Google Admits China Censorship Was Damaging

pilsner.urquell writes to let us know about a wide-ranging interview with Google's founders from Davos, Switzerland. Larry Page and Sergey Brin admitted that allowing China to censor its search engine did harm to the company in its Western markets. Quoting the Guardian article: "Asked whether he regretted the decision, Mr. Brin admitted yesterday: 'On a business level, that decision to censor... was a net negative.'" The reporter concludes that Google is unlikely to revise its Chinese censorship policy any time soon.

Comments

Agreed.. but why?

[x_MeRLiN_x]

Google have made it easier for Chinese users to find uncensored content and clearly labels pages where results have been censored. Since they would not be allowed to conduct business if they didn't allow this, I can't really see how what they did can be considered morally wrong.

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[x_MeRLiN_x]

You're missing the point.

Worst case scenario if Google censors their index so the Chinese public have access to it: Information (that an arbitrary entity deems acceptable) is more accesible
Worst case scenario if Iran has nuclear arms: millions of people die

Of course you're only making a point, but the first situation is arguably the right thing to do; they are in no way making things worse. Your example can have devastation consequences and so can be considered Bad Thing(TM).

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[j_philipp]

> Google have made it easier for Chinese users
> to find uncensored content

No. Because China had (and still has) access to google.com (working around 90% of the time, according to Google).

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[utopianfiat]

Since they would not be allowed to conduct business if they didn't allow this, I can't really see how what they did can be considered morally wrong.

This is an idiotic sentence. I think it's quite damningly clear how it can be considered "morally wrong" if you value freedom of information, which google purports to do as per its "do no evil" philosophy. Exactly that: "do no evil" for the good of the profit. What they do in allowing china to censor its product is allowing evil for the sake of profit.
I'm sorry and I'll probably be modded flamebait for this, but I find your post extremely ignorant and I find it scary that it's supposed to be FP material.

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[Nazlfrag]

Well evil is in the eye of the beholder. To the Chinese regime, uncensored net access is evil. To 'do no evil' in China, they must agree to the Chinese governments definitions of evil and good. This of course goes against the principles of the founders of Google, but not against the principles of the Chinese regime. I'd say the Chinese people are far better off than they would be if all of Googles servers were blocked by the government. It seems they chose a lesser of two evils, which also allows unfiltered content from outside the Chinese servers.

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[krotkruton]

I completely agree with you that the grandparent's quote was pretty ridiculous. However, I still don't think that what Google did was morally wrong (or evil, if you prefer to use that word).

Here's my reasoning: for an action to be "morrally wrong", you must first have a choice in whether or not to do the action, and Google obviously had a choice. Furthermore, for an action to be morally wrong, there must be a choice which is more morally right than the the alternative/s. One of the Exorcist remakes had a scene where a priest was forced by Nazis to choose a few people out of large group to die, and if he did not choose, then they would all die. I would argue that by choosing people to die, the priest did not do anything morally wrong because the alternative was worse (not to mention selfish because he is avoiding the pain of knowing that he killed the people he picked). IMO, this was analogous to the situation Google was in. Google could either choose to give some information to the Chinese people or none. By not providing the service, the Chinese people would could not get around the great firewall would be worse off, so Google's choice was the morally right decision.

Saying this does not mean that I advocate censorship. I think censorship is horrible, but it was the better option in this case since complete freedom of information was not a choice.

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[Javit]

I don't agree with the nukes comparison either, but don't brush off the impact of censorship, a form of information control. It's not as simple as giving them access to information they wouldn't otherwise have; it's what they don't see. Consider, for example, if Google in the United States was disallowed from returning results that so much as acknowledge the existence of the Democratic Party or its principles. Do you think a citizen of this hypothetical USA should be thankful to get whatever information Google does provide?

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[Aglassis]

Since they would not be allowed to conduct business if they didn't allow this, I can't really see how what they did can be considered morally wrong.

The "Do no evil" policy doesn't just mean to do no evil when no profits are at stake (like randomly killing puppies). It means to do no evil even if profits are at stake.

Censoring people is morally wrong. When we start playing the game of "the ends justify the means" we start getting into flawed logic like that which started our recent Iraq War (i.e. it is OK to kill hundreds of thousands of people as long as you free their country--the ends justify the means).

Logically you are going to ask what would have happened if Google refused to do business in China. Another American company like Microsoft or even some other foreign company would have undoubtedly taken the place of Google. Their censorship may have been more or less strict. And from this you might think that Google is doing good because other companies could have been more evil. But then tell me why so many people think Haliburton is an evil company. They bring required services to Iraq and would certainly outperform many other companies. You might object and say that war profiteering is not the same as profiting from censorship, but I would disagree. Fundamentally, both companies are profiting from morally wrong actions.

Whether Google is doing less evil than other companies is unknown. But Google is undoubtedly doing evil. And this is not something I think people should start admiring. While the phrase "the ends justify the means" certainly sounds reasonable at first, it has a hidden assumption that has bitten most people who have used that phrase to justify their actions. That assumption is that you can predict the future. Saddam Hussein might have continued a brutal reign and continued policies of genocide and aggravating neighbors for another 30 years in which the international community could do nothing to stop. But then again he might not have. This is why so many people consider the Iraq War unjust. And this is why I consider Google's actions evil.

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[Aglassis]

Oh, and I don't mean that "the ends justifies the means" can never justify actions. krotkruton's example above of the priest selecting prisoners to be executed to save the rest certainly would be justified by "the ends justifies the means." I only mean that you can only use it to justify actions in which you can clearly predict the future without ambiguity. In krotkruton's example there certainly was little doubt about what the outcome would have been had the priest not made a selection. The Nazi guards might not have executed any prisoners, but that would be very unlikely.

"The ends justifies the means" loses its power of justification when you have less ability to predict the future unambiguously. I would argue that Bush's prediction on Iraq and Google's prediction on Chinese censorship were not items that could predicted clearly and unambiguously.

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Haliburton isn't an evil company becuase they went in and did the job, they are an evil company becuase like the used car dealers of old they are screwing people over instead of doing the job. All of you people that rag on Google for 'Censoring China' China is censoring the internet like how US schools and businesses do, not to mention the FCC /You know the old saying about glass houses,
don't piss on my window and I won't through a rock through yours

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[Anonymous Coward]

So i guess a library that only included stories about the Iraq war *if* they were written by the Bush family would still be 'better' than nothing, hmm? It would still be "the right thing to do" ?

Misleading people with filtered truths may be even MORE damaging than letting them know flat out that they don't have information on the subject. I dont know, and neither do you, but you seem to be OK making sweeping comments that 'its the right thing to do'.

you corporate fan boy.

you silly corporate fan boy, your argument is hereby invalidated. Go back to reading your Ayn Rand pat-your-wealthy-white-self-on-the-back garbage.

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's fair to compare a democracy (in principle) with an authoritarian state. The Chinese doesn't have any information to begin with, so what Google did was changing the 0 to a 1 (not a 10 yet, but still an improvement). But if Google does censoring in the US, it would be like reducing the 10 to a 9.

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well evil is in the eye of the beholder. To the Chinese regime, uncensored net access is evil.

Let's get this right... Uncensored media is damaging to the government, which is evil. Uncensored media and free information is a threat to the bad guys. That's like saying angles are considered to be evil by demons, because angles are a threat to the existence of demons. In both cases, the bad guys realize they're bad, they just don't want word to get out, so people will not stop worshiping them.

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try to search for sensitive stuff (e.g Tibet, Falun Gong) on google.cn, it would say clearly the result is filtered according to the law. I wouldn't call that "misleading".

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[stinerman]

Some of us don't believe that the consequences of an action determine whether or not the action is morally correct. So we simply can't agree based upon this fundamental impasse.

The problem with the consequentialist view, in my opinion, is that it leads to the rationalization of some very serious wrongs. Example:

I am given the job of rounding up political dissidents in a totalitarian state. I know that they will be jailed and tortured once I bring them back to the government. So if someone is going to do it, it might as well be me. Of course, I don't agree with the policy, but maybe I can let a few people escape, and I can try to be as nice to them as possible while their in my custody. If I don't do the job, someone else less scrupulous will do it. Therefore, I am making the morally correct decision by agreeing to assist the government.

Your point is that this is the best possible outcome for both you and the dissidents. My point is that regardless of the outcome, what I will be doing is wrong. It is wrong to assist a totalitarian government to violate its citizens' rights.

Google assisted a totalitarian government. What they did was wrong. It doesn't matter if the Chinese had access to more information with Google. It was still wrong.

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[eternalDRIVEL]

When searching for "democracy" they actually get more results... and no ads. http://www.google.cn/search?q=democracy 98,300,000 pages http://www.google.com/search?q=democracy 95,900,000 pages

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[edumacator]

It is wrong to assist a totalitarian government to violate its citizens' rights.

I understand your argument and don't totally disagree, I think in principle what you say is true. But this is a complicated world, and living by such strict moral guidelines can get dicey. I don't always like the analogy game, because anyone can cook up an analogy to make someone else's point seem ridiculous, but just to prove that point I'm going to use one.

There is a huge earthquake in China. Their crops are ruined, and the people are starving. Some people decide to send them some rice and wheat, but word leaks out that the government is skimming off the top and selling ten percent of the supplies for their own profit and to buy big guns to intimidate the people.

In this scenario, providing food for the people is in reality helping an oppressive regime. So what do we do? Stop sending food? Do we choose to make a life and death choice for the people in China and say it's better that they die than live under an oppressive regime? Are you comfortable making that decision?

The problem I have with moral imperatives is that they assume we can't stand still on a slippery slope. It can be tough to do so, but as long as you are careful and always consider where you are, and how to avoid sliding down, it can be done. Now, before I get railed, I'm not saying we don't slide down, but it is the diligence of attention that we often lack.

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[stinerman]

But this is a complicated world, and living by such strict moral guidelines can get dicey.

Definitely, which is why I aim at the "stricter" guidelines but allow for flexibility in some cases. I believe it is important to have strong moral guidelines, even if the conclusions they lead to are less than perfect.

Regarding your example, I would probably continue to send the food because it truly is life or death (I would need to know more about the details of the situation to come up with a more concise answer). I would do everything I could to try to stop the government in question from skimming. Perhaps I'd use economic sanctions or other diplomatic leverage as needed.

Getting a bit off topic, it is the responsibility of the Chinese people to overthrow any government that they believe is not organized as they see fit. They are tacitly consenting to their government by not rebelling against it. Of course, I understand that nails that stick up get hammered down, but on the other hand, you have to break some eggs to make an omelette.

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[edumacator]

Okay, I'm with you. It's the flexibility issue that usually gets lost. That's why, in this case, I understand Google's decision to do business in China. I think they honestly see it as being more beneficial for the people in the long run. Remember, not everything gets censored out.

I'm also with you on the omelette thing, just so long as I'm not the egg.

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[misleb]

Google have made it easier for Chinese users to find uncensored content and clearly labels pages where results have been censored. Since they would not be allowed to conduct business if they didn't allow this, I can't really see how what they did can be considered morally wrong.

Ok, lets take this to a logical extreme. Lets say that I can profit by joining a group that tortures people for money. And I can't join unless I also torture people. Is it not morally wrong to torture people in this case, if I can find a way to torture a little bit less painfully than everyone else in the group and still make profit?

I'm sorry, but Google clearly broke their vow of "Do No Evil." It was nothing but a marketing slogan.

-matthew

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[anthony_dipierro]

Censoring people is morally wrong.

Under what definition of "censoring people"? I think it's perfectly moral for a website to choose what materials to include and what materials not to include.

Re:Agreed.. but why?

[LordLucless]

Your argument depends entirely on your assumption that morality is totally relative, a notion which most people with half a brain would disagree with. If someone kills random passer-bys on the street, I don't need to know whether they consider their actions good or not (most people consider their actions good, or at least, justifiable). I judge the morality of the action by the action itself. This "it's not evil in China if whoever happens to rule China thinks it's not evil" argument is a pile of post-modern dung.

It was a nobel ideal.

[shawn(at)fsu]

I would consider being evil a matter of perception?

Re:It was a nobel ideal.

[shawn(at)fsu]

Of course I clicked submit in stead of preview.... Sorry.
Co-founder Larry Page said: "We always consider what to do. But I don't think we as a company should be making decisions based on too much perception."

I would consider being evil a matter of perception. I'm sure all the money Google has received tells them they aren't being evil though, so I guess thats whose perception they care about.

Smells like...

[JoshJ]

If they really consider the policy to be a net negative, they'd reverse the policy. You figure out what they really think about the policy and you come to the conclusion that this is just a PR move.

Re:Smells like...

