meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
CYBER

Inside Jigsaw, Google's 'Internet Justice League'

CYBER

VICE

Tech News, News & Politics, Technology, News

4645 Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2019

⏱️ 23 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For years, Google’s internet freedom moonshot Jigsaw has gotten glowing attention for its ambitious projects. But current and former employees, along with leaked documents and internal messages, reveal a grim reality behind the scenes. Motherboard's Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai tells us about his months-long investigation into Jigsaw and its "toxic" workplace culture.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Tannen, it's got the code. It's going to launch.

0:09.0

It's a unit system.

0:13.0

I know this.

0:15.0

It's all the files of the whole park.

0:17.0

It tells her everything.

0:19.0

Sir, he's uploading the virus.

0:21.8

Eagle one.

0:22.6

The package is being delivered.

0:25.8

Since its inception, Google's jigsaw, formerly known as Google Ideas, was a technology

0:31.6

incubator with bold ambitions, countering some of the world's biggest existential problems

0:36.5

with technology solutions.

0:38.3

Like helping journalists from being DDoS attacked or going after ISIS and its online radicalization efforts with a digital ad campaign.

0:45.3

Over the course of about two months, more than 300,000 people were drawn to the anti-IS's YouTube channels.

0:51.3

Searchers actually clicked on jigsaw's suggested ads three or four

0:56.1

times more than a typical ad campaign. About 9% of those who were presented with the information

1:01.5

clicked on it. It's fair to say that thus far, all of the publicity surrounding the company

1:06.4

has made it out to be its corporate overlords do-gooder enterprise. Meanwhile, Google employees

1:11.8

of late have been none too happy with their employer. Thousands of employees walked out of Google

1:17.2

offices in more than 40 locations around the world today protesting the company's handling of sexual

1:23.1

misconduct claims. This week, we've got motherboard ace Lorenzo Franceschi Bikirai on the pod to talk

1:29.0

about his months in the making investigation into Jigsaw's workplace culture. Turns out, behind closed

1:35.4

doors, jigsaw isn't what it's cracked up to be. I'm Ben Maku, and this is Cyber. So Lorenzo,

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from VICE, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of VICE and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.