Google Agrees to Censor Results in China

neutralino writes "The Associated Press is reporting that Google has agreed to censor results in China. According to the article, 'Google officials characterized the censorship concessions in China as an excruciating decision for a company that adopted "don't be evil" as a motto. But management believes it's a worthwhile sacrifice.'"

Comments

Bold Statement

[Kickboy12]

What people need to realize is that Google doesn't really have a choice in the matter. I don't believe this violates the "Don't be evil" motto, as Google is simply trying to follow Chinese law. I don't think Google should be scrutinized for this, considering every other company (Microsoft, Yahoo, etc) has been forced to do the same thing. What people should be scrutinizing is Chinese law, not companies that follow said laws. Of course, the entire political situation in China is horrible and always has been.

Re:Bold Statement

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

Yes, they do have a choice. Rather than assist the PRC in violating human rights, they could decline to do business in China. There's all the talk here about how they faced down Bellsouth--don't you think they maybe have a little market power in China, too? Well, not now--they caved to the almighty yuan. I'm sure the dead Christians and the Tianmen Square students crushed under the treads of the people's tanks are thankful censored Google is available thanks to the sweetheart deal with the Chinese Communists.

Re:Bold Statement

[WankersRevenge]

Of course they have a choice. The people who don't have a choice currently live in China. And remember, laws aren't changed by being complicit with them. Ask any one in the civil rights movement.

Re:Bold Statement

[BewireNomali]

dude, there is a gun pointed at Google's head. Shareholders, dude. There'e no way Google isn't all over the yuan. And they will go away if Google isn't in China. Selfsame shareholders are bankrolling Google's expanding operations. They HAVE to be in China and nail it down from the ground floor. First mover's advantage and all.

I'd trip over myself to do business in China. Are you kidding me? Also, you lamers don't realize that Google in China would do more to erode the government's power than not? It's better for the young Chinese that Google be there, censorship or no. In fact, I'd be surprised if Google didn't code in easy hacks around the censorship criteria, and play dumb when the Chinese object. It'll take months/years for the old guard to catch on, and it'll endear Google amongst the young revolution-minded Chinese... university students, et al. Mindshare, cultural affinity, etc...

This holier than thou stance smacks of arrogance, frankly. There's something smart. A group doesn't do what you want it to, so you stop speaking to them until they do, right? lol. It's worked with Cuba, right?

I'm trying to teach myself Mandarin now. Are you kidding me? China is like the gold rush all over again. But then again, you'd know that, Wyatt.

Re:Bold Statement

[patio11]

I invite you to perform some tai chi excercizes in the Washington Mall, then in Tianamen Square, and after the broken bones heal you can lecture us all on the moral equivalence of the American and Chinese governments. By the way, if you had posted a message equally critical of China as your message is of America from China, you would be guilty of crimes against the state (and your Internet connection would probably have terminated after you sent an HTTP request containing the characters for oppression).

Re:Bold Statement

[SirSlud]

> Just don't come complaining when you realize that you go other places in the world, even other Europeon countries, and don't enjoy the same freedoms.

Yep, the whole world sucks except for America!

Or you could be moderately intelligent and undersand the point he's making. EVERY civilized country reduces freedom, rather than simply being unable to enforce granting all, for the sake of whatever the fuck you define 'civility'. If you like what civility is in your country, stay there. If you don't, vote or leave. But don't, for a moment, think that any country allows the ultimate ideal in freedoms. Millions upon millions of people on this planet prefer the style of freedoms and restrictions granted by their government over Americas, and its retarded to actually place one's personal beliefs as the measure of what the right balance is. Its reverse phychology dude .. no matter how old you are, anybody who suggests that free will exists and that you're incapable of regonizing how to take maximum advantage of it will piss you off. Don't fall for it, it just makes you look juvinile.

Re:Bold Statement

[nathanh]

For example, here in the US, in ANY court case, the burden of proof is on the prosecution. In many europeon countries, this varies with the type of court case. Libel cases, for instance, have the burden of proof placed on the defendent in Brittan.

You keep telling yourself that. Here's what Reverend Desmond Tutu had to say:

"We are appalled that revered conventions are being blatantly flouted such as the dictum that someone is presumed innocent until proven guilty and that everyone is entitled to legal defence of his choice and that habeas corpus obtains. I support your efforts to ensure justice is done for your loved ones and that they will be given access to the families. God bless you." -- The Most Reverend Desmond Tutu -- http://www.guantanamohrc.org/

The US spin machine even has a nifty term for what they're doing: Internment Without Trial. Wtf? They just slapped a happy-happy name on "guilty until proven innocent" and you guys bought it. Loyal sheep are already parroting the US government's implication that innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply to certain people.

