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Google's Action Makes A Mockery Of Its Values
Jason Jardine linked us to a well written piece discussing how Google has thus far promised to Do No Evil, but their recent decisions regarding censorship in china
make a mockery of those values. We've been following this story all along, but I thought this article makes good food for thought.
Had it been any other company, I would not have cared. But the point is, if you are a company that says "Do No Evil" and use that as a corporate strategy to try and earn good karma, you'd better hold on to it.
Did Microsoft say that they would do no evil? No, they did not.
On the other hand, Google tries to project the image of being Oh-so-Good and is being hypocritical about it.
If you are going to have a corporate value, stick to the bloody thing. Else don't flaunt it or be selective in its use.
This is what made me lose respect for Google - the fact that their so-called-values disappear at the first sign of money. Bah, what's the point then?
Google uses its values for no reason other than for purely strategy purposes:
Of course, most folks don't realize that like every other company, the moment money comes into picture, all values go out of the window.
Do no evil, my ass. They're worse than companies which do evil, because they don't preach something and practice hypocrisy.
Sheesh, shameless folks.
It's evil to obey laws... I see...
When they sold the stock their creed changed from "Do no evil" to "Do no evil to our stockholders".
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
When the laws themself violate basic human rights it is indeed evil to follow them.
It passionately claims that "Google has steadfastly refused to make any change that does not offer a benefit to the users who come to the site."
How about this as a benefit. The person in China using Google doesn't wind up in jail or worse a bill to his family from the state for the bullet.
This is beyond the obvious of China not letting Google do business there.
google is respecting the wishes of a sovereign nation. we, the people who know what is good and right, may not condone what the chinese guvmnt does, but at least google is doing what it needs to do to maintain its presence in china, and do what is best for stockholders as well. just because they sensor some sites, doesn't mean the people won't find a way to get the information they need.
Now whose "evil" are we talking about? In the US, it's clear from our constitution and bill of rights what we, as a country, hold valuable and consider "evil".
However, as so many people like to say, the US is not the rest of the world. There are other countries, with other values, and they aren't necessarily the same as ours. Are they "wrong"? What makes ours "right"? Because we like them?
Who is trying to push morals/values/ethics on someone else now? Or is this just what we say when we don't like the morals/values/ethics in question?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
I'm sorry I don't see what is wrong with obeying the laws of a country in which you do business. Would a European company be evil if it sold non-lead-free electronics in the US? No, it wouldn't... even though they would be breaking the law to sell the same thing in Europe (look up RoHS compliance). Freedom of speech is not the same thing as torture; I think it is indeed up to a country to decide for itself what level of speech can be tolerated (even in the US, there are a lot of things you can't say).
If Google promoted censorship in the US, then I would be unhappy. However I'm not going to fault them for playing by the rules wherever they operate.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing
Sometimes you cant avoid harming, good intentions or not, but you can take a path that gives the minimum/less permanent damage.
If it were the case that Google had leverage with the Chinese government, and if they could use that leverage to eradicate censorship in China, then perhaps the arguments of hypocrisy would hold water. This, however, is not the case.
The simple fact is, with or without Google operating in China, censorship there will continue to exist. If we assume that this is the case, and further that Google can only operate in China if they agree to abide by the laws in China (regardless of what we think of those laws), then there are only two possible scenarios.
Unless you can make the argument (and, in my estimation, it is an incoherent one) that somehow Google sans censorship is a net positive value to the Chinese citizenry, but censored Google is a net negative value, you must necessarily conclude that some access to Google is better than none.
Fundamentally, the censorship is China's fault, not Google's. They're doing their best to ensure that they give as much access as they can to the people in China.
-rsw
Yes, up front, let's recognize that money is a factor. But this is no surprise. Money is ALWAYS a factor. That has nothing to do with whether or not Google is doing the right thing. There are more important factors involved:
(1) If Google did not censor their content for China, Google would not be allowed into China at all. Google is an incredibly valuable resource for anyone looking for information. What's worse? Giving the Chinese as much information as Chinese law allows? Or leaving them with nothing at all?
(2) What is the "right thing"? By whose terms? We're arrogantly acting like American values of free speech are the only possible meaningful set of values. Don't get me wrong; from my perspective, free speech is vital, and China is only hurting itself by being totalitarian. But by the standards of the Chinese government and many Chinese people, Google is most CERTAINLY doing the "right thing" by censoring content.
So, when it comes down to it, all Google is doing is obeying the law, just as they would have to do if the US government passed some horribly boneheaded law. It's either that or go out of business. Are you so foolish as to think that Google could resist the censorship and somehow manage to bully the Chinese government into allowing Google access from within China anyway? Come back when you have your head out of your ass.
