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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.'"
. . . unless it makes money.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
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.
// It had been Fat's delusion for years that he could help people. --Philip K. Dick, Valis
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.
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.
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.
un burrito me trampeó.
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.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
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.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
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?
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.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
What if this were Microsoft?
Would you be so willing to understand?
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.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
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.
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.
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?
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.
> 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.
.. 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.
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
"Old man yells at systemd"
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.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.