[Pendersempai]

Not the policy, the decision. They've already gotten the bad press, and the amount of good press they receive from reversing course will not make up for it.

Say you pick between two lines at the grocery store. By the time you're two-thirds of the way through the line, you realize it's moving more slowly than the other. Your decision was a net negative, but that doesn't mean you leave your line and join the other. Sometimes we make mistakes but have to stick with them.

Re:Smells like...

[UncleTogie]

Sometimes we make mistakes but have to stick with them.

Sure, like segregation. :P An extreme example, to be sure, but one I find as noxious as censorship. Considering what China does to dissidents, I personally feel any company assisting in keeping the oppressed from disseminating their beliefs is not one I choose to do business with.

Re:Smells like...

[KillerCow]

Not the policy, the decision. They've already gotten the bad press, and the amount of good press they receive from reversing course will not make up for it.

Say you pick between two lines at the grocery store. By the time you're two-thirds of the way through the line, you realize it's moving more slowly than the other. Your decision was a net negative, but that doesn't mean you leave your line and join the other. Sometimes we make mistakes but have to stick with them.

You're right. Say I pick a fight with some poor kid. I'm beating the crap out of him, and he doesn't stand a chance. I've already made my evil decision, and the amount of good that I will do by stopping won't make up for it, so I keep beating the poor kid. Sometimes we make mistakes but have to stick with them, but when you are actively doing something wrong, you can stop at any time.

They can stop censoring at any time. They can refuse to do it. They can't undo the damage that has been done, but they can stop doing more.

The amount of credibility that they have lost so far is a sunk cost, but by continuing to do it, they are loosing more. Their argument is "we did something wrong, and we are still doing it because the amount of credit we will get for stopping isn't enough." That isn't an argument from principle. It's saying that they won't do the right thing because it doesn't gain them enough. They will gain more by staying evil than by being good, so that's what they choose to do.

Re:Smells like...

[drgonzo59]

Alright here is how it works. The companies are not human beings they are not "nice" "evil" "good" or "bad". As much as we'd want them to be (and they do go to great lengths to make us think that they have such qualities), because it is just how we humans are, we want those who we do business with to be trustworthy so that is why we anthropomorphize entities that are not human. All a company is, is a money making machine, if it doesn't make money it stop existing.

Now as far as making money, a company that is perceived as being "good" "noble" and "not evil" will make more money. Microsoft probably didn't worry about that because they figured they could make a lot of money anyway...and they did. But now Google comes along and they figure that making themselves into a "good" company will greatly benefit them and will result in even greater profits than otherwise being a just an average IT company.

Google has gone to great lengths to build that image of itself. But that is what that it is, it is a marketing front! It is no more "good" than Microsoft. Or rather it is only as "good" as that perception keeps making them money.

So what Brin was saying in so many words is that "I would still like to keep the image of Google as being good by seemingly recanting the decision to censor in China but we will _not_ break that deal because it makes us money". It is indeed the best he could have said, because we can look at Google and say, "well at least they've sort of apologized for it, so they are still noble", and not too many of us will have the time or the resources to check and see if the actual deal was broken.

Re:Smells like...

[limecat4eva]

Then you'll be glad to know Google provides many of the most helpful tools for Chinese political activists to collaborate and spread their message. What do you think they use instead, Baidu?

Re:Smells like...

[UncleTogie]

Then you'll be glad to know Google provides many of the most helpful tools for Chinese political activists to collaborate and spread their message.

Sure, guy. Limiting access to those blogs sure does help spread that message, doesn't it? Well, unless of course "human rights" or "democracy" are involved. Pesky human rights; they evidently have no value to Google. Democracy? What, you believe in controlling your own fate? Perish the thought. Groupthink is all the rage! Death to the unbelievers! ;)

This is another reason I've also been moving from Yahoo recently; turning over people who don't toe the "official" line is just plain wrong....and as for whether the Chinese are using Google vs. Baidu? According to these numbers, yes. It looks like they ARE using Baidu, and that Google [publicly] wants to avoid taking them on. Whether those're just more Weasel Words or not remains to be seen.

Re:Smells like...

[Anonymous Coward]

Capitalism is about making the most money. Doing good has no value.

If you want social institutions and organizations to "do good" then you should find another economic system and mode of production...

But you like capitalism. So be quiet and go shopping.

Re:Smells like...

[mordors9]

I agree with you. I found the wording he used distressing. For the guys that promised to do no evil, they continue to parse their words like a Microsoft spokesman. Forget what their position has done on a business level, how about on a moral level. Perhaps I am just naive.

Re:Smells like...

[limecat4eva]

Yes, and my point was that Baidu engages in such censorship too, only without the compunction and without the helpful notices. So I repeat: if not for Google, what better alternative would Chinese citizens have?

Re:Smells like...

[Anonymous Coward]

They never said they did something wrong, merely that it wasn't a good movie business-wise. Your analogy doesn't apply, the shopping line one does better. All that was said is that they lost business here because of their policy on China.

Re:Smells like...

[hugzz]

If they really consider the policy to be a net negative, they'd reverse the policy. You figure out what they really think about the policy and you come to the conclusion that this is just a PR move.

He said "On a business level, that decision to censor... was a net negative.". My interpretation is that the decision to censor in china hurt their business (ie money making ability), yet the fact that they continue to do it shows that although it causes them to lose money, they think that the moral benefits of their decision outweighs the monetary loss.

Don't forget that, although google censors in china, the search page provides information saying "results on this page have been censored" (not those exact words). The alternative would be for google to not exist in china at all. Some people consider it to be better to censor and tell people that they're censoring than to not be able to exist at all in China (and then people in China could only use search engines which censor but do not alert the user to this).

Re:Smells like...

[UncleTogie]

Yes, and my point was that Baidu engages in such censorship too, only without the compunction and without the helpful notices.

Picture three supermarkets: One shoots its customers at random, at the drop of a hat. No signs, no notice; *BANG* THUD.
The second supermarket has clearly marked signs at the entrances: "Customers will be shot at random whilst shopping." You've given the customers notice of this, so all is well. Once again, every so often we'll hear *BANG* THUD.
The third supermarket doesn't shoot its customers.

Which would YOU shop at?

JUST because a Canadian company does something many consider unethical doesn't mean it's right for an American corporation to do so, or that it's suddenly the RIGHT thing to do.

So I repeat: if not for Google, what better alternative would Chinese citizens have?

How about freedom of speech? ;) You're missing *my* point here... I'm not asking which engine censors the least, nor am I suggesting any as such. I'm asking why censorship in corporate guise is any more acceptable or any different than when done directly by the Chinese government.

Re:Smells like...

[Anonymous Coward]

What damage?

China is censored. They have no choice if they want to service people in China. If they refuse to be censored, China does not get any Google at all. In fact, I'd consider they did more good by having a "this page has been censored by your fine government" notice at the bottom of the page than by simply not being there.

But oh no, it's Google! They're POPULAR! They can do no right!

Re:Smells like...

[UncleTogie]

Capitalism is about making the most money. Doing good has no value. If you want social institutions and organizations to "do good" then you should find another economic system and mode of production... Actually, I'm just holding them to the set of rules THEY created for themselves. Note rules 6, 7, and 8. Sure, you can have all the wonderful info you want from Google, as long as you live within the US. Everyone else gets about half that.

Re:Smells like...

[gravesb]

They are losing money because of the practice. They could easily stop it, but they do not. It seems that they are doing it for a non-monetory reason. We can debate whether its a good policy or not, but at least it doesn't seem to be motivated by pure greed. Maybe they do believe some info is better than none, and they think they are doing good. Enough good to be worth losing money in other markets over it.

Re:Smells like...

[Original Replica]

As long as they parse their words with the PRC just as much I don't mind. Sure the clear simple decision would be to refuse the Chinese market, until there is no censorship. Then they would be doing no evil, but they would also be in no position to do good for the people in China. As long as they are there, they can have influence. And seeing as they are in the informaion business, it is good business for them to slowly erode the censorship.

Re:Smells like...

[Pendersempai]

I agree with you. Perhaps I should have said "sometimes we make profit-damaging mistakes, but can nevertheless maximize profit by sticking with them."

Re:Smells like...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right. Say I pick a fight with some poor kid. I'm beating the crap out of him, and he doesn't stand a chance. I've already made my evil decision, and the amount of good that I will do by stopping won't make up for it, so I keep beating the poor kid. Sometimes we make mistakes but have to stick with them, but when you are actively doing something wrong, you can stop at any time.

Poor analogy. You're conflating a net negative for business with a net negative for the Chinese people/morality. Google never claimed it was bad for the Chimese people. If you are claiming such a thing please explain how zero information or silently censored information is better for the Chinese people than openly censored information. In terms of the amount of information available to the Chinese, the third option (openly censored) is a net positive.

The amount of credibility that they have lost so far is a sunk cost, but by continuing to do it, they are loosing more.

Bad PR is not the same thing as a loss of credibility. You or anyone else can abhor with their actions without doubting their integrity, motives, or other credibility factors. Since their credibility appears to be nil with you already, I can't imagine they are actually continuing to lose credibility over this issue in any significant amounts.

Their argument is "we did something wrong, and we are still doing it because the amount of credit we will get for stopping isn't enough."

Their argument is "it was a bad business move, but we've already paid the cost, so we might as well get the benefit." Nowhere do they define these actions as evil and frankly, neither do I.

Re:Smells like...

[Anonymous Coward]

Picture three supermarkets: One shoots its customers at random, at the drop of a hat. No signs, no notice; *BANG* THUD.
The second supermarket has clearly marked signs at the entrances: "Customers will be shot at random whilst shopping." You've given the customers notice of this, so all is well. Once again, every so often we'll hear *BANG* THUD.
The third supermarket doesn't shoot its customers.

Okay, how about an analogy that's slightly less flawed.

Picture three supermarkets. One claims to offer all of the products you would ever want, but in reality they don't carry anything organic, free from pesticides. If you ask, they assure you that such products do not exist. The second supermarket makes extra space on its shelves for the products it is not allowed to carry, giving you information about those products and the specific government regulations that forbade them from selling them to you. You are welcome to order the same foods from their identical stores in other countries if you're willing to wait a while longer for delivery.

The third supermarket offers every product you would ever want, but it is not allowed to exist in China.

Until Google came along, all of the supermarkets were of the first type. Google is the only company offering the second type in China. They decided this was better than the alternative, which was that the Chinese people wouldn't even know what they were missing. Thanks to Google, now they do.

Re:Smells like...

[marcello_dl]

"Forget what their position has done on a business level, how about on a moral level. Perhaps I am just naive."

Kudos for asking the simple yet crucial question. In fact putting the accent on the business level of the decision is more evil than letting China have its way with censorship. That is a kind of propaganda for a money-based [a]moral system. Perhaps I'm just paranoid.

Re:Smells like...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, in the long run I guess "loosing more" is better than "losing more" though, right?

Re:Smells like...

[krotkruton]

Doing good has no value.

Now that's about the dumbest thing I've heard, and yet I keep hearing it. Do you really think that doing something good does not provide a company with positive PR? Can't positive PR lead to better brand recognition and loyalty? Can't brand recognition and loyalty lead to increased sales / popularity / use by customers? On the opposite side, the idea that doing something evil leads to money is just as ridiculous. If corporations are motivated by money, and doing good deads leads to more customers leading to more money, then why can't corporations be motivated by doing good things? I guess when you hear "corporations are only motivated by money" enough times, you start to believe it without even thinking about what that could mean.

Re:Smells like...

[krotkruton]

How about, like not using a condom because you ran out? The GP said "sometimes" as you can see from the quote you used in your post.

I personally feel any company assisting in keeping the oppressed from disseminating their beliefs is not one I choose to do business with.
You might not be American, but if you feel that way, then what are you doing to stop our government's censorship of information? Even worse than Google, the information we are being provided with is not just censored but doctored. Compare a US high school history book to one in another country, and you'll find a lot of differences. How about the teacher who was suspended for comparing Bush to Hitler? What about all the denied applications for information under the FOIA? If you want to say that these are all different situations with different considerations, you're absolutely right because censorship isn't black and white. Claiming that since Google censored some information in China means that they did something evil and horrible is a naive approach (and usually a hypocrytical one as well) to a complicated problem.

Re:Smells like...

[nuntius]

Alright here is how it works. The companies are not human beings they are not "nice" "evil" "good" or "bad". As much as we'd want them to be (and they do go to great lengths to make us think that they have such qualities), because it is just how we humans are, we want those who we do business with to be trustworthy so that is why we anthropomorphize entities that are not human. All a company is, is a money making machine, if it doesn't make money it stop existing. B.S. A corporation is good in the same sense that a nation is good. If the majority of the people comprising it make sound, moral decisions, then it is good. If they make short-sighted, greedy decisions, then it is bad. Unfortunately, good != successful. The rest of your post confuses perception with reality.