You go on vacation in China and start touting about a Free Tibette, you may get arrested, deported, detained, or something to make your remaining time mizerable. So when you go to China for vacation you keep your mouth shut about the politics and human rights and just injoy yourself.
China is a rapidly modernizing state, but its politcs are stuck in the 1960s. But without Google they will still be very isolated (Internet wise). Even if google does censor the information they are doing more good then harm. What Google can do is give people ideas that are not directly connected to the censored items and have them figure it out themselfs.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
So when I first followed this site religiously, about 3 months ago, I loved scrolling down and reading the discussion. I found the people who wrote stuff here intelligent, varied, and above all hilarious.
/.'ers applaud or defend depending on story. Everytime Google and China pops up, /.'ers heckle, boo, and preach about hypocrisy and the "evils" of the Chinese government and how COMMUNIST China is when I daresay most /.'ers posting these sort of comments have never set foot in China in the past couple years (0-10 if you want definition).
Though the more you read, the more times you read, and the longer the time span, just makes you realize the same sorts of comments get made over and over again.
This Google chain is perhaps the greatest example. Everytime Google pops up,
I don't have an account because I don't comment enough to warrant and if I did it would just get lost in the hundreds of comments per post anyways like this comment will because people will call me "blind" or "ignorant" or whatever for taking the time to stand up for the "evil" government of china and its censoring ways so this will pbly get modded out to a zero and just become lost, but that's fine. I just wanted to vent at my frustration.
Then again, it's a pretty solid proof of Asimov's concept that he expounded upon in his Foundation series. You get enough people that are individually random together and the group becomes much more predictable, to the point of certainty even.
**Note: this is not to say there isn't the rare jewel of a good, new, interesting, and well written post once awhile and to those people whose thinking go beyond Boolean logic, I applaud them.
"Do no evil" is not "Be holier than though." Do no evil does not mean they can force their values upon other countries.
Their choices are to operate in China under China's rules, or to get out. They can't choose to operate in China under US rules. So which is better for their users? I think it's better, less evil, for google to run their Chinese access under Chinese rules, than to provide no access at all.
"Did it occur to you that maybe they'll do more Good by being a western influence in China than by not being there at all? Filtering ALL of the Internet is impossible. Stuff will slip through, even if it's only a little, even if it's shut off as soon as authorities detect that it has. "
Actually, I bet Google is better at filtering than most other search engines, so they'll better enforce Chinese govt. policy than anyone else. It would be better if they stayed out of the market.
Vote for Pedro
I completely disagree with the sentiment that Google is 'being evil' by agreeing to censor search results in accordance with Chinese law. Google's job is not to legislate or protest political issues. Their job is to provide search results to those who need them.
It seems to me that, without google, the largest population of human beings in the world would be missing out on some of the best parts of the internet. Granted, many of those parts will be censored, but we all know censorship isn't ever going to be 100% effective, anyway.
What China needs is information. The more information we can get piped into Chinese cultural consciousness, the sooner their society will be able to emerge from this dark cloud. The internet is exactly the tool to provide that information, and if google is able to deliver it better than anyone else, then I say more power to them. I think it's obvious that our government hasn't had much luck in changing the Chinese government by scolding them or leveraging political and economic sanctions. Having said that, it seems pretty obvious to me that we should consider a different approach. From my perspective, that's exactly what google is doing. There's an old saying:
You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
no this isn't a troll - criticisim issues within the USA does not mean anti-USA
Once again we see a PRIVATE company complying with a PUBLIC law. Google is a company, nothing more. If the legal government of China wants Google to behave in a certain way to its citizens, Google MUST comply of stop doing business with citizens of China. If the citizens of China want more freedom, THEY must demand it. If they cannot get their government to comply with their wishes, it is not Google's place to enforce those wishes. Look at it this way, if Google was a SPAM company and it was the US demanding that the spam stop, and Google said no, what you you think then?
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
Every time people have access to more information, even though it might be censored, its always good in the end. And once people get more used to access to ready information, they will eventually demand access to all information. Google even censored, will have a huge positive social impact in China.
And last, but not least. Even though I live for half of my life in a totalitarian regime, I have never met with so much propaganda, misinformation and people willing to gobble it up and eat the shit from the hand of their government, until I moved to United States. The difference is staggering. I actually feel the people in United States are more controlled, watched and led by hand by their government than the people of my country were during a communist totalitarian regime. So in the end from my point of view, the only hypocrite here are you, Sir.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
I'm sure Justin Jardine will be taking down the Google Search Bar from the front page of his website any day now. He's probably busy taking care of customers though, because he just managed to spam Slashdot with a link to his ATV online store.
"It's Dot Com!"
Just imagine, a lesser company might have taken the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon and gratuitously smear the reputaton of it's leading rival.
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
For all those people who claim that Google has suddenly gone over to the dark side.. check the labels on your shirts. Check who made your kid's toy. Your new appliance. China?
