Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
be evil.
sulli
RTFJ.
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.
google.slashdot
I clicked on "Read More" as soon as the article came up and I got the message
"Nothing for you to see here, please move along"
Chinese censorship on slashdot too? 8@
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Management decided.
You mean the suits decided.
I think the next year will see whether Google is true to the original DNA of the company, or whether they will become the next Microsoft, with all that implies.
. . . 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
Didn't google used to stand for free information for all? Now its, free information for all, but if someone asks, we change the information. If I ask google about 'revolutions in China' I bet I get some answers that would be filtered in China. What ever happened to the 'WHOLE' Truth? I understand this company must abide by local laws, but why not just disable service to someone who does not wish to follow YOUR "don't be evil" strategy? How much money does Google really make in China? Is it worth selling out?
--sig fault--
I 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.
Google is dead. Someone new will take their place. Someone who doesn't kowtow to dictators.
sulli
RTFJ.
At least Google's management are in touch with the Chinese people, the make the same wage: $1. That's really taking into account the culture of the country!
please excuse my apathy
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.
... and then they built the supercollider.
While I understand that Google's just a business, this seems to mark a fall from grace. It's kind of a pity. I respected them for their moral positions, not just for their products & services.
It also calls into question their motivations for resisting the Bush administrations requests. (reminds me of the old joke: Man asks a woman to have sex with him, she says forget it. He says "how about for a hundred thousand dollars". She consents, so he says "how about for ten dollars". She says "what kind of a girl do you think I am?". He replies "We've already established that, now we're just negotiating about price".
O.
And you can bet your ass they'll do it to those of us in so-called "free" countries so long as the money's right. "Don't be evil" indeed.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
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.
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.
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.
To use your own analogy this would be like Poland Spring putting lead in their water, and then putting a bit notice on every bottle that said "To comply with Chinese law we have put lead in this water."
If you know the water is posion you can choose to drink elsewhere if you wish.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
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.
0 .html6 38n sorship.php
Here is some more information:
http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2005-01-15-n5
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050117-090
http://sethf.com/anticensorware/general/google-ce
So the question is, why are people so offended when Google censors for China, but think the same behavior is fine for Europe?
Consumer goods have gotten cheap because they are being "engineered" for cheap production.
Compare today's $7 widget to the $10 widget you bought in 1996. The newer widget weighs half as much, is made from inferior materials, and won't last nearly as long. You're not saving $3, you're being ripped off.
With the exception of consumer electonics, most of the retail goods have gotten significantly more expensive in the past 10 - 20 years... when you hold quality constant.
I think the moral high ground isn't to get into bed with a facist country for the sake of money. But I can see why Google fans would want to spin that in a positive way. Yes, Google could have done worse. But they're still aiding and abetting the Chinese government.
Whereas a google.com search yields this
wikipedia article as its first hit with quotes like this:
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
Has Google ever claimed to represent freedom of speech, or that they are the be-all, end-all resource for true and factual information?
Goodies like mail and maps aside, all they really are is a business that facilitate indexing the web. They aren't "good" and they aren't "evil", they're a corporation that performs a service for profit. They didn't turn over the search records to the DoJ because that would be suicide in the freedom (and soft-core porn) loving American market-- no one would use Google if they thought their queries were being tracked by some mysterious government agency.
On the other hand, they will not be allowed to operate in China at all unless they comply with the government... So they do.
I don't know where this comes from, the idea that Google should be making a stand for free speech in a foreign country. If such a stand doesn't come from the populace themselves, it isn't going to happen (and it just might, as even with filters in place they will have more access than ever to the rest of the world.)
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
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.
Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
Google is aiding everyone by trying to provide the information.. the problem is Google doesn't have guns.. The Government does.
http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=tiananmen+S quare++&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&meta=
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Chinese users are used to Internet censorship. A lot of educated users know about it and simply surf via overseas proxies. Google will most likely filter results based on Chinese government advisement. It *IS* a business and instead of not being present at all in China, they have decided to provide part of their services in a restricted way. Every country has their own laws, for their own reasons, China is no different. Would it be better if Google didn't enter the Chinese market and users have less choice in search engines? If anyone thinks the Chinese government will adjust their policies for foreign businesses, they don't know the Chinese government at all.