The hand-wringing about innocent until proven guilty is all very well but the assumption must inevitably be applied a little differently to someone accused making off with a bun out of a bakers, than people held captive in the act of fighting against our forces and our allies. Given the circumstances in which they were taken captive, I am personally far more concerned about the threat to our security these people represent, than the conduct of those that detained them. Kelly Tait, Edinburgh -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4204997.s tm

Ok, admittedly she's British. Do you think most Americans would say any different? What worries me most is that it seems US citizens are less informed of what goes on in Guantanamo than people from the UK and Europe and Australia. Aren't you frightened by that?

As I said, remove the beam from thine own eye. You guys are acting pretty scary these days and it's even scarier when you don't realise it. The fact that I'm already receiving negative moderation for even daring to say that the US is less than perfect should be all the evidence you need that something is very wrong in the US right now.

Very, very, very wrong.

Do no evil . . .

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

. . . unless it makes money.

Re:Do no evil . . .

[ceeam]

Rather:

Do no evil(*)

(*) Void where prohibited

Don't be evil down the gurgler

[lamasquerade]

(I'm going to use the Google terminology of 'Evil' here, even though I find the word hyperbolic and ill-defined in general usage)

an excruciating decision for a company that adopted "don't be evil" as a motto. But management believes it's a worthwhile sacrifice.

That statement is bullshit. The 'worthwhile sacrifice' mentioned is clearly meant to work against the clear contravention of the 'do no evil' motto. However what is being sacrificed? The ethics of Google. What is being gained by the sacrifice? Access to China == profit. So they're sacrificing ethics for profit - that isn't exactly original for a corporation.

More from the article: "We firmly believe, with our culture of innovation, Google can make meaningful and positive contributions to the already impressive pace of development in China," said Andrew McLaughlin, Google's senior policy counsel.

Again, bullshit. Google is an informaiton company. Their entire existence is justified by making access to and use of information easier. If they censor that information based on the petty politics of nationalists (or any other political concern) then they are not serving their purpose. They are in fact reinforcing the policies of censorship and repression in China. If everyone, every company goes along with these policies then what motivation is there to change them?

Here's a real sacrifice: lose profits from lack of presence in China and be ethical and further the cause of free speech. That's a sacrifice, something you'd like, for something better. Not the other way around. Really the way these PR droids use language makes me want to have them lobotomised... and PR school doesn't count.

Re:Don't be evil down the gurgler

[HydroPhonic]

Google had the decision to either:

- Be present in China, albeit in mutilated form. The censorship would be declared, not secret. As such, Google's chinese services would not claim to comprehensively represent Google's services. - Not operate in China at all.

China doesn't need Google very much; they already have Yahoo, MSN, et al. As such, Google declining to operate in China would do almost nothing to further the cause of free speech because it would not damage the opponents of free speech in the slightest.

Because Google lacks the potential to "further" the cause of free speech in this altercation, their failure to advance that cause in China is not sufficient to warrant the claim of evilness.

Re:Don't be evil down the gurgler

[KagatoLNX]

That's the problem with being publicly traded...

Sacrificing the profits of China on principle has to be backed by the majority of the shareholders. Additionally, they don't want to enrich Microsoft and don't want their stock price to tank.

Of course, they have quite a few PHDs to feed.

In terms of net evil, of the options available, this is the least evil option. To remove themselves entirely from the Chinese market (the Great Firewall is effective and Google would likely not do well working around it) would be no better.

Make no mistake. Leaving the Chinese people high and dry would not be more effective or less evil. Especially when substituting a willing Microsoft or Yahoo. Ignoring a bad situation is evil. Making the best of it isn't.

Google may cooperate with the Chinese government. However, they won't be able to "purify" the search engine completely. There will be holes in the cache as well. They have so much data that there is no solution to solving this problem. Does making "imperfect" censorship available to the Chinese people sound worse than making a "perfect" set of firewall rules?

As for "reinforcing the censorship policies of petty nationalists"...how does removing yourself from the picture help? What should they do? Develop a crypto query network? Distributed it via clandestine means? Help me here.

Either using Google's "censored" content and tools will send countless Chinese to jail, or they will be able to continue to provide what they do now. In China, right now, Google is a wealth of information with everything you need nestled in the nooks and crannies. While it will be censored within the limitations of the Chinese government and technical possibility, it can still serve some purpose in spreading censored information.

Maybe all this means is that the honchos at Google have some humility. Perhaps they realize that this is the best they can do for the Chinese people. Perhaps they have coupled "Do no evil!" with "Do what you can."?

Re:Don't be evil down the gurgler

[gordo3000]

so in other words, google wanted money and decided that because everyone else was being unethical, it wouldn't matter if they did? what is this, did google forget what it learned in kindergarten? you know, the whole discussion about doing what is right even if everyone else is wrong and standing by it.