The truth of the matter is that everyone deals with people or organizations that may not hold the same ideals as they do. Witness the fact that the U.S. government, which has stated it wants democracy everywhere, deals with countries such as Saudi Arabia that do not have a democratic system.
I submit to you that the more interaction there is with a non-democratic state, the more likely democracy will flow to the non-democratic state. As someone else said, information is the key. Even with Google's self-imposed censorship, things will get through and it can only be good.
SCO, Microsoft, P2P, what's your hot button?
Okay, you have two choices to make as a corporation:
1.) I can sensor some of my product in a country.
2.) I can not have my product in the country.
Tell me, under the guiding idea of "Do No Evil" or rather "Don't Be Evil," which is not evil?
With option 1, I have some ability to do good.
Under option 2, I have no ability to do good.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
From a western perspective, false and biased information is as dangerous (if not more so) than a total lack of information. For instance, I find people without televisions and who ignore news altogether to be generally have more well-founded opinions and to be more open-minded than people who watch FOXNews religeously. The current administration and their supporters are an example of the product of biased, incensant ranting in the mainstream, right-wing media.
If google had simply quietly complied with China's requirements and selectively filtered the results for Chinese IP addresses, they would indeed have been a participant in China's censorship. However, putting up a warning and making a huge fuss in public about it, going out of their way to highlight where the censorship occurs, makes it a completely different ballgame. The results are yet to be seen, but it looks far more subversive than simply letting the Chinese government censor them entirely.
Google states that "while removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission." Assuming that Google's only alternative was to refuse to censor their results, and hence be completely filtered by the Great Firewall, I would argue that that option would have been more consistent with their mission than their chosen path.
/. in a comment on one of the other articles about Google's recent decision that one problem that international businesses, particularly media, face in dealing with China is that they all deal individually with the Chinese government, and hence have little to no leverage. The Chinese government needs multinationals right now as much as, or more than, multinationals need China, but China needs them in aggregate rather than individually, so can take a divide-and-conquer approach at regulating them. What is needed is an industry organization, formal or informal, dedicated to upholding freedom of the press, to which all media companies operating in China can belong, a support network that mutually resists the pressure by the Chinese government on any one company to censor information. Google refusing to censor its results could have been a step in that direction, and if any company has the clout to the lead the formation of such an organization, it's Google.
The absence of the world's largest, most popular search engine inside the Chinese firewall would have been as glaringly obvious as a pink elephant. The Chinese people aren't idiots, they know their government censors information, and they would know why Google had suddenly been blocked by the firewall. Word would get out, through the grapevine and other unofficial channels, and it might even constitute an embarrassing loss of face for the Communist party. Of course, the Chinese would much prefer that Baidu, Sino, or one of their own home-grown search engines be the #1 search engine, but they would still know that the only truly reliable search engine, the one that refuses to censor their information, was Google, and had been blocked by their government. Unlike Americans, the Chinese have long memories, and such an association would pay off in PR and face for Google in the long term.
Google on the other hand might take a stock price hit, but no investor could say they were't warned that Google might make decisions based on long-term considerations rather than short term stock-price-propping, or that Google's corporate values might sometimes conflict with the best interests of their stock price. However, such a move would certainly solidify the image of Google as a singular organization with the most honest and accurate search results worldwide, truly dedicated to its mission of organizing all the world's information.
Furthermore, Google's refusal to cooperate with the Chinese Government might have opened the door for other search engines, media, and businesses to follow suit, and emboldened the Chinese people and businesses to demand more unfettered access to information and less government interference. Someone mentioned on
So this appears to be an unfortunately wasted opportunity, for Google to make a strong political statement based on its values, that might have hurt it in the short term but most likely have paid off in PR and face in the long-term.
Google, we expected better.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
Simply put Google choose to compromise it's ethics because it wouldn't be able to make money in China otherwise.
Profits over Ethics = evil
Take your Google apologies elsewhere.. If they didn't want to be judged in a black and white sense they should not publically brandish and pride themselves in a black and white corporate motto. kthxbai
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
First, although this may be meaningless semantics, I believe the policy states "Don't be evil," not "Do no evil." You can do evil and not be evil. The distinction lies in the details. Is the thief who steals to feed his starving family being evil? The answer is a whole lot less clear.
Related to that, it seems that a lot of people on this site and elsewhere seem to (unfairly, I think) hold Google to a much higher standard than anyone else. For example, no one batted an eye when Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL complied with the government's request for their search data. But when Google did, "OMG! Stop the presses!" That story wasn't so much about the government's onerous subpoena, but about Google. Another good one is the complaints about its Gmail service. They've got your personal data! Yeah, and how many of you have been using Yahoo and Hotmail for years? What's different here? The only difference (besides exceptional features and service) is they use an algorithm that tries to target ads to you. If the alternative to targeted text ads is annoying popups, pop-unders, and flashy, vibrating, seizure-inducing banner ads, I'll gladly accept the limited targeted text ads as an improvement. A lot of the flak Google gets seems to stem from the expectation that it must be all things to everyone.
