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Why Google in China Makes Sense

Posted by Zonk on from the begin-arguing-in-three-two-one dept.

ctd writes "The BBC is carrying an interesting article about the positive outcomes from Google's censorship of its China site." From the article: "Millions of people may now be turning away from Google in disgust, but I've just reinstated them as the default search for my Firefox toolbar, because I think it should be supported for its brave decision. Even if the primary motivation for going into China is that it makes commercial sense for the company - as indeed it must do, since US law is quite harsh on boards that take actions which could damage shareholder value - it also makes political sense. "

19 of 362 comments (clear)

  1. MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! by grub · · Score: 4, Insightful


    since US law is quite harsh on boards that take actions which could damage shareholder value - it also makes political sense.

    Shareholder's wealth is more important than human rights? I hope the author feels the same way when China is rounding up "bad thinkers" who search for the wrong things from within China. It's just a matter of time... but at least the shareholders will be happy.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
    1. Re:MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! by Rakshasa+Taisab · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm sure the Chinese people greatly appreciate your efforts at providing them with freedom and prosperity by attempting to deny them access to Google.

      --
      - These characters were randomly selected.
    2. Re:MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! by Infernon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's a bit foolish to start going to extremes such as this. When, and if something like this happens, is it truly going to be the fault of Google?

      The author of the article makes a great point, but I'm not sure that he realizes it. Most good change does not happen with a bang, it takes time. Google's business in China is one of the parts of that slow moving process, in my opinion. It could very well happen that we're looking back on this time years later and thinking about the items that led to free speech in China.

      The point that I'm trying to make is that everything isn't necessarily what it seems on the surface.

    3. Re:MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! by Kadin2048 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It would fall under their responsibility to do "Due Diligence". You can Google for the concept (ironic, given the discussion -- do feel free to "Yahoo" for it instead). It's not a criminal violation, but it opens you (if you were the CEO) to civil liabilities, I believe.

      However the much more likely scenario is, if you were a CEO or Director who refused for moral reasons to do something that was legal and would benefit your shareholders, that they would have a no-confidence vote and replace you. It's tough to find records of that and say exactly how often it happens, because it can be handled entirely internal to the company. I've heard stories about this happening back when the first major rounds of Asian manufacturing outsourcing occured in the 1970s and 80s, but I can't give you any concrete examples.

      However I don't think Google's Directors can take this route out of responsibility ("the Board made us do it"), because it's my understanding that they were not in anywhere close to a position where they could be taken out via a boardroom coup, because of the way the shares are currently distributed.

      --
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  2. Brave decision? by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are reasons to justify Google's involvement in China, but nothing would make it a "brave" one.

    What they did is to cave in to the Chinese govt.'s pressure and although that has positive aspects, like still being accessible for chinese people, the censorship still exist and that cannot be called as a brave decision.

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    1. Re:Brave decision? by khendron · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Of course it is a brave decision. Google has put its "Don't be evil" mantra on the chopping block and has left it up to the public whether or not to let the axe fall. Do you think they don't know this? Do you think they are surprised by the reaction? I don't think so.

      I have a lot of relatives who lived in apartheid South Africa. They fell into 2 distinct camps: those who would try to work with the government to influence change and those who would have nothing to do with it. Both camps were significant in the breaking up of apartheid. Google has faced the same decision in China. Should it work with the government, and perhaps get the opportunity in influence change, or should it just walk away? In this case, walking away would do nothing. Some people might be surprised to hear this, but the Internet works just fine without Google. Instead Google has taken the hard choice. They've put their cherished reputation on the line in order to be in the position to influence change.

      Maybe, and only time will tell, Google made this decision just to make a buck. But I don't think so.

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    2. Re:Brave decision? by floorgoblin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I agree with the poster here, Google took a risk by agreeing to work with the chinese government. Just because its only a PR issue doesn't mean its not significant, bad PR can destroy a company relatively quickly. While influencing change in China isn't something that happens quickly, Google has made a slight difference by increasing China's involvement with the West through their company. As long as China remains as isolated as they are, change will happen slowly. By opening up the exchange between China and the West, that process is sped up, if only slightly. And if Google hadn't cooperated, China wouldn't be any better or worse off anyway.