I grew up in Hong Kong and I have been to China several times. I have relatives in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the states. I don't claim to have a deep grasp of Chinese history or even its culture, but censorship is a touchy issue in Chinese politics. There are a lot of illiterate and uneducated people in China, especially in the country side. Censorship was first put in place as the government is worried about civilian revolutions and strikes due to misunderstanding of government policy. Not speaking the same dialect and not being able to write at all makes for some heated debates between people. This was and still is, to some extent, the reality of the situation in China. If you understand the way some terrorists misquote and misunderstand US policy and statements, its somewhat similar.
China is still very far behind the western nations in terms of education and technology. It is slowly improving its ability to educate everyone, but its no where near adequate yet. The fact that the Chinese ruling party is made up of so many politicians (1000+ from memory) means that changing long standing laws require a lot of time, as there are so many from the old guard still around. In short, just like China opening its trade borders and becoming more liberal, especially in the big cities like Shanghai, censorship will be gone in a decade or two. We just have to be patient, as the Chinese government does not like fast changes, and it has a lot of past incidents of revolutions that it does not want to repeat.
I think the main issue here is whether a US business should be allowed to operate in a way that would be illegal in the states. Personally, I don't see a problem with this. Different countries and cultures have different views on information freedom. Absolute freedom is not always a good thing, whilst government censorship is always biased and abusable. One can easily argue that leaving Neo-Nazi and bomb making information easily accessible on the web, especially to teenagers, is not the right thing to do, even in order to provide freedom of information.
In summary, good decision made by Google, over-blown censorship new stories by the media.
If I can do it, its probably not worth doing... probably
Hello, I have just read very disturbing news of Google agreeing to filter thousands of search terms for the Chinese government. I am curious how Google management sees this as a 'worthwhile sacrifice'. Google promised free, pure information for ALL. A company that sought to unite the world, to help change it for the better and to 'do no evil.' I see the recent agreement with a tyranical government as a spit in the face of all those principles and values I thought Google stood for. I am hereby cancelling my Adsense account, removing Google ads from my home page, abandoning my Gmail account, and changing my homepage. I no longer want to support a company that trades its principles for marketshare and cuts freedom of information for profit. I do not want to wait wondering when I will be next and beleive it to be only a matter of time for limitations to be set on my freedom as well. Shame on Google management for this terrible decision. I only hope that you will reconsider and void this disgusting agreement. Sincerely, (my name)
Blog via SMS text messaging
What if the law is evil?
"He who throws mud, loses ground." - proverb
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.
For all those out there believing that Google has made a pact with the devil (and possibly so), consider this:
Mr. China (the government) walks up to a businessman named Mr. Google (the company). Mr. China askes Mr. Google for a high-quality piece of the world's best rope, just so long as no manuals are included featuring hangman's knots. Mr. Google gives a thoughtful look at this opportunity, weights the moral and economic consequences, then smiles knowingly and hands Mr. China the rope.
It's only a matter of time before Mr. China's customers figure out how to tie their own hangman's knot around Mr. China's neck.
Google is led by some of the most intelligent and thoughtful people around. They know exactly what they're doing with this business deal. Oh, I doubt there's any outright attempt to "hang" the Chianese goverment, but Google knows full well what just a little bit more freedom of information will do for people over there--if they make a profit doing it, well, so much the better. The fact remains that regarldess of being villified by some, Google knows that this will make a positive influence on the Chinese people. I applaud their efforts in this.
When the jackbooted thugs from the Bush Junta kicked at your door ...
What is interesting is, that was (metaphorically) just yesterday. Then this happens today. *Sigh*
Next question: what search engine should I switch to?
$META_SIG_JOKE
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.