Every little bit of effort has the potential to further free speech. The biggest name right now in the industry saying no to China might incite others to do the same and that means something. Someone has to have the balls to be the leader, and google is obviously not it. But that isn't a big deal to me. No matter how big a person(or corp) talks, not everyone is cut out to really take the sacrifices necessarry to stand by their values.

PS> I've been up for 20 hours now, spelling and grammar are no longer important matters.

Re:Why should Google help the CCP?

[Kickboy12]

Laughable.

For starters, China isn't a communist state. It hasn't been in over 30 years. It's a Capitalist Dictatorship (aka Facism).

And... how exactly is Google dead? I fail to see any resonable cause for such a statement.

Totalitarianism-Lite penis measuring contest

[dangitman]

Did China convince Google executives that they had huge penises, and that the Chinese weren't a threat because they have small penis?

I am sick and tired of the West sucking up to China. It seems China gets the best end of the bargain - they get the benefits of capitalism and trade with the west - but they get a free pass on democracy, and the West even helps them with their dictatorship and censorship needs.

So, I guess totalitarianism is bad, as long as a small, weak country is doing it. But "China very big" so, we have to do what China says.

Motherfuckers. Screw Google and all the other apologists.

Not too distant future...

[DeadPrez]

Same _exact_ reasoning will apply to handing over search queries and associated user data to the US government.

New motto:
Do no evil unless governments compel you to if you want to stay in the market.

Re:Why should Google help the CCP?

[WhiteWolf666]

Meh, at this point, its not clear who has correctly defined communism.

The academic community, who coined it....

Or the political leaders who use it to describe themselves on a regular basis....

The definitions are radically different. *shrug*

Re:In touch with the people

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

That's not really a fair comparison, as Google's execs don't have to shell out for bullets for their relatives' executions.

Not as evil as the summery leads you to believe.

[neoshroom]

As the article goes on to state, when an item is censored Google will tell you it has censored the searched item to comply with local laws. This sort of censorship where you know something is being kept from you is much less scary than the type where you simply don't know what is being kept from you. Simply providing their search engine to China in censored form, and admitting to users they are being censored isn't evil. What is evil is the Chinese governments restrictions on free speech, but Google can only choose to provide a censored search engine or not provide one at all.

The pro-democracy dilemma

[davidwr]

If you want to spread democracy, is it better to simply not to business in anti-democratic countries or to do business on their terms?

That is a question that every pro-democracy person, company, and government has to make when it comes to anti-democratic countries like China.

The answer, as with much of life, varies with the individual circumstances.

Censor for China = Bad! Censor for France = Good!

[RexRhino]

Google now censors it's search results for things that the Chinese government doesn't want it's people to read, just as it has been doing the same thing to comply with laws in France and Germany.

Here is some more information:
http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2005-01-15-n50 .html
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050117-0906 38
http://sethf.com/anticensorware/general/google-cen sorship.php

So the question is, why are people so offended when Google censors for China, but think the same behavior is fine for Europe?

Re:Why should Google help the CCP?

[QuantumG]

Yes, as it always has been. :)

Re:Worthwhile?!

[RexRhino]

Google has been censoring it's results in France and Germany for some time now, in order to comply with French and German laws. Do you think that Google should also choose to stop doing buisness with France and Germany too? Is google being evil by complying with France and Germany's censorship laws?

Less hysterically

[Chuck Chunder]

I think you have to look at it pragmatically. If Google don't do what the Chinese Government asks then the whole of Google will be blocked/filtered so what Google is doing doesn't have an "evil" effect that wouldn't be happening anyway.

Liberalisation of China is probably going to be something that happens in a creeping fashion. A position based entirely on principal (ie Google refusing outright) might actually be worse in practice because it would actually mean more isolation for the Chinese people, not less. Whatever blocks are placed it isn't going to be 100% effective.

If Google put's up a "Some results have been omited due to local legal requirements" message like they do with some other blocks all the better, at least the people will know they are being filtered and why.

Re:Not as evil as the summery leads you to believe

[mboverload]

What if this were Microsoft?

Would you be so willing to understand?

How is this evil?

[UserGoogol]

I fail to see how this is evil. Google had two options. They could either censor some of their results, or China would censor all of their results. If censoring is bad, logically more censoring is worse than less censoring. Google thus is not doing evil, they are making the best of an inherently evil situation. If this is evil, then "doing no evil" is impossible, because no matter what they did, evil would have been done.

Some might argue that Google could have simply held their ground and China would have eventually caved. I doubt this. There are plenty of search engines out there, and although they might not be quite as good as Google, they're not bad or anything. If popular demand for Google is big enough to make China give up their censoring, then China's censorship laws can't be that strict if something as trivial as Google versus Yahoo is willing to make them cave.