    3. Re:Brave decision? by ubernostrum · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There are reasons to justify Google's involvement in China, but nothing would make it a "brave" one.

      What they did is to cave in to the Chinese govt.'s pressure and although that has positive aspects, like still being accessible for chinese people, the censorship still exist and that cannot be called as a brave decision.

      First of all, the United States, France and Germany all have laws which require Google to censor its results, and Google does censor them -- in the US, results which receive DMCA complaints have to go, and in France and Germany links about Nazis get the boot. One of the costs of doing business is following the laws of the country you're operating in, and for Google to have a presence in China they have to comply with Chinese censorship laws. Just like they already comply with American, French and German censorship laws. The question, then, is how to follow the law while doing as little as possible to help those laws which are perceived as evil.

      Now, here's somthing to consider: previously, if a Chinese citizen did a search on, say, "Tiananmen", they'd just get back whatever the Chinese government wants them to see, with results the government doesn't like removed. The average Chinese person would never know that anything fishy was going on. But now if that same Chinese citizen does the same search at the Chinese Google, they get the same result set, plus a little something extra: a message at the bottom of the page which says, in Chinese, "due to local law, regulation or policy one or more results were removed from this page". And every single Google China page links to the main google.com, which doesn't censor results.

      This is the same policy that people applauded Google for with the DMCA -- they removed the complained-about results, but added a message saying they'd been removed, and made sure you could get to information about why it was removed. With China, they remove the results Beijing doesn't want, but add a message saying they've been removed. And they make sure you know how to get to their main search page which doesn't censor anything.

      To me this is an elegant compromise with more than a hint of subversiveness in it, and I think it's easily the most moral solution to the entire problem. So I do wish people would actually take the time to research what happened and get the facts before they get up on their high horses about Google being evil.

  3. not quite sure... by autopr0n · · Score: 3, Insightful

    as indeed it must do, since US law is quite harsh on boards that take actions which could damage shareholder value - it also makes political sense I belive google's board is somewhat protected from this, based on their bylaws.

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  4. False analogies = flame bait by Potor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The article implies that libel laws and laws againt computer-generated child-porn are synonymous with censorship. That's crap, of course. I expect that kind of argument from a high school student, not a paid BBC commentator.

    1. Re:False analogies = flame bait by discontinuity · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The article implies that libel laws and laws againt computer-generated child-porn are synonymous with censorship. That's crap, of course.

      Yes, the author does draw a parallel, but I don't think it quite undermines his argument. He'd not saying libel/anti-child porn laws are morally equivalent to censorship. He is just pointing out that there already are websites that are filtered from general view and that we often are not aware of it. His point here is that at least in this instance Google is trying to alert users to the fact that something is being held back.

      I agree that the author's argument isn't the most compelling. I mean, who would be interested to know that child porn was omitted from their search results? Not me (especially since I can't imagine why any searches I do would return such restults!). But if something that was not in the same make-your-skin-crawl moral category as child porn was filtered from your results, you at least should know about it.

      So it's basically a curiosity-killed-the-cat argument, except in this case the author thinks curiosity comes from the users and the cat is the Chineese government. Google might be hoping that if they mention something is missing, the users will eventually demand the missing content. Whether this effect actually is significant depends on several factors, including whether the average Chineese user will be sufficiently curious about those omitted results. But, I think it is a safe bet that it's more likely to promote thinking among the average user than by not noting the omission. Google's reasoning is probably something along the lines of "if we don't do it someone else will and they might make even larger compromises that this one."

  5. Millions of people? by jvolk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think not. Most people (at least Americans) don't care what Google does in China, even if they know anything at all about it. All they care about is the search results and products Google makes FOR THEM.

    Not to mention habits are hard to break, so "Googling it" is something that now comes as second nature to many people and isn't likely to change over China.

  6. Copy of a post I made yesterday... by pnuema · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All of you "OH NOES! GOOGLE IS TEH EVIL!!!11!eleventyone" people need to re-evaluate their lives. Do you all consider yourselves evil? No? How many of you are working on systems whose parts were manufactured in China? How many of your clothes and shoes were made there? How many objects can you find within ten feet of you right this second that were made in China? You are doing business in China, by buying their goods, but you are not evil. Why are you applying a double standard to Google?