One major problem is that the good people within a corporation can be replaced/overwhelmed by bad, and it may be hard for an outsider to tell the difference. Eventually, though, the corruption becomes obvious.

Re:Smells like...

[Ibag]

They said that it was a bad business decision, not a bad moral decision. If they don't see themselves currently engaged in something wrong, and if there is absolutely nothing to be gained by pulling out of the market (because they can't just not censor in china, it was either they censored or they couldn't be in the Chinese market), why would they pull out? The "damage" done was to their image, not to the people of China, and no more damage is being done. They are not constantly losing credibility, but by leaving China, they will lose a good deal of their investment in the country. It would be an utterly stupid business decision. From a strictly monetary point of view, they are better off staying in China and hiring well trained assassins to get rid of the people who would honestly care if they pulled out. They should just worry about not compromising their principles, they shouldn't worry about not compromising yours too.

Re:Smells like...

[alan_dershowitz]

The fundamental problem with your argument is that we are not talking about the USA, we are talking about China, we are talking about Google, not the OP.

Even if we were, on Slashdot the opposition to such policies as you have mentioned happening in the USA is HUGE, so comparing the two will just get you a similar response. "Censorship is wrong." I am American, and the fact that Scientology and the DMCA corrupted Google search results offends me greatly. Google was around a number of years before the law went all crazy on us regarding that, but Google walked into China already knowing that the legal climate would require violating their principles at some point. That's at least a little different.

Cheers...

Re:Smells like...

[KKlaus]

Er right... but how is that at all contrary to the position of the parent? His point was about business acumen, nothing else.

Re:Smells like...

[drgonzo59]

B.S. Show me an evil nation and a good nation and show me an evil company and a good company. Is U.S. good can you clearly and logically argue that? And then which nation is evil - Iraq? Iran? Pakistan? North Korea? . Are most peasants in North Korea "bad" and the U.S. majority "good" or "better"? You would seem to think so.

And also do you think that the majority of Microsoft (or another Slashdot popular "evil" IT empire) make more immoral decisions than Google employees? What, are they cheating on their wives more than the Google employees, do you really believe that, because that is what you said?

Then what does "soundness" has to do with a company being labeled as "good"? A sound decision made by a company is the decision to make more money. The one and only goal of the for-profit companies is to make money. As soon as the company stops doing it, it will cease to exist. I think that is a pretty clear assumption. Now that "sound" decision to make more money will often dictate making choices that people will _percieve_ as "good" or "bad". It was _sound_ for Google to go for the censorship deal in China but it was considered "evil" by most people. However there is a good link between the customer's perception and the ability to make money. Google knows that because it capitalizes on that "good company" image and it will try to preserve it at all cost. Therefore the recanting pronounced by Brin _but_ note! the deal was not reversed! If Google would truly be a "good" company it would have _not_ taken the deal in the first place even if it meant losing market share to a competitor -- that would have been a "good" moral decision but a bad business decision.

A for-profit company will run this basic pseudo algorithm:

LOOP FOREVER:
    Make only the decisions that will maximize the profits.
    IF any of those decisions are deemed to be perceived as "evil" and in turn will hurt the chances of maximizing future profits
    THEN RUN PR_Magic()
    END LOOP

PR_Magic PROCEDURE:
    Reduce the perceived "evil" resulting from the any decision made by the company
    RETURN

Re:Smells like...

[rtb61]

They sell advertising, your telling me that is of great value and will improve society !!??. How can anybody in a democratic society that supposedly supports freedom and democracy turn around and say it is appropriate to censor freedom and democracy in other countries. I know those people in other countries aren't really human, so as long as you get cheap shit, whether the workers have access to freedom and democracy or are just slave labour does not make a difference.

Google can apologise all it wants to, and waffle to the heavens about how bad it feels about censor words and censor sense, until such time as it stops being the supporter of autocratic anti democratic practices it carries a taint of evil.

Don't forget that Google is censoring Tiananmen Square, the appropriateness of running down peaceful democratic protestors with tanks as well as the continued subjugation of Tibet and even the threatened invasion of the independent country of Taiwan. By supporting the censorship of truth relating to those events it supports those dictatorial principles behind those events, it even has the contempt to believe doing it a profit somehow makes it acceptable.

They never had to refuse the Chinese market, all they had to do was hold out like wikipedia but thirty pieces of silver and cowardice won out.

Re:Smells like...

[bhsx]

Everyone seems to be ignoring the giant elephant in the room. The move to censor China's Google portal hurt them "in Western Countries."
The move to be in China at all has MORE than made-up for that discrepancy. They lost a little Western market share to pick-up a billion NEW users.
I don't see any other way to read this, yet noone has brought it up.

Re:Smells like...

[alan_dershowitz]

Your post is an application of the is-ought problem. The fact of the matter is that corporate charters are granted by the government, and it is only the current state of government that a corporation is only required to make as much money as possible with no consideration for social responsibility. This was not always the case, and many people disagree that it is good so it could very well change someday. While I don't disagree that in a very abstract sense a corporation cannot be "good" or "bad," real people are running the thing, and they are capable of making moral decisions.

There was moral outrage when it was revealed that Ford had done a cost-benefit analysis of death settlements against including an $11 part that would prevent their Pinto automobiles from exploding in a collision, and concluding that the settlements were more cost-effective. Would you argue that was the right thing for Ford to to do?

link.

Re:Smells like...

[krotkruton]

You're right, it is different, which was part of my point. I agree that most people on slashdot have just as much of a problem with the Google situation as they do with some of my examples, but I wonder how many people would say the same thing when information is actually a matter of national security. I'm not talking about the bullshit that is classified as national security nowadays, but stuff that the majority of people would agree would be better kept secret (which, of course we wouldn't know about, but there are a few examples in history where I think most people would agree that the information was best left unknown to the public for a while). The reason I brought that up is that the statement "Censorship is wrong" is a poor statement because it is not that black and white.

Re:Smells like...

[nuntius]

Is U.S. good can you clearly and logically argue that? You are using collective absolutes (i.e. "good" and "evil") to deny individual differences (i.e. "better" or "worse"). For example, "the US is better than Iran because its citizens have more freedom" is an arguable fact, while "the US is good and Iran is evil" is debatable. When one nation/corporation/individual excels in a number of positive attributes, then they are commonly called "good". Likewise for "evil".

And then which nation is evil Any which deprives humanity of natural rights and freedoms or causes wanton destruction of natural resources. Unfortunately, none are completely "good" or "evil" just as its impossible to experience maximum light or darkness (either condition would result in the physical destruction of the observer due to temperature extremes).

All we can judge on are the individual decisions we see, the same things we use to judge individuals (e.g. civility, bullying, charity, ...). A corporation does not exist without its employees. Every hostile action must be planned and carried out by employees. These PEOPLE have a responsibility to consider society when making business decisions. Forgetting this in the blind pursuit of profit results in a condition commonly known as greed. Fourth, seventh outer, eigth, or ninth circle of hell for such people. ;)

My $0.02: Google started out as a "good" corporation -- one which existed to fill the needs of others. It is becoming "evil" as it makes backroom deals (e.g. censorship) and moves focus from satisfying needs to generating profit. Call me naive, but I believe that corporations, like individuals, should earn their wealth honorably.

Re:Smells like...

[drgonzo59]

Call me naive, but I believe that corporations, like individuals, should earn their wealth honorably.

I actually do agree with you and I don't think you are naive. I was just pointing out that the "goodness" of big companies is just a careful marketing facade because intuition or marketing research tells that if a company is viewed as "good" it will be more profitable.

But when Google parades it's "do no evil" policy I would hope that everyone would not be fooled and actually believe that when it comes to the choice between a morally "good" choice and a making a higher profit, Google will choose to pass on the profit and, even at a loss to them choose what is moral and therefore "good". Because, now you can call me naive, in my book that is what a truly "good" company/individual would do -- choose good even when faced with a loss (could be monetary, emotional, or any kind of loss...).

In general it is easy to trumpet and parade slogans like "I do no evil", "I am good", "I would never [insert a morally wrong act here] like so on so...". It is truly evident what my true character is when I am put in a situation to choose between a doing any of those things deemed "bad" in order to avoid a personal loss. For example if someone says, "I will never steal", perhaps they are right if they happen to never need to steal, they have a nice income and a good life. But it doesn't really say much about their moral character. It is when they are faced with poverty and hunger that the statement "I will never steal" (and the person indeed does not resort to theft), starts pointing to a character straight.

Back to Google. I again agree with you that Google started out as a "good" corporation. . But the key in that is that the early Google corporation was indistinguishable from just two individuals. I don't think that Brin and the other co-founder are somehow "bad" people, quite the opposite. But as the company got bigger it became a different entity -- it turned into a money making machine that competes with other money making machines that need to (obviously!) make money for their investors or be faced with death (bankruptcy/liquidation/buyout etc.) At some point in time, the initial, probably sincere policy statement of "do no evil" became just a marketing tool.

In retrospect I wish people would just see through this "goodness" marketing tool and see the companies for what they are, look at the real facts (who is the company sponsoring, is it involved in any way with abuses on freedom, or human rights, is it destroying the environment ? etc.) So looking back Google is not necessarily "better" than Microsoft. It is probably worse because it lied and pronounced a statement that turned out to be false. (I guess the person who just steals is bad but the person who steals after they just said "I will never steal" is worse because they are also a lier).

Re:Smells like...

[evilviper]

Google has gone to great lengths to build that image of itself. But that is what that it is, it is a marketing front! It is no more "good" than Microsoft. Or rather it is only as "good" as that perception keeps making them money.

I have no doubt taking this view of the world is how investors sleep at night.

The fact of the matter remains that companies are good and evil. Some will stop at nothing to make money. Others will make (less) money, on principle.

There are a great many companies out there, making far less profit than they could, because they go out of their way to observe human rights, and do many times more non-profit work than similar companies. they often don't even advertise these facts. This always results in a net loss of money, but as long as they make SOME money, they are still an effective corporation.

The idea that a company can't avoid being evil, other than for PR purposes, is absolutely absurd. It is, however, a justification just about every evil company in the world uses, when confronted.

Re:Smells like...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your analogy is a little closer, but still quite far off the mark in the opposite direction.

The censored pages on Google do not display empty result items, nor notices for each item omitted. They merely contain an innocuous notice at the very bottom of the page. The notice reads, "In accordance with local laws and policies, some of the results have not been displayed."

To make your analogy more accurate, the second supermarket merely has a small sign by the exit, reading, "In accordance with local laws and policies, some products are not sold in our stores." The store provides no other information about what is unavailable nor why, and the store does not tell you the goods are available in other countries' stores.

As far as you know, the only things banned in the supermarket are blueberry muffins laced with cyanide, and you don't see it as a big issue since you wouldn't buy those anyway. You never discover that organic foods are banned, because there is no mention of organic foods anywhere. You never see an empty shelf with a sign on it. You never see the specific laws which ban whatever unknown thing has been banned for whatever unknown reason.

In short, the second supermarket in your example is identical to the first supermarket, except that it has a sign near the exit -- helpfully telling you that the store does not stock illegal merchandise.

Re:Smells like...

[stinerman]

You're presupposing conditions that simply weren't true in China. People do know that they are censored. Its not like they magically learned via Google that something actually did happen in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Give the Chinese people a bit more credit.

Furthermore, the 3rd store that cannot exist in China could work with trusted couriers and underground agents (read encryption/anonymizing proxies) to deliver those products that aren't allowed to be sold under Chinese law. That would truly be "doing no evil".

Re:Smells like...

[Antique Geekmeister]

Try a variant on the third: the third supermarket can't get a license. So pressure builds, and the supermarket owner has to rely on its other markets to make money, and the local shoppers demand the rules be relaxed to allow the company to exist, but it can cost a year or two of lost business before the community standards relax and the company can open, and the store may never open there. But people will sneak over to the nearest town to do their shopping.

This happens all the time with drug stores that offer prophylactics, liquor stores, restaurants that want to open at late hours, and big companies like McDonald's and Wal-Mart that may have policies or products that are against the local standards in insular communities.

Re:Smells like...

[edumacator]

Good points, but realistically, most people in China know the government is censoring information, the web-savvy know they can find it outside China, and they "get" what Google's little message means.

I think sometimes we inadvertently act like the Chinese population are all idiots and don't get what's going on. I know that wasn't the intent of the post, but they are more aware than we sometime suppose.

Re:Smells like...

[MooUK]

If Google was doing that now and we knew about it, China would know and would kick Google out.