For someone who is currently living in China and using it daily, I am very glad they made this particular decision. For those condemning Google for not sticking to "Don't Be Evil" or for selling out, consider this - which is the greater evil, to filter out some information (and let people know it _is_ being filtered), or to deny them access to information altogether?
It is easy to talk about sticking to principles and refusing censorship from the comfort of a (relatively) uncensored computer. But have you ever considered what life would be like for those without Google? When _every_ single search engine out there, including Yahoo, MSN or others, are all filtered? All this means is that the most effective information resource out there is gone and we have to rely on substandard competitors that cave in far more easily to any pressure (e.g. DOJ request for info). Finding _any_ information becomes harder. What good has it done anyone?
It is easy to paint every decision as black and white, good or evil. But life really isn't that simple. Google had to choose between bad and evil and they came up with a solution that was better than any of their competitors. At least they tell you that something is filtered out. At least a smart and curious person still can go out and find out what it was that was filtered. The alternatives (international or chinese) do not even do that.
Among my workmates, information is well shared. Everyone knows what happened in the square. Heck, a couple of them were there. They knew about the benzene spill in Harbin long before it came out in news. Don't worry. Information of this sort gets around fairly well through various means. Censoring it from Google really won't hide anything. All blocking Google means is that when we hit obscure technical problems, we can no longer find solutions quickly. When we want to learn about the latest technology, we must scan through pages and pages of listings to find a decent resource. Oh yes, we'll also make Overture rich cause sooner or later, we will click through one of their sponsored links.
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.
This is the same shit that allowed Switzerland to remain "neutral" during WW2 yet help the Nazis and kill jews...
"can only choose to provide a censored search engine or not provide one at all"
The moral would walk away, especially if your moto is do no evil. If evil is the only option, do you do it?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Tienanmen square is the tip of the iceberg. I have conversations with people in China all the time via Skype, and they don't even know that Mao killed more Chinese than Tojo! They know that their parents lost a sibling during the cultural revolution, but they have no idea that Mao's body count is well into the tens of millions. A few of them have been stunned when I sent them the wikipedia pages on the Cutural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward.
Communism is on the way to the ash heap of history, and when companies like Google, Microsoft, and Cisco help the thugs, they're just helping in delaying the liberation of China. I hope that the Chinese people make their displeasure known when they become a free country.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
search term: "falun gong"
Using google.com
Using Google China
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.
Random and weird software I've written.
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.
Perhaps you can't read the notice, but is there, in Chinese, at the bottom of the search results on Google.com.cn:
"Ju dangdi falü fagui he zhengce, bufen sousuo jieguo weiyu xianshi."
"According to local laws, regulations and policies, part of the search results is not being shown."
That's an argument against the existence of publicly traded companies, not an argument in favour of what Google's doing. A law that requires people to act immorally for the sake of money runs contrary to the oldest principles of both morality and law.
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.
Quite true, but you can buy a whole hell of alot more stuff to enrich your life with money. For example, time. Each of us has a limited amount of time on this earth, some more than others. If you dont need to trade your time for money (working) then you can spend more of your time with LIFE.
To ignore that money is really the currency of time and freedom is to shortchange yourself time.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Tiananmen+Squ are+&btnG=Google+Search
S quare++&btnG=%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&meta=
http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=tiananmen+
The bulk of the English results refer to the massacre. Not oe of google.cn's hits refers to this. Nor is there a reference to the vast omission.
And they say this is not censorship.
Though instinctively I am led to dissent with Google's move, rationally I can't help thinking that it is not their job to oppose the Chinese regime. It is the Chinese people's job.
How many of us have clothes/laptops/radios/dvd players/televisions that were made in China?
I'm not the pious, high and mighty one claiming to be morally superior. I don't even claim to be not evil.
It's the corporate hypocrisy that rankles, and brings Google morally back down into the muck.
It's their right, and perhaps their duty to shareholders, to kowtow to the largest collection of eyeballs on earth. This is what happens when you become a real company in the real world.