    1. Re:Copy of a post I made yesterday... by oirtemed · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Its a bit harder to purchase consumer goods not made in countries like China than it is to make the choice not to do business with the Chinese govt as a billion dollar company.

      Lets see: Someone just living: little disposable income with which to fight the balance of the economy. Billion dollar company willfully choosing to participate in government censorship programs.

      I think there is a big difference. There is no double standard. Companies are not people no matter how many laws give them people like rights. Comparing a company's actions to people's everyday choices is just ridiculous. If I made a million a year, I'd be able to spend more money to aquire products from better places (voting with my money so to speak.) But you know what? You know who moved the factories there in the first place? Oh my god. I'll give you one guess cause your so smart. That's right: the companies.

  7. Censored Google is Good for China .... by kwandar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Okay, now my initial knee jerk reaction is that Google shouldn't be censoring. But then I read that Google WILL NOTIFY USERS THAT THE DOCUMENT IS CENSORED.

    Its one thing where censorship is hidden, but its quite another when millions of Chinese will begin to realize how much information is being hidden from them.

    This is a good thing, and certainly not evil.

  8. Turning from Google to... who? by Dekortage · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Millions of people may now be turning away from Google in disgust....

    Who are they turning to? Haven't ALL the major search engines "caved in" (e.g. MSN, Yahoo) to the Chinese Government's pressures? The open source answer should be something like: "You don't like it? Build your own search engine, then!"

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  9. This is a good thing, if you think about it. by mmell · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Okay, so the results on google.cn are limited, but . . .

    It's generally agreed that free information flow and communication are two of the best tools a population can have to use against a totalitarian or dictatorial government. Okay, so google.cn is limiting the flow of information, but that flow is still greater than it would be if google.cn didn't exist.

    Think of it this way - the first couple of cracks in a dam don't look too threatening when they are small and just forming. Think of google's presence in China as the harbinger of greater information flow to come. Intelligent and quick-witted people will use this limited tool to find ways to ultimately have a tool which is less limited, less restricted.

    I'm not saying that (GOOGLE.CN)==(FREEDOM FOR CHINA), only that IMHO this is a step in the right direction. If that step is hobbled, it is nonetheless progress toward a desirable end. Also, let's not upbraid Google too harshly for functioning to the best of their abilities despite obstacles imposed by a sovereign state in which they wish to do business; rather we should applaud their effort to expand their business model and all that goes with it into an undeniably hostile environment. That their motives are not so lofty as the furtherance of human rights and personal freedom is irrelevant: that their actions might lead to the furtherance of human rights and personal freedom seems more important to me here.

  10. Google isn't Restricting Chinese Rights by Nazmun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The way I see it... either google censors and china allows the site to go through the great firewall or the site is blocked entirely by the "People's" Republic.

    Their are only two possibilities the goverment of china will allow. A censored google or no google. I agree that googles actions are neither brave nor righteous. But they aren't evil or wrong in any case.

    --
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  11. Not-hidden censorship==step in good direction by Skinny+Rav · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I am late for this discussion, so my post will probably be lost in the crowd...

    Anyway, I remember Solidarity movement in Poland - one of its main successes was to have all censorship in newspapers marked with something like "removed in line with blahblah Act". In fact it became a kind of national sport to read newspapers and guess what was removed. Sometimes something like half of the article was cut - which was even more interesting. "Wow - there must be something really interesting about this subject" - that's what everybody thought seeing such censored removals.

    It is the same here: it is a big difference if you put "Tiananmen" into a search box and get only results like "city guided tours" or pages of travel agencies or if you get these along with "some results to your query have been removed to comply with Chinese regulations".

    An example: you hear a rumour, that something is going on in some city. You put the name of this city into google.cn and get this anouncement that some results were removed - bang! and you have confirmation that something important is going on.

    As they say it "it is not true until they deny it". In this case: it is not important/dissident/interesting unless they censor it.

    Cheers

    Raf