If Google were doing that now and we didn't know about it... well, you wouldn't know.

Re:Smells like...

[Original Replica]

How can anybody in a democratic society that supposedly supports freedom and democracy turn around and say it is appropriate to censor freedom and democracy in other countries.

I'm not saying that censorship is a good thing, but we can't give freedom to the Chinese. (We all know how well our other attempts to "spread freedom" are going) But our endless buy of "cheap shit" has helped create a middle class in the PRC, and those are the people that will demand more and more freedoms from their oppressive government. Contrast this with Cuba, and tell me again how economic boycotts help the common people.

Re:Smells like...

[anthony_dipierro]

Considering what China does to dissidents, I personally feel any company assisting in keeping the oppressed from disseminating their beliefs is not one I choose to do business with.

What about individuals? What have you done to allow the oppressed to disseminate their beliefs?

If Google were actively helping China put dissidents in jail, like Yahoo, that'd be one thing. But simply choosing to spread that content you're allowed to spread without spreading other content you're not allowed to spread. That doesn't seem to me like something you can fault them for.

Re:Smells like...

[rtb61]

The middle class in China is not in the middle. The average worker is paid around 30 odd cents per hour, and global economics means that a bag of rice costs the same all over the world. The might be a reasonable number of Chinese middle class in China but in terms of percentages, it is very very low.

You give freedom by supporting freedom not by supporting autocracy. PS the Chinese asked (just asked mind you) freedom once before and were summarily executed for it (Tiananmen Square)and right now the west is providing all the money and technology to ensure that even mentioning the concept, let alone trying to achieve it, results in a prison sentence.

Good to hear

[It doesn't come easy]

Maybe they'll consider the consequences of their actions the next time they have to make a similar choice...

Re:Good to hear

[kitzilla]

... like the NEXT time they set up shop in China?

Re:Good to hear

[Noishe]

But they DID consider the consequences...

Regardless of whether you think what they did was right or wrong, THEY did it because THEY thought it was RIGHT.

They didn't care about people boycotting them, because they knew that people would misunderstand. KNOWING that they would lose money by providing the chinese people with an efficiant search engine; KNOWING that they were the first and only search engine to inform the chinese when they were being censored; KNOWING that people in the west would boycott them and they would lose money; they still went ahead and did what they thought was RIGHT.

Re:Good to hear

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean New China(formally known as the USA)?

Re:Good to hear

[that this is not und]

Like maybe if Venezuela decides they need their own version of Google. Or if Cuba ever gets any computers...

The Censorship Was Damaging ...

[WrongSizeGlass]

... but the dumplings were delicious.

Damn!

[El Gruga]

We cant continue business unless we use slave labour....guess we'll have to use slave labour.

Re:Damn!

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, we need to stay competitive. It's just the free market working as it should.

Re:Damn!

[Anonymous Coward]

But you left out something rather important:

Everyone else is using slave labor. (In China, censorship is standard; freedom of speech and religion and political parties and assembly etc. is not present.)

Put another way:

Do you think United States abolition would have come faster or slower if the blacks in the North were not free men? (Setting aside the level of freedom as blacks in the North were generally heavily restricted and comparable to whites were not give the same rights and privileges; still, they weren't slaves.)

Sometimes partial solutions are the way to go. With absolutism, sure, it's easy to point out what to do. Frankly though, that's a rather juvenile thought process, something that lacks complexity because one feels "the world must work the way I see it" or "these values I hold dear, you must also." China is a rather intriguing place, with different rules, mindsets, and perceptions to Western thought.

I'd much rather have Google there, pointing out censorship, and grabbing market share, and maybe slowly changing the tide. At the very least, there's likely pages that come up that teaches someone how to break firewalls, tunnel, etc. to work around censorship.

OTOH, you'd rather they not be there. In which case, the Chinese government would have simply chose aother option, likely one that didn't have critical mass, build it up, and offer it as a challenger to Google as well as absolutely control, with absolute nothingness given to their masses.

I'd know which I'd choose if I lived in China--the lesser of two evils.

They have nothing to admit or apologize for

[koreth]

and I think, by virtue of the fact that they haven't actually changed what they're doing, that they agree.

Millions of Chinese Internet users have better access to information now than they would have if Google had decided to take "the principled position" and refuse to play ball. What seems to fly over the heads of people who advocate that position is that the result would not have been the Chinese government caving in and saying, "Okay, you're right, we shouldn't force you to censor." The result would have been "Okay, then you don't get to do business in our country," and, as much as that might make Westerners feel all warm and fuzzy inside (Hooray! We have held fast in the face of evil!) it would not be a good thing for the millions of people in China who are now able to use Google every day.

Further, not only would Google have been shut out of China, but a homegrown alternative would undoubtedly have taken its place -- and you can bet that the alternative would not have taken the pains Google has to point out to its Chinese users that their search results are in fact censored. That fact is spelled out in no uncertain terms on google.cn's search results pages: they say "" which means more or less "In order to comply with local regulations, some search results have been removed."

Google is helping millions of people more efficiently access information, and it is pointing out the existence of government interference with said information to people who might otherwise be unaware of it.

Taking their ball and going home would improve on that situation how, exactly?

Re:They have nothing to admit or apologize for

[koreth]

Bah, stupid Slashdot filtered out my Chinese characters. (Can't have anyone using Chinese in a discussion about China, now can we?) Go to google.cn and do a search for something and you'll see the message I tried to quote at the bottom of the page.

Re:They have nothing to admit or apologize for

[Anonymous Coward]

Image search "oral sex" and you get none of the great images available to westerners, but you do get an iraqi prisoner abuse picture....

Re:They have nothing to admit or apologize for

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree that them censoring but being semi-open about it is better than the alternative. If they refused to censor, it would have drawn more attention to the issue if and when the government cracks down on it. It would have put some rare pressure on not only the government, but also other businesses who have similar policies. And I think it's arrogant of Google to think, "We are so good that even if we censor our service it just too important (profitable) to deprive these people of". They need to get over themselves. This is not an essential service when it is filtered how the government wants. (If it were uncensored, they might actually have a case for its importance.)

Further, not only would Google have been shut out of China, but a homegrown alternative would undoubtedly have taken its place That's not very good moral justification, for obvious reasons.

Re:They have nothing to admit or apologize for

[Quiet_Desperation]

The problem is that we are living in a world where rigid ideologies are infecting everyone, from President's and CEOs to janitors and doormen. Everyone thinks they know what's best for everyone in the world. Everyone has their personal little grand unified theory of everything, be it Catholic or Islam, Capitalist or Socualist, Democrat or Republican.

So when someone admits the real world is a place you have to sometimes make a comprimise (e.g. a censored Google is better than no Google for China), a lot of people are simply able to shift mental gears and deal with it. Their transmissions lock up and car analogies start exploding all over the place. ;)

Not that I'm a fan of this administration, but look at some of the threads on Slashdot about some government policies. It's always the Apocalypse and the Coming Of Big Brother even when it turns out the summary completely misstated the truth of the matter. I swear, the next person who suggests that nationally consolidated driver's ID cards are "the mark of the Beast' is going to get my boot to their head.

Re:They have nothing to admit or apologize for

[whathappenedtomonday]

Taking their ball and going home would improve on that situation how, exactly?

Well, you said it yourself:

The result would have been "Okay, then you don't get to do business in our country,"

Google does not want to "help", google wants to do business. I wonder where you get the notion that the Chinese people "might (otherwise) be unaware of" government censorship and repression - they live there, every day. Helping someone or some country to suppress and censor information is just what it is, no matter what you may call it: censorship. Do you even realize how cynical your post is? You sound as though you knew for sure what is "a good thing for the millions of people in China".

Re:They have nothing to admit or apologize for

[koreth]

If they refused to censor, it would have drawn more attention to the issue if and when the government cracks down on it.

Whose attention? Western observers? They already know China censors the net, and they've already objected to it, and China has already ignored their objections. The Chinese? Not really -- the whole point of government censorship is that the government controls what people get to find out. Chinese net users would not read the "Google valiantly refused to bow down to censorship, and China booted them out!" stories we'd read; they'd instead get, at best, "After violating the law, Google agreed to withdraw their service for now." The average net user might not be happy about that situation, but it would be trivial to spin the news such that any ire people felt would be toward Google, not the government.

It would have put some rare pressure on not only the government, but also other businesses who have similar policies.

That kind of pressure, the Chinese government has shown no indication of caring about. They've shut down plenty of businesses for violating censorship rules before (independent newspapers, for example) so realistically, what reason is there to think they'd have any compunction about doing the same to Google? Can you name one example in the 50+-year history of the PRC where the government has caved in to pressure from a foreign company -- or even a foreign government -- in that area?

As for other companies, Google getting kicked out of China would more likely have exactly the opposite effect from the one you're hoping for: they wouldn't be shamed into doing the same, they'd breathe a sigh of relief and congratulate themselves for not being so foolish, and possibly redouble their censorship efforts to be sure they were steering clear of similar trouble. The only way other companies would move in the same direction would be if Google refused to censor and got away with it for an extended period of time. And China's recent history has very few examples (none that I know of, in fact) of that being a good bet to make.

[The possibility of a homegrown alternative is] not very good moral justification, for obvious reasons.

I think it's an excellent moral justification, unless one's concept of morality is that it should exist in a vacuum! Considering the likely eventual effects of one's possible courses of action and choosing the one that produces the most generally beneficial outcome is, to me, the very essence of moral reasoning.

That Google's choice is also the profitable one is good too -- but it's pretty easy to see that Google is not simply choosing maximal profit and justifying it after the fact. If they were, they would have Gmail servers in China rather than forcing Chinese users to use the ones in the US. They are voluntarily giving up webmail market share (hitting Gmail's servers from China is slow) in order to avoid having to turn over information about their users.

Re:They have nothing to admit or apologize for

[koreth]

I wonder where you get the notion that the Chinese people "might (otherwise) be unaware of" government censorship and repression

From dating a Chinese woman for a year and a half, and remaining friends with her now that she's living in Shanghai. From spending time in China myself. From observing countless discussions on the net where ordinary Chinese people say with a straight face that if the government is filtering anything, it's only immoral stuff they'd be better off not seeing. I'm not just pulling that notion out of my ass -- there are, without a doubt, a lot of Chinese who are aware of and concerned about government censorship, but there are vastly more of them who don't know about it in anything more than a vague sense and make no effort to find out about it. (Getting too interested in censorship issues in a totalitarian country is usually not the short path to a happy prosperous life.)

Helping someone or some country to suppress and censor information is just what it is, no matter what you may call it: censorship.

Totally agreed. And my point is that by refusing to go into China, Google would have done exactly that: made it easier for the Chinese government to suppress or censor information without people noticing, by virtue of the fact that baidu.com and the like don't even tell people they're doing exactly the same suppression of search results.

If you're trying to get me to admit that Google is practicing censorship, rest easy; I never disputed that. My claim is not that they are not censoring, but that the way they're doing it is, at the end of the day, producing a better situation than would exist if they were out of the picture completely. Not every instance of censorship is precisely equivalent, in either a practical or a moral sense.

Do you even realize how cynical your post is?

Is it cynical to base one's opinion on the available evidence? If so, then guilty as charged. As I said in another reply, please name one instance -- just one, is all I ask -- of the Chinese government relaxing its censorship in any way whatsoever in response to a foreign company's refusal to comply. If you can find one I'll happily eat my words, but I bet you can't.

You sound as though you knew for sure what is "a good thing for the millions of people in China".

*shrug* So do you, and so does everyone debating this issue.

Re:They have nothing to admit or apologize for

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

I wonder where you get the notion that the Chinese people "might (otherwise) be unaware of" government censorship and repression - they live there, every day.

But that's the funny thing about censorship. Of course the Chinese people know that they're being censored, but how are they supposed to know what is being censored?

Re:They have nothing to admit or apologize for

[whathappenedtomonday]

(Getting too interested in censorship issues in a totalitarian country is usually not the short path to a happy prosperous life.)

So is discussing the situation in China online from within the country ;) But I guess your online discussions are safely encrypted.

Not every instance of censorship is precisely equivalent, in either a practical or a moral sense.

Right, but I'm surprised that when it comes to doing business, moral is no category at all. Not even for those who are "not evil". Refusing to stay in the Chinese market would at least have been a signal, and it might have been more "helpful" if the Chinese asked themselves "Why is google pulling out?" than just seeing the "local regulations" notice every once in a while. They might actually have asked their government and authorities some more questions compared to the present situation (see link below).

please name one instance -- just one, is all I ask -- of the Chinese government relaxing its censorship in any way whatsoever in response to a foreign company's refusal to comply.

