Google funds think tanks to shape policy narratives in its favor

Evidence

In the fourth arena of fortifications the corporation learned to infiltrate and influence academic research and civil society advocacy in ways that softened or in some cases thwarted the examination of its practices. The Washington Post describes Google as a “master of Washington influence” and notes the subtlety with which the firm grasps and directs its own narrative. Schmidt was hands-on in this work as well. Already a board member of the New America Foundation, a public-policy think tank that played an influential role in shaping the Obama administration’s approach to economic issues, he assumed the chairmanship in 2013 with a personal donation of 1 million, a significant percentage of its 12.9 million annual budget that year. Between 1999 and 2016, when Schmidt left the board, the foundation received $21 million from a combination of Google, Schmidt, and Schmidt’s family foundation. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 401

Categorization

• XREF: Extends the lobbying/fortification logic into civil society; parallels the Milgrom work on institutions substituting for trust—here corporate funding buys institutional narrative control. — connects to: Think tanks deliberately manufacture public doubt about settled science to shape policy — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 626; Grant competitions let funders steer think-tank agendas more than direct persuasion did — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 578; Think tanks function as elite proxy agents producing donor-favored analysis for media visibility. (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Google funded far-right antiregulation groups and absorbed privacy advocates amid antitrust scrutiny #exemplifies (0.95) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 403
• Think tanks function as elite proxy agents producing donor-favored analysis for media visibility. #corroborates (0.85)
• Google’s academic funding bought favorable research and enabled retaliation against critics #expands (0.82) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 404
• Think tanks arose to replace critical scholars with imperial-friendly policy theory #expands (0.72)
• The think tank originated as a deliberate instrument of intellectual engineering #expands (0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1910
• Institutional intelligence narratives construct truth to serve political policy needs #expands (0.72)
• Google frames public opposition as fleeting irrational resistance to inevitable progress #expands (0.70) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 495
• Atlas Foundation exported the neoliberal think-tank model worldwide #expands (0.70) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1943
• Neoliberal think tanks were standardized through explicit managerial blueprinting #expands (0.70) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 580