And my main point, assuming you think Google is a good company that compensates and treats its employees and customers well, Google stands to do a lot of good, in spite of the evil of complying with China's unquestionably evil speech restrictions. I haven't heard any complaints about the way Google treats its employees or customers yet, but I have heard a lot of good things. I'm not a free-market fundamentalist by any means, I believe in an effective activist government, I believe in the social safety net, but I also believe in the power of the free market. The great wealth that America enjoys today, and that China is just beginning to create for itself, is due to the power of free enterprise. A company like Google that can make a lot of money by making a lot of people happy stands to do a lot of good wherever it goes, China included, in spite of the restrictions it imposes. A presense in China means raising the standard of living for its employees, its contractors, its customers, and the communities they inhabit. And that's a lot of good that I haven't seen anyone here yet recognize. (Although it took me some time to write this up so someone may have since I read the comments.)
Google said they wouldn't monitor you email and now they do. Yeah they changed the TOS, but quietly. Did you get an email clearly explaining the change and asking if you wanted to opt out? Google knows people are very reluctant to change email addresses. They get you hooked on an email address and service, give you lots of features and promise to be nice. After you are hooked and that is where all your correspondence goes, surprise, the TOS change.
A recent survey showed that something like 75% of the people had no idea about he personal data Google collects and what they do with it. They currently promise only to use it for their business purposes. But they also reserve the right to change their minds about this.
Do not evil is simple the best marketing program in years. Google is a commercial enterprise like all the others. They are no better and may or may not be worse. They do a lot of cute stuff to fool you. The founders take salaries of $1. Gee, if you are worth 10 billion it is a real hardship. But the press reports this and they look like good guys. These guys are the best PR guys out there.
But, despite how good they are at the hype game, just remember: You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time! Eventually, the public catches on and sees through the hype. The Chine stuff is the first crack in the wall of brilliant PR.
I'm really sad this happened, even though in theory it means that I will have better access to Google in the near future.
g +evil
The idea that serving something is better than nothing is totally false. The idea that by serving a little now someday it will help influence people to demand change from the gov't is also false. I live in Beijing and with all the free market capitalism here there is not an equal demand for freedom (other than freedom to buy stuff). That's because people are convinced the best they can hope for is to have money to buy stuff and dodge the gov't as much as possible. Cynical, yes, but after living here for 2 years that is what I see.
All that it does is tell the Chinese Gov't people are willing to accede to their demands to help them inprove fascism. It's part of a strategy to give the appearance of freedom without the moral depth.
Here's something. Send Google a message:
http://www.google.com/search?q=censorship+is+doin
Anyone out their good with Gimp and can wip up a nice little logo? If that query suddenly became the most popular search string at google maybe it will wake them up.
Peace, or Not?
The fact is, leaving China out of business, or international relations will not bring a change to its sort of rule. Best example: Look at North Korea. Isolation didn't do them any good, and instead they are accelerating towards being a Nuclear state. They pose only more danger, not less.
With Google in China, the citizens get more information and education. It would *probably* help in the long run, as the culture could get increasingly liberal with the vast information they acquire. It will breed a new generation of citizens that are a little bit more enlightened than the previous generation, and this might inch the country slowly towards a more democratic, free rule. Baby steps.
On the other hand, we are all worried about the "slippery slope". Google must know where to draw the line -- if the Chinese govt continues to make increasingly restrictive demands, Google must know not to fall into its manipulative tricks and respond accordingly.
The year that never happened.
(Still, there seems to be ways around it...)
The filesystem is the package manager
- The refusal for giving data over a subpoena to the US Government has nothing to do with my privacy. See this NY Times article. I hate the fact that Google is pretending that this has anything to do with my privacy. Come on Google, we're not that stupid - if you're worried about your trade secrets, fine, just say so. Don't pretend you're protecting me.
- Rolling over and panting with eagerness to help the communist goons in China hardly qualifies as doing no evil. The whole point of Google's stock structure where the shares of Brin/Page/Schmidt (see here)
are worth 10 times the ordinary schmo's shares voting-wise was precisely because they said that this way they could run the company they way they wanted without worrying what the shareholders thought. The only conclusion is that Google wants to be communist enforcers, and is too worried about their valuation to stand up for core values.
If they hadn't set out promising what they did, I don't think I would have cared. But they did, and it was a factor in my liking them. How different are they from that faker Frey?Also, I want to ask the Google apologists - how many of you work for Google? If you do, then stop eating the free food and drinking the kool aid.