Not sure if there are any, but would public pressure from the Chinese population count? I think it's not really a matter of making the government change its regulations, but merely a question of whether you want to take a tough stance - or just earn big bucks in a huge, promising market and bend your moral to serve that purpose. BTW, I don't know nor suggest what's good for the Chinese people, but I do dislike the way google handles this.

From dating a Chinese woman for a year and a half

OK, I'll buy into that... even though we're on /. (SCNR)

Re:They have nothing to admit or apologize for

[thealsir]

Mod parent up. I don't know why it was modded flamebait (or, maybe it's just a reflection of what the poster is trying to point out.)

Idealism ends in an oven. Without balance, the world perverses itself.

These tenets are what should really be taught. Unfortunately, with the teachers being invested in the status quo and their own ideas, the war is likely to intensify.

Re:They have nothing to admit or apologize for

[Quiet_Desperation]

Well, my post explained why it got modded flamebait. :-) One word ideologue hate most is ideologue.

Re:They have nothing to admit or apologize for

[Anonymous Coward]

I swear, the next person who suggests that nationally consolidated driver's ID cards are "the mark of the Beast' is going to get my boot to their head.

The problem of the matter is that if we don't have these 'tin foil' types then we won't have people to scream "The emperor is naked!" when he is really so. Imagine if we had these types of people in 1930 Germany writing angry yet speculative articles about Hitler is going to destroy democracy and then drag Germany into a war they cannot win.

They would be right. The point I'm trying to make is that is to never tell those people to shut up. Otherwise, as history has shown us the apocalypse can come on a small scale. Unless you want to deny people like Hitler, Mao, or Stalin actually existed and that democracies can't turn into fascist states (because they have).

Although it is kind of foolish to state the world is ending right now we should, but in 50 years time when the next evil man comes along we need these people around to scream bloody murder. (Although perhaps we might have the boy who cried wolf problem).

-Vertinox

Re:They have nothing to admit or apologize for

[Gat0r30y]

Chinese net users would not read the "Google valiantly refused to bow down to censorship, and China booted them out!" stories we'd read; they'd instead get, at best, "After violating the law, Google agreed to withdraw their service for now." The average net user might not be happy about that situation, but it would be trivial to spin the news such that any ire people felt would be toward Google, not the government.
I am in the PRC right now. I got to read your post. Whats up with that? Certainly to a degree I agree with you, newspapers probably wouldn't publish articles singing the praises of Google. However, you forget, Chinese users have access to google.com too. It is occasionally a little slower than .cn but not much difference.
hitting Gmail's servers from China is slow it's not so bad. I can even use Gmail chat without it being too much of a pain.

This is a positive for Google

[Serveert]

How many other CEOs a) admit mistakes or b) state that dealing with the dictatorial regime in China is not in their best interest.

But it was amusing to see the rationalizations from the Google employees and apologists for effectively collaborating with the Chinese government. Justify it as you will, Google was collaborating with the Chinese government, working hand in hand, to censor information.

For a look at the absurdity, see:

http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=tiananmen+s quare

Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square

Tiananmen Square is one of the largest city squares in the world. It is located on the central axis of old ... The Museum of Chinese History and the Museum of the Chinese Revolution are located on the eastern side of Tiananmen Square. ...

When they take google.cn down then this will mean something more - right now we just have words, actions don't reflect what Brin is saying.

Re:This is a positive for Google

[W2k]

It's still there. Just not in the obvious places. Try "tiananmen square student tanks".

The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, June 4th Incident, or the Political Turmoil between Spring and Summer of 1989 by the government of the People's Republic of China, were a series of demonstrations led by students, intellectuals and labour activists in the People's Republic of China between April 15, 1989 and June 4, 1989. The demonstrations centred on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, but large scale protests also occured in cities throughout China, such as in Shanghai.

Re:This is a positive for Google

[nkh]

I think that Google should stay out of China if they want to be honest with their "no evil" policy but they still provide a lot of infos about the massacre if you use the other spelling of "Tienanmen": http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=tienanmen+s quare Did they forgot to censor it or what?

Re:This is a positive for Google

[koreth]

What's absurd is that Westerners have such a myopic view of China that they can't think of anything but a student protest 17 years ago when they hear the name of one of Beijing's most well-known landmarks. You may not have heard of Tiananmen Square before 1989, but the Chinese had -- the protests took place there in part because the place was already a well-known national symbol to them. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese visit Tiananmen Square every year.

Think St. Peter's Square or the Champs d'Elysee or Trafalgar Square or (to a lesser extent) the National Mall in Washington DC. When you Google "national mall" you don't get a page full of stories about Martin Luther King or Vietnam War protests or the Million Man March, but nobody seems to think that's absurd; when you do that search, chances are you care more about the place itself than about any particular historical event that took place there.

Which isn't to say that it's right for the Chinese government to force search engines to make it harder to dig up stories about that protest. (You might be surprised that a lot of Chinese do know about it, and simply don't consider it the source of outrage we Westerners do, but they should still be able to find out more about it without interference.) But honestly, the results Google returns on its home page are probably what most Chinese people actually want when they enter that search term. It's the English-language Google results for that term that are out of whack in my opinion.

Re:This is a positive for Google

[loki_tiwaz]

So simply searching for 'tianenmen square' gives no hint but add 1989 to it and google.cn magically shows you information. I have no idea how biased it is but the snippets are pretty revealing I think

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F %2Fwww.google.cn%2Fsearch%3Fhl%3Dzh-CN%26q%3Dtiana nmen%2Bsquare%2B1989&langpair=zh-CN%7Cen&hl=en&ie= UTF8

Re:This is a positive for Google

[warrior_s]

How about this? http://images.google.cn/images?svnum=10&hl=zh-CN&q =tank+square&btnG=Google+%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2

Re:This is a positive for Google

[that this is not und]

No, when I think of Tiananmen Square, I also think of public appearances there by Mao Zedong back in the early 1960's when they were starving the people in the countryside with ludicrious Stalinist practices like 'the great leap forward.'

I also think of May Day Parades while '100 flowers are being cut' lipsynched to 'let 100 blossoms bloom.'

Etc. etc.

It's also probably a public space where occasional events not stained in insane Stalinist doctrine occur.

Re:This is a positive for Google

[Xolom]

interestingly.... the cultural revolution and the great leap forward are not censored so much by google.cn... so the chinese government admits to the disasters and killings of that time, but not tiananmen square?

Re:This is a positive for Google

[metlin]

Of course, tiananmen square student tanks return any results, unlike the same elsewhere.

Re:This is a positive for Google

[metlin]

I meant, it doesn't return any results.

I should try using the preview button one of these days. :-\

Re:This is a positive for Google

[garbolino]

To find the absurdity you should search for the term Chinese would use when searching for the Tiananmen massacre, which is not "Tiananmen Square". They would search for the date, which is June 4th in Chinese.

That search brings NOTHING in Chinese! (But what you would expect in the international version)

On the moral scale of search engines, what else do you have to do to be on the "evil" side of things?

Re:This is a positive for Google

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

As a Westerner and a Buddhist, when I think of China, I think of Tibet. They really are out to destroy that country and everything it stands for. China doesn't just want the land, they want to eradicate the culture, its leader, and its religion. They've tortchered monks, destroyed monasteries, spread propaganda, and are even trying to install their own fake Lamas -- this is how seriously they take eradicating such people as the Nobel Peace Prize winning Dalai Lama. China's policies are truly arrogant and dehumanizing.

Re:This is a positive for Google

[misleb]

When you Google "national mall" you don't get a page full of stories about Martin Luther King or Vietnam War protests or the Million Man March, but nobody seems to think that's absurd;

Because that is the genuine, uncensored search results!

when you do that search, chances are you care more about the place itself than about any particular historical event that took place there.

I care about getting what is actually on the web concerning what I'm searching for. I expect to get an uncensored result. If there were pages full of stories about Martin Luther King when I searched for "national mall" and that is a genuine result, then that is what I care about. Which part of this is causing you problems?

The only kind of filtering I would consider valid is voluntary filtering of spam sites, phishing sites, and the like. I do not want those fake sites included in results. Unless, of course, I'm doing research on spam/phishing sites, in which case the filtering should be optional.

Which isn't to say that it's right for the Chinese government to force search engines to make it harder to dig up stories about that protest. (You might be surprised that a lot of Chinese do know about it, and simply don't consider it the source of outrage we Westerners do, but they should still be able to find out more about it without interference.) But honestly, the results Google returns on its home page are probably what most Chinese people actually want when they enter that search term. It's the English-language Google results for that term that are out of whack in my opinion.

So don't you think that the Chinese have the right to know that westerners talk about Tiananmen Square a lot? Who are you to decide what the Chinese people actually want to find with any given search and what is "out of whack"? Maybe they want to see that westerers obsess over T. Square.

-matthew

Re:This is a positive for Google

[chrnb]

For a look at the absurdity, see:

http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=tiananmen+s quare

Clicked it and found this one on page two:
http://www.chinalaw.gov.cn/jsp/contentpub/browser/ contentpro.jsp?contentid=co214120157-

I'm living in China and reading it just cracked me up, this is exactly the way they speak on CCTV9 (the english news channel here), And recently have been forced to read the same type of BS, ever since the cables broke in Taiwan and almost no foreign news sites have been available. for an example of what i mean check english.sina.com - hilarious sometimes

And whats even worse it's seems like most chinese willfully goble most of all the propoganda they are fed on a daily basis. Cause they are so brainwashed that they simple don't know better.

Another funny thing is if you try to talk to them about something wrong in China or with the government here, they will usually deny it, cause for them the worst thing is to lose face, especially to foreigners and on behalf of their country.

Naturally the above issues are not as severe in the younger generation, although most of them are still severely nationalistic/patriotic even if they don't like the government. So the brainwashing from they are little kids are still working to a degree I guess.

Re:This is a positive for Google

[dscruggs]

> http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=tiananmen+s quare

And this means... what?

In China, people don't search for the English phrase "tiananmen square," they search on one of two things:

1. For information about the location in Beijing we know of as Tiananmen Square, they search for , the simplified Chinese characters.

2. When searching for info about the crackdown in 1989, they search for the phrase , pronounced liu si, which translates to 6-4, as in June 4, 1989, when the crackdown began.

Re:This is a positive for Google

[Headcase88]

On the moral scale of search engines, what else do you have to do to be on the "evil" side of things?

Not a lot of people know this, but Google doesn't use Bots to find its search results, as the upkeep of the necessary servers cuts into company profits. Instead they kill puppies and use the EvilSoulSucker (Beta) to trap their souls, which are better at indexing web sites than you may think.

It's not Googles fault

[MadnessASAP]

Censorship is the fault of the Chinese government, All Google ever did was respect and abide by the laws of the country they're trying to do business in. If you don't like then the censorship then you should chase after the government not the business. In fact it would have been a very bad decision for Google NOT to do business in China because it is a HUGE market.

Re:It's not Googles fault

[Watson Ladd]

China doesn't have laws in any sense of the word. For law to be different from banditry, it must respect the rights of individuals. China doesn't, so its laws deserve no ones respect.

Re:It's not Googles fault

[Breakfast Pants]

Not only that, as long as Google complies with the DMCA, they are engaging in censorship in our own country.

Re:It's not Googles fault

[maxume]

So what if the law in China required a human sacrifice to complete a transaction? Would Google get a free pass because "that's the cost of doing business in China"? That's completely ridiculous, but the censorship issue is a good deal more nuanced than that, and your comment reads as if there isn't any nuance to sort out at all.

You could even argue that they would have a responsibility to shareholders to be doing business there, sacrifices or not, but society would probably step in and say 'Nope, you don't get to do that'. Figuring out exactly where is step in is, of course, the issue at hand.

Re:It's not Googles fault

[evilviper]

All Google ever did was respect and abide by the laws of the country they're trying to do business in.

That's true, and it makes it legal, but it certainly doesn't make it right.

A company like Google, which puts so much effort into good PR, deserves to be raked over the coals for doing things like this.

In fact it would have been a very bad decision for Google NOT to do business in China because it is a HUGE market.

I see. So now it's "Don't be evil, unless lots of money is on the line." ?

Re:It's not Googles fault

[stinerman]

Segregation is the fault of the US government ... and you can see where this is going.

Censorship is indeed the fault of the Chinese government. It is also the fault of Google for aiding and abetting China in their censorship program.

In fact it would have been a very bad [business] decision for Google NOT to do business in China because it is a HUGE market.

That is what you really meant. Some of us believe that the correctness of an action is not simply a function of the profit it will generate.

Hey, if there is gonna be censorship going on, it might as well be me doing it. I've gotta eat, you know.

