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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.
Chinas internet market is much smaller than googles own market share. If they were to resoundly reject a comprimise to filter search data it would affirm that they will not bow to demands. The last thing they want to do is set the precedent that they will do whatever individual countries ask of them. article quote( company's statement still says Google's goal is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.") i don't see how dumbing down the search results falls into this.
If Google were to have implemented a whitelist that was managed by China, and only allow a search based on this, I'd agree with the spirit of these criticisms completely. However, the implementation that exists seems to leave plenty of room for people to find ways to know that they can access real information despite the limitations. Having a common search engine with the rest of the world will allow an easier path to the "grey market" of outside oppinions than may otherwise be unavailable to casual searchers.
Still, this level of "cooperation" with the Chinese censors shows no inherent sign that Google won't be ratcheting up their limitations on the engine even further... I see no limits in place to make sure further corruption won't happen. Perhaps behind the scenes, they exist, but in the context, I do agree with this part of the criticism of Google's actions.
Still Google as it now exists is a nice window in the firewall of China, even if it has been smudged. At least it's open enough for open source projects of various sorts to know how to build a door for those interested.
All the argument used to defend Google could also have been used to defend companies that helped facilitate the slave trade.
"Honoring a sovereign nation" - Check
"Every culture has different values" - Check
"Working within the law to make some money" - Check
And with the argument of, "We will be nice to the slaves, and since other companies would undoubtedly step in and be cruel to them - we are justified in our assistance," we complete the similarities.
Money rules all - there's nothing new under the sun.
How would the Chinese people know about the censorship if no one tells them about it? Their government controls their media and as far as the average person would be concerned, there's nothing going on.
Remember a few years ago when that Chinese jet crashed into that E-3? As far as the chinese citizens were concerned, that prop driven E-3 chased down that fighter jet and brought it down. All according to their government.
If any of you actually try the new google.cn page, you will find that it's Google who makes a mockery of China's censorship policy. All the sensitive string I tried like "june4th" in either English or Chinese have returned links on the first few pages that are highly critical to the government. On top of that even if the link is blocked, the user can still get the text content through google cache - a highspeed backdoor through the firewall.
This is age old moral relativism...
Should I stop another culture from allowing the use of dangerous fireworks?
Should I stop another culture from caning people?
Should I stop another culture from restricting trade on the latest gee-whiz makes your life easier device?
Should I stop another culture from oppressing freedom of speech and religion?
Should I stop another culture from systematically sexually and physically abusing a minority group?
Should I stop another culture from allowing slavery?
Should I stop another culture from committing genocide?
Saying that we shouldn't impose our values on another culture is fine, but only to a certain point. Maybe we should allow them to censor information, but definitely we shouldn't make it easier for them to do so. There has to be a line somewhere, and our opposition to any culture should be proportional to how far along a "continuum of evil" they are. I think that today we shouldn't be helping China censor their population.
With the FBI case, a goverment was asking (demanding) that Google hand over search logs which would seriously comprimise the privacy, and perhaps the security, of a large number of citizens. Google said "naff off" - and kudos to them. I wish Yahoo and MS had the balls to do the same (but I wouldn't expect it)
With China, a goverment is requiring that Google not allow it's citizens access to certain data. Google have agreed. I think it's a shame but I can understand Google following national laws - especially when it has no privacy or survaliance result. I suspect the alternative would be that Google would be blocked from the Chinese national firewalls. In either case the citizens are prevented from accessing the search results. With this result the citizens do not have reduced access (they'd be blockedone way or another) but google retains a presence
Now - if Google were also handing over the logs of failed search requests then it would be a double standard and hypocrisy, and definitly "doing evil". As it stands I think the two issues are quite seperate. I also think they've come to a reasonably good conclusion when faced with very difficult moral questions
But the problem is not that clever people can't find accurate information about Tienamen Square if they do some clever search sleuthing, its that the government has censored this information from as many mainstream channels as possible. None of this information is fully protected from citizens in China, but being able to keep dissent out of most mainstream channels (print, television, radio, top results on major search engines) has a huge affect on the perception of the government's human rights violations and facilitates their continued practices.
Making almost everything accessible in as open a way as possible under the circumstances is the best way to make China more free. Most Chinese are aware their government is corrupt, that they have serious envionmental issues to work through, and that Falun Gong is a harmless cult.
This is my Cuba Theory - if instead of the stupid policy we have now the US opened up our borders to Cuba, allowed free trade and free communication even within the limitations of Castro's murderous regime, Cuba would be a free and prosperous democracy in months, not years, and Castro would live out his days happily doddering away in retirement.
The same IS WORKING NOW from China. Because we opened our doors, China is a better and freer place every day.
Of course, we are utterly dependent on Chinas' good will, and soom half of America will be scrubbing toilets for Red Army officers, but hey that's progress.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Hold up to public scrutiny what China wants to hide.
Publish the blocked list.
While this doesn't solve the problem of Google pandering to the Chinese regime, it can demonstrate to the rest of the world exactly what China is afraid will unbalance it's leaderships power. Raising the visibility of banned authors and topics will help undermine their attempt to limit knowledge.
When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras
But in support of the "something will filter through" position, I offer you this:
http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen&svnum=1 0&hl=zh-CN&lr=&cr=countryCN&start=80&sa=N
I see two tank pictures there.
Great point, which is even more appropriate in China. The Chinese culture has a history of being resistant to change and have not repsonded well when foriegners have attempted to force them to change quickly. Make much more sense to give the chinese people access to some of Google's content than have the government shut them off from the rest of the world completely.
Now if this was occuring in a 'free' country like the US, Canada, EU, etc... I would have a real problem with it. I think it's interesting that Google is giving concessions like this to the Chinese government, but at the same time is fighting the White House on their request for search statistics that would result in a censorship law being passed in the US.
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a more telling example is a search for "falun gong" on each google site. the one's at .cn are clearly anti-FG propaganda, while .com results mostly document chinese gov abuses of FG practitioners. in this cases, it looks like google isn't simply censoring search results, it's helping the chinese gov't to spread propaganda.