants More Insiders to Blow Whistle: “people have been waiting for this Google Snowden moment where somebody comes out and explains what everybody already knows to be true”
“I felt that our entire election system was going to be compromised forever, by this company that told the American public that it was not going to do any evil”
The internal Google documents are available here.
(San Francisco) A Google insider who anonymously leaked internal documents to Project Veritas made the decision to go public in an on-the-record video interview. The insider, Zachary Vorhies, decided to go public after receiving a letter from Google, and after he says Google allegedly called the police to perform a “wellness check” on him.
Along with the interview, Vorhies asked Project Veritas to publish more of the internal Google documents he had previously leaked. Said Vorhies:
“I gave the documents to Project Veritas, I had been collecting the documents for over a year. And the reason why I collected these documents was because I saw something dark and nefarious going on with the company and I realized that there were going to not only tamper with the elections, but use that tampering with the elections to essentially overthrow the United States.”
(Do you work in Big Tech? Project Veritas would love to hear from you.)
In June of 2019, Project Veritas published internal Google documents revealing “algorithmic unfairness.” Vorhies told Project Veritas these were documents that were widely available to full-time Google employees:
“These documents were available to every single employee within the company that was full-time. And so as a fulltime employee at the company, I just searched for some keywords and these documents started to pop up. And so once I started finding one document and started finding keywords for other documents and I would enter that in and continue this cycle until I had a treasure trove and archive of documents that clearly spelled out the system, what they’re attempting to do in very clear language.”
Intimidation
Shortly after the report including the “algorithmic unfairness” documents was published, Vorhies received a letter from Google containing several “demands.” Vorhies told Project Veritas that he complied with Google’s demands, which included a request for any internal Google documents he may have personally retained. Vorhies also said he sent those documents to the Department of Justice Antitrust Division.
(Project Veritas is hiring. If you want to become an undercover journalist, apply here!)
After having been identified by an anonymous account (which Vorhies believes belongs to a Google employee,) on social media as a “leaker,” Vorhies was approached by law enforcement at his residence in California. According to Vorhies, San Francisco police received a call from Google which prompted a “wellness check.”
Vorhies walks towards police with phone in hand.
Vorhies described the incident to Project Veritas:
“they got inside the gate, the police, and they started banging on my door… And so the police decided that they were going to call in additional forces. They called in the FBI, they called in the SWAT team. And they called in a bomb squad.”
“[T]his is a large way in which [Google tries to] intimidate their employees that go rogue on the company…”
Partial video of the incident was provided to Project Veritas. San Francisco police confirmed to Project Veritas that they did receive a “mental health call,” and responded to Vorhies’ address that day.
“Google Snowden moment”
Project Veritas has released hundreds of internal Google documents leaked by Vorhies. Among those documents is a file called “news black list site for google now.” The document, according to Vorhies, is a “black list,” which restricts certain websites from appearing on news feeds for an Android Google product. The list includes conservative and progressive websites, such as newsbusters.org and mediamatters.org. The document says that some sites are listed with or because of a “high user block rate.”
Another newly published document titled “Fringe ranking/classifer: Defining channel quality” lists an example ranking of various news sites, including CNN and FOX News. A document titled “Fake news & other fringe: Trashy recap” reveals that videos are rated by multiple “human raters.”
One internal Google document labelled “coffee beans” appears to show Google employees discussing diversity hiring practices. A related internal thread of communications also shows an apparent discussion about the “coffee beans” document, where one Google employee expresses concern that the document appears to “misrepresent Google’s hiring practices in a way that could raise legal questions…”
Another thread of internal Google documents shows Google employees discussing President Donald Trump’s infamous “covfefe” tweet, and a proposed plan to change the Google translation of the term.
“You’re going to be a hero”
Vorhies told Project Veritas that he hopes more insiders at Google decide to go public and discuss big tech abuses.
“My message to those that are on the fence is I released the documents. They can go in, they can see everything that Google is doing and then they can see the scale of it. Because I think that there’s a lot of engineers that have a hint that things are wrong, but they don’t understand the colossal scale that it’s at. And so for those people, I say, look at the documents, take the pulse of America, see what’s happening and come and tell the world you know what you already know to be true.”
Project Veritas requested comment from Google on this story but did not receive a response at the time of this publication.
Leaked documents
Below is an index of internal Google documents Project Veritas received from the Google insider. Each folder can be downloaded by clicking on the links in the table. Project Veritas has not re-named any of the files, but did arrange the documents into the downloadable folders below.
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About Project Veritas
Project Veritas is a non-profit investigative news organization conducting undercover reporting. Project Veritas investigates and exposes corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions to achieve a more ethical and transparent society. Project Veritas is a registered 501(c)(3) organization.