Re:It's not Googles fault

[Anonymous Coward]

The same logic allowed Faber to construct furnances for the Nazi consentration camps during WW II.

If Google can't accept Chineese cencorship, they wouldn't be in it. It is absolutely impossible for the largest search engine to plead ignorence on such a blatantly breach of human rigths!

China is not unique

[nightfire-unique]

Google censors results from Americans at the request of the American government. We don't talk about it because the vast majority of people in the country despise the distasteful type of search results they filter. But nevertheless, if you truly believe in free speech, it is hypocritical to suggest that limiting one type of speech is ok while limiting another is not.

See this, this, or for more general information, chillingeffects.org.

Yes, there are terms you can use on google that will produce an error message ("some results have been censored due to legal request; for more information see chillingeffects.org.") Get creative, and you'll see it.

I'm not blaming google; they must follow the law of the land. Nevertheless, there you have it.

Re:China is not unique

[limecat4eva]

Well, we Westerners like to believe that our values are better, because of course they just are. Did you know that Google helps South Koreans find tasty kittens for dinner? Where's the outrage? Where's the boycott?

Re:China is not unique

[aldheorte]

"Google censors results from Americans at the request of the American government. "

None of the articles you link offer any evidence of this being done systematically. Do you have particular search terms or articles talking about specific searches that result in this message that doesn't stem from a temporary injunction or something under appeal?

Re:China is not unique

[Urza9814]

outrage? over helping to kill kitties? That's a good thing. Damn demon spawn deserve it.

Re:China is not unique

[alexjohnc3]

What's odd is that the DMCA notice from 2002 tells Google to block "www.xenu.com". Maybe I'm missing something, but produces that website as the first result. There is also a note at the bottom of the search results page that says, "In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org." Did Google forget to remove that notice?

Re:China is not unique

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a japanese model named Rika Nishimura that did nude modelling when she was very young (it was legal in Japan at the time). A friend was writing an essay on the topic (4th year psychology) and it was he who first discovered the censorship while searching for information. Try the search if you want ("rika nishimura") but beware. Your IP will of course be logged and some web sites return material which is probably very illegal in the US. Hesitantly posted anonymously because I don't want my name attached to this in any way.

Re:China is not unique

[stinerman]

Google censors results from Americans at the request of the American government.

Yes, and they are wrong to do so.

if you truly believe in free speech, it is hypocritical to suggest that limiting one type of speech is ok while limiting another is not.

Indeed it is. But I believe that it is best to concentrate efforts of eliminating censorship in places where the censorship is most profound.

Re:China is not unique

[DrScotsman]

No they haven't, they're blocking something else. Whenever something's is blocked, happens, searching for the URL returns the same complaint message. An good example is 4chan's /b/

Re:China is not unique

[jchimene]

OP could have been less opaque For the record: http://www.google.com/search?q=xenu

Re:China is not unique

[WK1]

But I believe that it is best to concentrate efforts of eliminating censorship in places where the censorship is most profound.

I see your point, but I disagree. I believe it would be best for us (USA) to concentrate efforts at home. The better example we are, the easier it is for us to preach.

Re:China is not unique

[Runty McGhee]

"systematically"? In China, the government censors. In the US, the government censors as well, but the largest censor is monied interests. In China, the politicians have all the power. In the US, it's those with money. This is why Google censors political sites in China, and censors sites that infringe on "property rights" or other business interests in the US.

It's Capitalism vs. Socialism. Different words, same crooked ass-wipes up at the top. The US was founded by a bunch of rich businessmen who wondered, why can't *we* run the country instead of kings? And that US tradition continues today. There are small advantages and disadvantages comparing a business-run country with a totalitarian dictatorship, but honestly, I have yet to see many differences. Different words, same result: Everyone on top lives like kings. Everyone on the bottom works really hard to make sure the ones at top live like kings.

As for a system, yes, power is slightly more distributed in the US as compared to China. But there are advantages and disadvantages for the masses in both scenarios. At least the Chinese government seems to have some sense of noblesse oblige when it comes to helping their people. In the US, our overlords seem to have no such sympathies with the common man.

Most of the stories coming out of China are FUD, BTW.

(And Scientology is a business, as are all religions.)

Dupe...Read this today taking a Dump at Google

[VGfort]

:p It was on the Google Toilet Stalls

I submitted this article

[drix]

But I titled it "Sergey Brin turns into a corporate douchebag." "On a business level, that decision to censor... was a net negative." I think I speak for a lot of people here when I say, wtf is that shit? I can think of a few more, say, pressing reasons why abetting the oppressive regime in China is fucked than the good ol' bottom line. Don't be evil my ass.

Sigh. Sergey, we barely knew ye.

Re:I submitted this article

[The Crooked Elf]

But I titled it "Sergey Brin turns into a corporate douchebag." "On a business level, that decision to censor... was a net negative." I think I speak for a lot of people here when I say, wtf is that shit? I can think of a few more, say, pressing reasons why abetting the oppressive regime in China is fucked than the good ol' bottom line. Don't be evil my ass.

I wonder why the other guy's got accepted :).

Crooked

Re:Now we know we can trust Google

[lyononline]

I believe we have...but nothing compare to the one in China ;-) http://www.google-stories.com/rubrique.php3?id_rub rique=22

Easy "Cyberspace Bypass".....

[IHC Navistar]

All you need to do is find an offshore shell portal and submit your Google searches throuh them.

ProxyBox is used by some Chinese searchers and is an easy way to get around the blocks tht schoold put on MySpace.

It is more ethical to use MSN now!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't censor shit...

It's never too late to do the right thing.

[gklinger]

The reporter concludes that Google is unlikely to revise its Chinese censorship policy any time soon.

An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." --Orlando A. Battista

Re:It's never too late to do the right thing.

[Kris_J]

Mod parent up.

And for what it's worth, the China censorship thing was the main reason I "left" Google (as in, closed my gmail account and all my other personalised services).

Scared of us, but not scared enough to stop!

[BillGatesLoveChild]

All that is required for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing. I get a little tired of heading apologists make the same arguments trotted out at Nuremberg. "If I didn't do it, someone else would."

Have you noticed this trend of corporate hand-wringing? They do something morally questionable in the interests of making more cash, then later say, "Gee... we feel bad about doing that..." But keep doing the same thing. It lends credence to theory that the "NGO Code of Conduct" recently reported on slashdot http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/78 402533/article.pl was a publicity stunt.

So they are scared of the bad publicity. Not scared enough to stop mind you, but scared enough to throw a few PR people at it. Reckon Brin made that decision off his own bat? They would have talked about it with their PR spokesweasels beforehand.

But if they are scared enough to do this, take heart. I still use Google beause it's (1) good, (2) free. But check out Altavista and the alternatives now and then. I've found Google limits some keyword searches where AltaVista doesn't. If you find better, you can drop Google as my favored brand in under 15 seconds.

Serveert makes a good point

[BillGatesLoveChild]

Google apologists are saying "If Google didn't help the Chinese Government cover up the murder of 2,000 to 3,000 people, then someone else would"

But it's only covered up when everyone that controls the flow of information agrees to silence discussion.

I wonder if any 'Stealth Marketers' are present here?

Typo

[Duncan3]

"Google Admits China Censorship Was Damaging"
Google Admits China Censorship Publicity Was Damaging

All fixed.

The censorshop is working!

[BillGatesLoveChild]

I'm going to steal this from Jimmy Wales. It's significant for two reasons.

Paragraph 1. It's not just Tiananmen, but every other dirty thing the Chinese Government is doing they've helped suppress. Who are they holding this information from? Not you or I, but from the Chinese Public. They're helping the Chinese Government spread lies.

Paragraph 2. It's worked! Today Young Chinese don't believe Tiananmen ever happened. Mission Accomplished, Google! They are having a related problem in Cambodia where young people don't believe the Killings Fields ever happened.

"In January 2006, Google agreed to censor their mainland China site, Google.cn, to remove information about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre [3], as well as other topics such as Tibetan independence, the banned spiritual movement Falun Gong and the political status of Taiwan. When people search for those censored topics, it will list the following at the bottom of the page in Chinese, "According to the local laws, regulations and policies, part of the searching result is not shown." The uncensored Wikipedia articles on the 1989 protests, both in English and Chinese Wikipedia, have been attributed as a cause of the blocking of Wikipedia by the government in mainland China.

In 2006, the American PBS program "Frontline" broadcast a segment filmed at Peking University, many of whose students participated in the 1989 protests. Four students were shown a picture of the Tank man, but none of them correctly identified the person or the event depicted. Some responded that it was a military parade, or an artwork. This is reflective of either strong censorship of the event in mainland China, or the effectiveness of political indoctrination such that students feigned ignorance to an American journalist."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_prot ests_of_1989

Re:The censorshop is working!

[vakuona]

Google faced a choice. As a company, it was not good for them to lose customers because their site was unavailable at times because of the 'Great Firewall of China'. So they decided to put some servers in China.

As an employer, they would put many people at risk if they did not comply with the laws of China. Brin and co, from their luxurious offices at the googleplex, would not be affected by any backlash in China. Their employees could face jail time or even death if China deemed their actions to be subversive. So they decided to steer clear of that. Note that other companies had to hand over information to the authorities because in china, you have to comply with their laws (Yahoo comes to mind). Google would have been in the same position. Would you rather they a) ratted on troublemakers or b) sacrificed their own employees. Make no mistake, if the government wants to punish someone, they will find someone.

As a provider of a quality service, they did not think it was a good idea to have links that pointed to sites that 'did not exist', which is how these would seem to a casual Chinese browser. So they tell them instead that the information is censored in accordance with applicable laws.

Lastly, they left google.com accessible to the Chinese. In the uk, if try to go to google.com, it redirects me to google.co.uk. In China, it goes to google proper, and they can get the links to the sites that 'don't exist' there.

I would say, given the situation, the could probably not have done any better, besides leaving China in a huff.

Re:The censorshop is working!

[pafrusurewa]

They are having a related problem in Cambodia where young people don't believe the Killings Fields ever happened.

Do you have sources for that? When I was in Cambodia it wasn't my impression that the Cambodian government tries to deny their country's past. You certainly can read all you want about the Khmer Rouge on the Internet there. Cambodia isn't anything like China, it's a constitutional monarchy with actual democratic elections (they try anyway).

But since you wrote "young people," maybe you're talking about changes to school curricula that I'm not aware of?

Re:The censorshop is working!

[smoker2]

And you somehow believe that the western world is immune to this indoctrination ?

I was watching a tv program the other day called "Weapons of World War 2" on the history channel. They have shows about tanks, fighter planes, submarines etc. This particular show was about aircraft carriers. At the beginning of the show, they showed pictures of the modern US carriers with the voice-over saying that "todays modern self contained carriers can strike at the heart of terrorism where-ever it may be in the world".

Well if thats not a load of crap then I don't know what is. Do you really believe that that is why the US maintains such a fleet - to combat terrorism ? This is revisionist, government manipulated bullshit, presented as history. But somehow, when it's China involved, manipulation of information is the worst thing in the world. Take a look closer to home.

Re:The censorshop is working!

[BillGatesLoveChild]

> And you somehow believe that the western world is immune to this indoctrination ?
> But somehow, when it's China involved, manipulation of information is the worst thing in the world. Take a look closer to home.

On the contrary, I agree with you. Look at Iraq.

We have a huge problem with a corporate media telling us what to think (Hi, Rupert), but we do have basic protections like free speech which the government hasn't taken away from us... yet. The Internet makes it wonderfully hard for them to even try it. Sure, right-to-a-speedy-trial and confessions-under-duress are taking a battering now, but thanks to free speech, we've at least got a chance. Your average Chinese doesn't, and I bet they've never heard of these:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-1901 558,00.html
http://www.faluninfo.net/
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-06-14-deat h-van_x.htm

Re:The censorshop is working!

[Anonymous Coward]

People need to stop judging the Chinese people if you do not know the Chinese culture.
For one thing, not every ordinary Chinese care about Tiananman 1999. In fact, most of
them are simply too busy making money to care about anything politics. And for thousands
of years in its history the Chinese always chose to be ruled by emperors.

Simply put, the majority of Chinese don't care about things like the Tiananman these
days. Why are you making assumptions that people should always like to know and care?

I disagree

[EatingSteak]

I do not believe the move to censor was bad overall for Google. It's not like they were faced with the choice of (a) censor or (b) not censor. The choice was (1) present censored material, or (2) abandon ship. No heads are rolling on account of Google, which is more than can be said for their competitors. And it's not like they're selling them Nukes or anything I very strongly disagree with the statement that they abandoned their 'policy of "Don't Be Evil". They're not. Bull shit. China's demands of a censored search engine are evil. Google is not being evil. China is evil. I think you would have to be really shortsighted to actually blame Google for this [1]. I do not think any less of Google. I think less of china. And I applaud Google for making at least something available there.