Not Just China

[246o1]

Totalitarianism is ok in:
a) any country with a useful resource and a friendly-to-us government (see: Saudi Arabia)
b) any country that would be kind of a pain to invade with no clear benefit (see: most totalitarian countries)
c) any country that would be a total bitch to invade (see: N. Korea) despite possible security benefits for us and our allies/helpers.

I am speaking of US policy hear, but generally, governments in the west follow these policies. I hate that people think that China gets a blind eye. The human rights and legal situations in China are probably the most talked about and scrutinized in the west of any non-democratic country (besides Iraq). But what the hell do you expect countries to do?

There's a goodly amount of international pressure on China as-is, and while I wouldn't be against ramping that up, I think an invasion there would be pretty much 130% Grade-A insane.

While this has been a bit off-topic, it does apply. Google has to deal with the country the way it is (as our national governments do), and the other choice is to let some other non-blocked IP become China's Google. The real test of their principles will be whether they use their market share there, once gained, to try to stand up for greater freedom of information. 'Standing up' to the government on this issue now would provide nothing besides a little bit of good PR here in the west, no substantive gain for the Chinese people.

Re:Why should Google help the CCP?

[cosminn]

have no problem with selling China cars or airplanes or other stuff like that. But to actively collaborate with the regime in stifling dissent is just too much. After this, I don't think anyone should have any faith at all in their claim that they will stick up to the US Government's fishing expedition.

Actually it's a bit more complicated than that...China (and Japan I believe) bought the US debt, at around 1 trillion dollars. So considering how now the US owes China a significant sum, it will be interestring to see how things will evolve, and if the US will stand up to them, or just bow to them and let them be.

I mean, Bush talks about getting democracy in countries like Iraq, but China, which is anything but democratic....

Re:Why should Google help the CCP?

[jonwil]

China does not need google, there are plenty of chinese search engines that WILL comply with the chinese government.

Also, they have stated that they will tell users when search results have been removed in order to comply with a chinese government request so the people searching can clearly see that its the fault of the government that their search results arent as good as they could be, not google.

Wrong, double wrong, and wrong once more

[Ogemaniac]

The alternative is to be shut out of China entirely. This would be WORSE for the Chinese citizens trying to break though their government's tyranny. Google isn't sacrificing anything at all. It is giving its Chinese consumers the best product that the government will allow them.

If you disagree, please explain how Google refusing to participate with China would help a Chinese dissadent. Remember, China's filters have holes, and there will be even more of them if they have to watch every darned google search.

Re:Not as evil as the summery leads you to believe

[DrEldarion]

Google has financial guns, which in many ways can be far more powerful than physical ones.

That said, I don't blame them for doing it. They would be missing out on one of the biggest potential markets in existence, and who knows - maybe the "your results are being censored" text will wake some people up to the truth when they would have just remained clueless using another search engine.

Re:Worthwhile?!

[RexRhino]

Well, one of the sites banned in the French and German version of Google according to the most recent list is radioislam.net ...

Now, just in case you think radioislam.net is some sort of fanatical extremist islamic sight, the first paragraph I read on the site is this:
"No hate. No violence
Races? Only one Human race
United We Stand, Divided We Fall
Freedom of Speech - Use it or lose it!"

A lot of their stuff is very anti-Bush and anti-Israel, but I see nothing that would constitute any sort of hate crime or anything like that. Certainly they are not selling Nazi memorabilia as you are suggesting.

Now, do you think censoring this site is OK? If so, why? And if it is "good" for France and German to censor sites like this, why is it bad for China to censor sites it feels are just as negative for its own society? Do you even know the sites that China bans? Maybe China is banning the exact same sites! No one has published a list yet!

There is a double standard. If you think it is OK for Google to obey censorship laws, then it should be OK. If you think it is wrong for Google to obey censorship laws, then it is wrong. But if you are asking Google to determine which is "good" censorship, and which is "bad" censorship, then isn't it reasonable that you and Google would have different opinions on what is good or bad censorship?

Re:Not as evil as the summery leads you to believe

[slashdotnickname]

Google doesn't have guns.. The Government does.

Google has a far stronger weapon than any gun... the ability to make easy the free exchange of ideas and knowledge.

Re:Not as evil as the summery leads you to believe

[Cecil]

And that makes it okay? "Shareholders" and society in general need to grow a conscience and learn there is more to success than money. That there's more to LIFE than money.

Backwards

[shmlco]

Personally, I think the Chinese have this search engine censorship backwards. If I were in charge of the country, I think I'd WANT a massive easy to use search engine that spends its days and nights toiling away finding links to dissident web sites. After all, it would make my job of finding and... uh... reeducating those unhappy people MUCH easier.