But a private business with moral backbone would simply decline to do business in that atmosphere.
Actually, it's the People's Republic of China that is not complying with their own laws. Their constitution talks about freedom of speech and that people are allowed to criticize the government.
Yeah, ideals often conflict with reality.
"Don't be evil" -- Google
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." -- Edmund Burke, English statesman and political philosopher (1729-1797
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
That there's more to LIFE than money.
There's also the award-winning photography.
You have to consider this over a longer period of time then a couple years. That government in China can not last, none do. Being told that your government hates you is a good way to encourage people to change their government sooner rather then later.
The notice might as well be "If you lived in a free country you would be seeing all sorts of neat stuff right now".
The february issue of legal affairs happens to have an interesting feature on this topic: "The latest American technology helps the Chinese government and other repressive regimes clamp down." Ofcourse there's nothing new under the sun here, since during the second world war when Hitler had a problem, IBM did it's very best to provide the solution (IBM and the Holocaust). Only differnce is, that back then, it was illegal to do so...
What annoys me is that this seems like selective censorship... If Google were either to stay out of China altogether, or prevent any results being returned for 'banned' topics then it'd not be so bad. But specific results are hidden, which leads to a sort of misinformation - you only see the side of the story that the Chinese government wants Google to show.
t ml
"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful"
http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/corporate/index.h
Well, I'd certainly not call this making the world's information universally accessible!
Something that has not been discussed in the media is that, as of about two months ago, access to any website with the evil word "blog" in it's URL is blocked in China. Blogs are dangerous because they contain the banned substance --opinions.
http://georgiadis.googlepages.com/
Yes, but there is a cutoff. $2 billion dollars doesn't buy you any more time than $200k, it just buys you a lot more caviar.
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.
What if that money that they made was spent on curing Malaria in Africa, or some similar beneficial endeavour? Wouldn't that lighten this already-grey area slightly? Is openly-labelled censorship better or worse than disease? It's subjective.
My point is that it's easy to say there's more to life than money, but when money has such a significant effect on you and those around you it's rarely that simple.
I can understand that if any other company does this. It's expected. But when a company that routinely touts the "don't be evil" tagline does it, it _deserves_ criticism.
Or else they can simply stop cawing about "Don't be Evil". I've never felt comfortable with the their insinuation anyway-- it's fashionable to call a lot of Google competitors *cough* MS *cough* 'evil', but when you look at _true_ evil (the Holocaust, Stalin's purges, Mao's cultural revolution) you realize that Google's just cheapening the word by applying it to their competitors.
Go somewhere random
You can see this in why they haven't turned over search results to the US government. They're not being "evil" and holding to their ethics and a sense of right to privacy.
Now, why did they agree to mutilate search results by censoring them? (Which I think we can all agree is an evil thing to do, censorship and all..)
Answer : They're already doing business and making profits in the US, not helping the government won't hinder those profits. On the other hand if they want to make PROFITS in China by doing business there they have to agree to do "evil".
Profits > Ethics = Evil
They choose to pride themselves on the "Dont be evil" motto, that creates a pretty black/white line to judge on in this case. And agreeing to it gets back around to the quote already made about evil winning when good men do nothing.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
"We realise that China is a growing country that is being more and more aware of the world therefore it represents great advertising opportunities for us. We would be sorry if we missed that boat, since this is our core business."
This is nothing more than a business decision.
Does a publicly traded company only have financial duties to shareholders, or should it be trying to help those shareholders in other ways? For example, would a shareholder rather live in a world where he has an extra $500, or a world where his kids won't have to fight a war with a brainwashed Chinese population? As a shareholder, I expect my companies to behave in a manner that will make my life better in more than just financial ways.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Go back to that page that gives that pleaseant description of Ahmed Rami, take note how it implies that Hitler's regime was legitimate. And sweet Allah, Hiter is painted as Muslim. Why as a fellow Muslim, Hiter sure sounds like the ideal Muslim man to me... or not!