That aside, I think their decision to go into China was definitely good for society/the world as a whole. Besides the obvious benefits of Chinese people having more information (albeit biased) available, I think it was good to draw more attention to (a) their censorship program, (b) the censored material, and (c) the evilness of the Chinese government.

(a) The rest of the world can see that it exists, and to what extent. It's easier to find out what material is being censored.
(b) There are obviously loopholes. I don't know of any in particular, but I'm sure a large amount of information slips through. There's no way you can get a bullet-proof censor of the whole internet. Also, the rest of the world can see actual content that was censored (what really happened/why was it censored anyway?)
(c) This should be self-explanatory. At least it increases awareness of what they're doing. I had a friend that did a semester abroad in China (Univ of Beijing). He said it was bad there. Really bad. Apparently "George Washington" is an unacceptable name there. The problem was, he wanted to go to (God forbid) George Washington University for grad school. The problem was, he couldn't access anything from there online, he said his mail was checked. It was such a pain that he ended up giving up applying there because the name of the university was so hard to get through their shit political system. I think the censorship program just makes situations like this come under more fire. And rightfully so. Go Google!

[1] Maybe that's the problem. People will believe any mumbo jumbo you throw at them. My parents are no exception. "Oh Google is censoring/ They shouldn't do that". That's not even half of the story. People are idiots. If this actually did/will hurt Google, that will be the only reason.

Re:I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

(a) The rest of the world can see that it exists, and to what extent. It's easier to find out what material is being censored.

Google changed that. Nothing like a dirty secret if we cannot see just how dirty it is.

Re:I disagree

[subw]

Well, Google always seemed to suggest they were above just deciding based on economic benefit (dontbeevil). Yet here they are, saying "It was wrong because it hurt our business". There was no altruism at all in their decision to go to China, they just wanted to make money. Also, it's not like the content is not there because Google does not display it. Google is just a front-end. But when Google is in China, most people there are likely to think just like the average person in other countries, they think Google == Internet. Although you could technically still access the information, no one uses any non-censored way to look for it. If Google does not display something, in most cases it could as well not be there at all. The bottom line is, when Google goes to China and censors, they make a lot of money, but many people stay completely in the dark about, say, the tanks on Tiananmen Square, that otherwise at least potentially wouldn't have.

Parent is not flamebait

[lxt518052]

He/she's actually got a point.

Absolute ideologies ARE harmful in that they care very little about the different real-life situations one could be in. They tend to give people a dangerously simple (or naive sometimes) set of glasses, through which everything in the world becomes either black or white.

For example, it is well known that in physics, a physicist tends to put his tested theory in the simplest form, and a lot of us would agree, simple is beautiful. But in engineering, when an engineer attempts to solve some real world problem using the physicist's theory, her solution will always involve some kind of compromise and will not get even remotely near the simplicity of the physics. If she doesn't deal with all the inevitable subtleties with such compromise, her application is going to fail.

What I'm trying to say here is, even to something as unambiguous as physics, the application of principle is not as obvious as one would expect. If a principle in science is like this, how can one expect ideologies, which subject its principles to a million different interpretations, to be applied on real life without any balanced consideration?

Re:Parent is not flamebait

[Quiet_Desperation]

Physics is just as infected. Try to get a research postion that isn't about string theory.

Re:Smells like...a bad analogy

[EraserMouseMan]

Your grocery store analogy is a horrible way to justify not correcting an ongoing mistake.

If you are on a roadtrip and realize you've made a driving error what do you do? You figure out the road you should be on and then change your course immediately. You don't keep driving in the wrong direction.

Mod parent up!

[lxt518052]

...With absolutism, sure, it's easy to point out what to do. Frankly though, that's a rather juvenile thought process, something that lacks complexity because one feels "the world must work the way I see it" or "these values I hold dear, you must also."... Well said!

Flawed Logic Ahoy

[infaustus]

1.) In China in terms of this example, the third supermarket doesn't exist at all. 2.) Shooting customers is an extremely asanine analogy. If you are shot to death, you are going to remain dead forever. If you're censored at one point, you might get the information later. If there's a notice that you're being censored, you're now better off than before because you at least know that some things are being censored and have some idea of the frequency of censorship. If we're going to use your ridiculous analogy, the second supermarket would not be shooting its customers, there would be government agents hiding in the aisles waiting to shoot you while the supermarket posted warning signs labeling their positions. "I'm asking why censorship in corporate guise is any more acceptable or any different than when done directly by the Chinese government." If a man held a gun to your head, are you in the wrong when you pinch someone under his orders? You might say you shouldn't be there in the first place, but if the government would simply have someone else do it in that case it would have no effect. If the other people would overzealously decide to go further and kill or seriously maim the person in an attempt to appease the man with the gun, you'd even be causing a net benefit to your victims.

Re:insight

[Achromatic1978]

No. No it does not.

Sounds familiar

[straponego]

So, we made a decision, and it was wrong. It was a bad call. And now that we're going to keep doing the exact same thing wrong thing, you're mad at us? We expected more from you. We thought you were smarter than this.

Re:Smells like...a bad analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

Still not exact.

You know the destination (a free society in China) but *no one* knows how to get there. You're not sure you're going the wrong way but then no one else is either.

You cut some people off to go this direction, while your reputation is about what a careful driver you are.

Who's to say the tactics (more information) will not eventually produce the goal (a free China)? Google seems to be very careful that it's information is NOT used by authorities to *enhance* the governments ability to repress their own people. There are no logs on the China proxies and there is no user information stored there.

Minor "evil": "people don't get all the information". Minor "good": "with Google they get more information than otherwise and there is no way for the government to use that information against their people."

I'd say it's a balanced and potentially successful tactic. Time will tell. And it takes time to get *anything* done in China.

Google is prepared to shut down and walk away from China in an instant if there is any indication that additional harm is being done.

China is a hard nut to crack. Xenophobia and nationalism going back thousands of years. At least they've not been imperialistic so far...

Many European countries and the U.S. censor as well, to varying degrees. Deny the Jewish Holocaust in some European countries and see where you end up sleeping. Sell some pictures with images of children in sexual situations in the U.S. and see how that works. China has a right to censor anything they want - here's the big "if". If their government was truly a representational government. Then it's the people censoring themselves, right?

Squashing mod points...

[thrill12]

... but google seems a little bit "evil" here, and they seem to admit it.
Now mod me down and be off with it - don't forget to put on that blinker.

What they say and what they do

[br00tus]

I can connect to Google France, Google Japan, Google Germany and so forth. I used to be able to connect to Google China - you can even see it in google.com's search for Google China and the cache for it. But nowadays, it just redirects to Google.com. They don't want Westerners able to see what people can and can't search for in China. So what else is new, the corporate stooges are saying BS to the press, while in the back they are continuing to do what they do and are attempting to hide what they are doing.

Re:What they say and what they do

[DrJokepu]

I can connect to google.cn and search. I live in Europe.

Re:What they say and what they do

[dtfusion]

I live in the US. I can get to google.cn and use it. Try searching "tianamen square" (note deliberate misspelling). 2nd hit is Wikipedia article on Tiananmen Square and the protests and massacre there. This is the same as the first hit searching from US google.com I've heard this is the case for many other proscribed searches. Not to defend what google did, but it seems they did the minimum the law required them do to and the info is still there if you're a little creative.

Re:What they say and what they do

[r3m0t]

That's google.com in Chinese, not google.cn in censored Chinese.

No wonder you can get Wikipedia.

News for emotional nerds.

[mattgreen]

Parent has a point. The moderation is wrong, and just shows that Slashdot is absolutely infested with these sort of ironclad ideologies. Their fallout is news that is hyped up beyond its merits.

Far too many stories are sensationalized for their own sake. This is incredibly sad for a site that is supposed to be for nerds. And in the unlikely event a story hasn't been spun this way in the summary, there is always some extremist blowhard in the comments who either:
1. Wildly speculates about an uncomfortable future by taking this single event and extrapolating a set of worst possible consequences. Moderators respond by modding it up, almost as if they believe people noticing it will therefore prevent it from happening.
2. Makes some incredibly naive statement and then laments that it isn't true. Nostalgia is stimulated, and moderators respond by modding it up, as it to make it true.

I'd love to find a site that doesn't house the sort of people that refuse to live in the real world, but I have yet to find one.

They had a third path.

[Kadin2048]

Here's my reasoning: for an action to be "morrally wrong", you must first have a choice in whether or not to do the action, and Google obviously had a choice. Furthermore, for an action to be morally wrong, there must be a choice which is more morally right than the the alternative/s. One of the Exorcist remakes had a scene where a priest was forced by Nazis to choose a few people out of large group to die, and if he did not choose, then they would all die. I would argue that by choosing people to die, the priest did not do anything morally wrong because the alternative was worse (not to mention selfish because he is avoiding the pain of knowing that he killed the people he picked). IMO, this was analogous to the situation Google was in. Google could either choose to give some information to the Chinese people or none. By not providing the service, the Chinese people would could not get around the great firewall would be worse off, so Google's choice was the morally right decision.

I think the points you make are quite right, but they ignore one key fact: uncensored, U.S.-based google.com was available in mainland China prior to Google's introduction of the censored version, around 90% of the time. What they gained, by adding a censored Chinese version, was the ability to do business in China, and therefore sell ads and draw revenue from their Chinese users.

Google admitted as much in their blog at a time, when they admitted that the U.S. page was still accessible to Chinese users most of the time. The decision wasn't "censored or nothing," it was "revenue or less revenue?" Google didn't compromise for the good of the Chinese people, they compromised in order to tap into the fat revenue stream that they would have otherwise missed.

With Google's technical skills, they almost certainly could have kept their page accessible to Chinese users most of the time, had they really wanted to. But doing so would have meant missing out on much of the revenue from that market, since money is a lot easier to restrict than Internet traffic. They made a straightforward choice: money, or ideals? They chose money.

I, personally, do not fault them for this; I think most people, given a choice between their "ideals" and money, would do the same thing. The only thing I think they're guilty of is hypocrisy. Had any other company done the same thing, I wouldn't have blinked an eye: most companies seek nothing but profit at any cost, and don't act any better than you would expect from such goals. (And many have done well by such dealings; the public has a short memory -- you can use a man for slave labor, then later sell cars to his grandchildren, and nobody will think less of you. Such is the world we live in.) However, Google billed itself, both to investors and the public, as having higher motives, and when they were put to the test they failed dismally.

There is no comparison between Google, and your hypothetical priest, because Google had a third option: they could have walked away from the dilemma, and simply refused to offer a censored version of their service, told their investors that they could not accept advertising revenue from China in clear conscience while maintaining their principles, and attempted to give Chinese users the best uncensored service that they could provide.

They didn't.

When it came time to choose between money and idealism, money won. For what it's worth, I'm fine with it, I just wish they would be more direct about their decisions and state their motivations more directly. It's only mildly irritating to see evil done these days, but it's substantially worse to see evil done while under the banner of good.

If your motive is profit, seek profit, and don't clothe your amorality behind a facade of good intentions. You can only have one primary goal. If you want profit, and profit leads you to deal with the Nazis, the Chinese, or the Devil himself, be proud; at the end of the day, at least you can say you didn't compromise, and you followed the path you had chosen to its end. Google can't even say that. They chose a direction, or so they say, but veered from it when the going got tough.

Re:They had a third path.

[krotkruton]

Ok, I can see where you're coming from for the most part. But if you want bring up the fact that China had access to the regular Google site 90% of the time, then what difference does it make if Google gives a censored version the other 10% of the time? 90% of the time, the people who had access to Google's regular site still have access to it, but the 10% of the time that they don't they have access to a censored version. This is still more information than if there is only the regular Google version.

As far as the priest comparison, the only two options I saw for Google was to either create Google.cn or not (and therefore not have a censored version in China), so there were only two options. This isn't to say that the priest only had two options. He could have tried to grab one of the Nazis guns and kill all of them, or a variety of other scenarios just like there are really a lot of scenarios for the Google situation, but it isn't worthwhile to try to list every one of them.

info....

[Anonymous Coward]

information wants to be free.....

Lying assholes...

[clambake]

'On a business level, that decision to censor... was a net negative.'"

Were that true then this could *not possibly happen*: The reporter concludes that Google is unlikely to revise its Chinese censorship policy any time soon.

Why? Because Google is publically traded. The shareholders could sue the pants off him and the the Google executive team. "Net Negative" meant *losing* money, which means something that, as a business, they would want to fix ASAP.