Now, go have a thorough look at that site, you'll see the Jews are the enemy and, apparently, the Holocaust never happened... there is a huge difference between Germany and France's anti-semitism/anti-Nazism laws when compared to China's censorship laws. As an analogy, think of all the laws in the U.S. granting black wo/men rights, when preceding laws did not specifically forbid such rights... that is except for the tons of Jim Crow laws. The laws bar Jim Crow laws and explicitly grant rights for those idiots it was not already clear. Thus, in modern day Germany and France there are laws against Nazism and anti-semitism to prevent its rise and to serve as a declatory statement: "That is no longer us". Of course, discrimination against blacks has not disappeared (nowhere near), and certainly anti-semitism in France and Germany has not disappeared. In both cases, the laws help the situation.
What China is doing is simple fascism. I, personally, can't eloquate the difference between "good" censorship or "bad" censorship, but I bet Google (and the average person) can easily tell them apart. Did you notice Google making a big PR statement with censorship in France and Germany? No, because Google knows, and the public knows, there is a difference with the censorship in China. The inability to find pro-Nazi stuff isn't going to hurt you much, but the inability to see entire aspects of your life from a critical angle is going to really suck... Google is stifling freedom to useful information.
How will Google solve its problem of ethics versus bucks? No idea, but for now it seems it has found a suitable compromise to itself and its shareholders. But please, for fuck's sake, lose the "Do No Evil" and the PR about how things are just dandy...
Boycott Sony
You Americans can wax poetically about "censorship" when I can see a nipple on the Superbowl without the whole country going "WTF we're all going to die!".
Different cultures have different standards. I don't believe China's way is the best, but I'm not sure. And neither are you.
Do you really think Google has to fight against opression? Why don't you start? Go and break the DMCA ina really visible way, and face the consequences. I mean, we all know it's an unjust law, right? So why are you abiding by it?
China is a communist country.
Not any more, they're not. They're a hard-core capitalistic oligarchy. But they understand that by continuing to mouth Communist rhetoric, their enemies stay all outraged and irrational, attacking the rhetoric while ignoring most of what the Chinese government is actually up to.
Lots of people are falling for the ruse.
OTOH, here and there you can read dispassionate analyses of what's actually going on over there. It's hardly communism any more; it's a rather different sort of authoritarianism. It's a lot like the earlier Chinese system before Mao, but less insular. It's having some significant successes, from the ruling class's viewpoint, while the rest of the world is distracted and misdirected by the rhetoric.
Whether it's more or less evil than Communism was isn't clear yet.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Tibetans Outraged by Google's "Evil" Plan for Censorship in China "Don't Be Evil" Protest Planned for Google Headquarters Today San Francisco - Students for a Free Tibet is outraged at Google's decision to join hands with the Chinese Government in its censorship efforts. Google has launched a web search engine custom-built to the Chinese authorities' specifications that blocks access to information about Tibet, human rights, and other topics sensitive to Beijing. "Students and young people worldwide are appalled by Google's decision to become active partners in China's censorship apparatus," said Lhadon Tethong, Executive Director of Students for a Free Tibet. "Google's participation in the Chinese government's program of repression and information control renders the company motto "Don't be evil" a terrible joke." Google rivals Yahoo! and Microsoft have already shown a willingness to cooperate with Chinese authorities. Last year, Yahoo! provided information that helped jail a Chinese dissident for ten years and last month, Microsoft shut down a Chinese political blogger's site for "not complying with local law." "Political and corporate leaders constantly tell us that foreign business will contribute to a more open and democratic China," added Ms. Tethong. "This is yet another sign that China is in fact forcing foreign businesses to be more closed and anti-democratic." Tibetans and their supporters will hold a demonstration at 5:00 pm today at Google Headquarters at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, CA. Students for a Free Tibet http://www.studentsforafreetibet.org/ Contacts: Lhadon Tethong (917) 418-4181 lhadon@studentsforafreetibet.org Thupten Tsering (510) 381-8384 thupten@studentsforafreetibet.org