So, what did they guy REALLY mean when he says that? Here is the quote from Mr. Brin as heard from inside his own head:

"We are making butt-loads of money, but we'd rather not look like the assholes that we are, so I am going to 'fake apologize', make sure that NOTHING changes in terms of censorship policies in China that bring in the cash... The great part about it is, in the future, should someone ever complain about what fuckheads we are, I can point them to the direct quote that shows we've 'seen the error of our ways', and thus be able to make sure that little ray of truth doesn't spoil the meeting until after I've already got the deal signed... score! Oh, and yes, yes I do like to fuck children, thanks for asking."

Can't.... resist.... obligatory... reversal...

[Anonymous Coward]

In the People's Republic of China, the censors Google YOU!!

"On a business level"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it refresing to hear a corporate President differentiate between "business level" and other levels. Apparently there's more to Google than the "business level," and that is unique.

Not true.

[Kadin2048]

Ok, I can see where you're coming from for the most part. But if you want bring up the fact that China had access to the regular Google site 90% of the time, then what difference does it make if Google gives a censored version the other 10% of the time? 90% of the time, the people who had access to Google's regular site still have access to it, but the 10% of the time that they don't they have access to a censored version. This is still more information than if there is only the regular Google version.

Because when they launched Google.cn, they changed it so that typing "google.com" in China redirected to the Chinese version, just like going to Google.com in Germany actually brings you to Google.de. The result is that it's effectively impossible to bring up the US version in mainland China; most users will only ever see the "cn" version.

They effectively replaced the 90%-available, uncensored, US version, with a 100% available, censored, Chinese version, on which they were able to sell ads.

Re:Not true.

[modecx]

The result is that it's effectively impossible to bring up the US version in mainland China; most users will only ever see the "cn" version.

Huh? Is the result of most Chinese users only seeing the .cn version of the site a result of some government or corporate action, or is it simply because most Chinese speak and read only Chinese? Oh, most United States citizens access only the .com, English, North American version of google. Since they effectively never visit google.de or google.co.uk, or google.fr, or google.co.kr, or even lowly google.cn, it must mean that it's effectively impossible to go there, so there must be some sort of gover-commercial conspiracy going on..

Re:Not true.

[Time_Ngler]

Is the result of most Chinese users only seeing the .cn version of the site a result of some government or corporate action, or is it simply because most Chinese speak and read only Chinese?

No, it's the result of China's firewall redirecting to google.cn

Re:Not true.

[General Wesc]

No, it's the result of China's firewall redirecting to google.cn

I think it's Google's--not China's--doing. When I was in Germany, going to google.com sent me to the German Google. This was my brother's laptop, which I think still had English as the preferred language in Firefox, meaning the redirection was likely based solely on my ip address, and not done by a Great German Firewall.

Re:Not true.

[modecx]

No, it's the result of China's firewall redirecting to google.cn

No, it's the fact that google uses geocoding to figure out what country you're in, and they redirect you to the site you're most likely to find useful. I've never been behind the great firewall, but I'm quite confident anyone can access a google site for any locale.

Re:Not true.

[Time_Ngler]

According to wikipedia, China's firewall does block google.com and China's citizens have been using elgoog to get around it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ElgooG

Re:Not true.

[modecx]

Yeah, look at the article the wiki links to. That was from around 2002. elgooG apparently no longer works, and the Great Firewall is bound to block lots of things that would normally show up in google searches, making the whole effort mostly useless anyway.

Re:Not true.

[modecx]

Also forgot to mention that elgooG was incapable of passing Chinese characters (or indeed anything with two byte encoding) to Google, so it was useless to most Chinese citizens, by default. Plus, how long do you think the government was going to let that happen?

Re:Not true.

[Time_Ngler]

First, you write:

No, it's the fact that google uses geocoding to figure out what country you're in, and they redirect you to the site you're most likely to find useful. I've never been behind the great firewall, but I'm quite confident anyone can access a google site for any locale.

Then I respond showing evidence that China does block google.com. Then you tell me that China is also probably blocking elgoog. The point I was trying to make is that China does block google.com, it was evil of google to block it, and that refutes your previous statement, "Is the result of most Chinese users only seeing the .cn version of the site a result of some government or corporate action, or is it simply because most Chinese speak and read only Chinese?"

And now you reverse yourself, and ask me how long before I think that China will block elgoog.com as well as google.com. Do you have a position, or are you simply trying to nitpick my own?

Re:Not true.

[modecx]

I never reversed myself. I just don't see how a wikipedia article pointing to a BBC article from from five years ago is good proof of what's happening today, do you? For a while, china blocked most if not all western search sites. Google and Yahoo (and AOL, and MSN) got on the PRC's good graces by agreeing to work with the government to block objectionable content, so they could have access to the gigantic market share, back in those days... But those days are NOT today.

You know what would I would consider proof? A person in China trying to visit search engines of languages foreign to China, and being blocked or redirected to a Chinese site. Is that too problematic?

All the recent anecdotal evidence (about the last two years) I've seen is that these foreign search sites are readily accessible, but upon searching for objectionable words your connection is reset for 30 minutes, or the firewall filters out sensitive URLs, and/or filters packets with sensitive information, or the firewall simply filters out results provided by search engines.

How about this for contrary evidence? Note this: they say google.cn is self-censored, and results from google.com will be censored by the firewall, which would seem to indicate to a logical person that the site is still accessible, if limited by the firewall.

Re:Sticking with mistakes

[Technician]

Sometimes we make mistakes but have to stick with them.

True, but before deciding, evaluate the facts.

Fact, the nice new printer from Dell looks nice, but the ink can not be bought localy, the carts are 1/4 the size of the competetors, and you have to pay S & H to get them. They make no claims to how much ink is in a cartridge or estimated page yield.

Getting the printer was a mistake. Ordering ink for it would have been a second mistake. Kept my old printers instead.

Economically speaking

[mapkinase]

Google admitted that they have net loss now (minus in West due to political backlash ourweighs pluses in China market), but they see the growth of Chinese market outweighing the growth in West, so they foresee how this minus is turning to plus in the future.

So, economically, yes, it is a smart move.

Another conspiracy theory...

[lxt518052]

being modded insightful.

Come on, moderators, if only you had bothered to click on that link, you would have known what the post said was not true.

I can visit google.cn from UK. I use it almost everyday, along side google.co.uk. I don't get redirected to google.com in either case.

Others reported from Europe and USA that they didn't get redirected either.

If google don't redirect traffic from Europe and USA, why should they redirect that from anywhere else? Give me a reason.

The bottom line is, this guy didn't know what he's talking about, yet still got modded insightful.

Re:Another conspiracy theory...

[hankwang]

I'm in Netherlands and google.cn redirects. I'm not sure what algorithm Google uses for determining when to redirect and when not to.

In any case the servers are the same anyway, the tld will just present a localized version. If your google redirects like mine, you can always manually insert query parameters into the URL to get the Chinese version:

• parameter hl: Google interface language, e.g. en for English, zh-TW for taiwan-style chinese (traditional), zh-CN for PRC-style Chinese (simplified).
• parameter lr: Language of the websites that appear in the search results. E.g. lang_en, lang_zh-TW or lang_zh-CN.

Example: http://www.google.com/search?q=Tiananmen&hl=en&lr= lang_zh-CN Whatever censoring they were doing is more likely to be related to the ip address of the search requester rather than interface language.

Re:Another conspiracy theory...

[lxt518052]

This appears rather strange. I could be wrong speculating about the other poster and the moderator then.

My traceroute results indicate though, www.google.co.uk and www.google.cn are of different locations.

UK
traceroute: Warning: www.google.co.uk has multiple addresses; using 209.85.135.103
traceroute to www.l.google.com (209.85.135.103), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
...
5 72.14.238.242 (72.14.238.242) 37.411 ms 37.824 ms 45.779 ms
6 209.85.248.80 (209.85.248.80) 45.861 ms 47.029 ms 48.017 ms
7 209.85.248.87 (209.85.248.87) 45.967 ms 72.14.232.95 (72.14.232.95) 48.051 ms 46.269 ms
8 72.14.232.104 (72.14.232.104) 53.906 ms 54.674 ms 216.239.43.89 (216.239.43.89) 45.321 ms
9 72.14.232.209 (72.14.232.209) 53.471 ms 51.701 ms 54.657 ms
10 72.14.238.128 (72.14.238.128) 62.267 ms 60.794 ms 59.753 ms
11 72.14.239.46 (72.14.239.46) 60.840 ms 60.102 ms 61.022 ms
12 72.14.239.48 (72.14.239.48) 60.286 ms 59.540 ms 61.581 ms
13 72.14.239.58 (72.14.239.58) 67.919 ms 209.85.135.103 (209.85.135.103) 59.779 ms 60.032 ms

China
traceroute to cn.l.google.com (72.14.203.160), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
...
5 so-1-2-0.gar2.London1.Level3.net (212.113.0.118) 39.331 ms 38.783 ms 38.958 ms
6 ae-29-54.ebr2.London1.Level3.net (4.68.116.126) 44.014 ms 49.637 ms ae-29-52.ebr2.London1.Level3.net (4.68.116.62) 38.375 ms
7 ae-4.ebr1.NewYork1.Level3.net (4.69.132.109) 110.953 ms 108.586 ms 108.079 ms
8 ae-1-100.ebr2.NewYork1.Level3.net (4.69.132.26) 117.260 ms 107.740 ms 109.648 ms
9 ae-2.ebr1.Chicago1.Level3.net (4.69.132.65) 129.249 ms 140.059 ms 130.563 ms
10 ae-11-51.car1.Chicago1.Level3.net (4.68.101.2) 127.923 ms ae-11-53.car1.Chicago1.Level3.net (4.68.101.66) 125.570 ms ae-11-55.car1.Chicago1.Level3.net (4.68.101.130) 126.529 ms
11 GOOGLE-INC.car1.Chicago1.Level3.net (4.79.208.18) 127.510 ms 126.549 ms 126.312 ms
12 66.249.94.133 (66.249.94.133) 128.287 ms 127.363 ms 72.14.232.53 (72.14.232.53) 128.543 ms
13 72.14.232.46 (72.14.232.46) 129.839 ms 66.249.94.128 (66.249.94.128) 132.557 ms 129.019 ms
14 72.14.238.66 (72.14.238.66) 133.033 ms 142.270 ms 64.233.175.94 (64.233.175.94) 137.116 ms
15 ro-in-f160.google.com (72.14.203.160) 129.439 ms 131.241 ms 129.293 ms

...looks fairly complicated.

and finally www.google.com
traceroute: Warning: www.google.com has multiple addresses; using 209.85.135.147
traceroute to www.l.google.com (209.85.135.147), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
...
5 72.14.238.242 (72.14.238.242) 38.407 ms 39.853 ms 40.094 ms
6 209.85.248.80 (209.85.248.80) 58.211 ms 46.265 ms 45.237 ms
7 209.85.248.87 (209.85.248.87) 45.833 ms 46.447 ms 45.351 ms
8 216.239.43.89 (216.239.43.89) 47.030 ms 46.805 ms 45.036 ms
9 72.14.232.209 (72.14.232.209) 51.187 ms 52.897 ms 52.483 ms
10 72.14.238.128 (72.14.238.128) 61.604 ms 60.990 ms 62.841 ms
11 72.14.239.51 (72.14.239.51) 61.600 ms 72.14.239.50 (72.14.239.50) 63.381 ms 62.278 ms
12 72.14.239.48 (72.14.239.48) 59.292 ms 60.320 ms 60.268 ms
13 72.14.239.58 (72.14.239.58) 70.441 ms 72.14.239.54 (72.14.239.54) 62.620 ms 61.770 ms
14 72.14.239.54 (72.14.239.54) 68.157 ms 60.301 ms 209.85.135.147 (209.85.135.147) 62.138 ms

It could be that Google's servers in Netherlands are running different kind of domain resolver, which ardently translate the .cn TLD into .com, whereas in the UK, verbatim requests are sent to different places.

Re:Another conspiracy theory...

[hankwang]

I'm partially mistaken. Www.google.(com|nl|fr|de|etc) all resolve to the same ip addresses (www.l.google.com) from here, but www.google.cn resolves to a different one. I was assuming that .cn would follow the same pattern as the other ones. Google has dozens of data centers over the world; apparently they store the Chinese stuff in specific data centers.

The redirection occurs at the HTTP level, not at the domain-resolver level. It turns out that whether or not you are redirected depends on the language settings in your web browser. If I put zh-tw and zh-cn on top of my list of acceptable languages, I am not redirected from google.cn to google.com. So that's why some people are and others aren't redirected.

Forgotten Killing Fields

[BillGatesLoveChild]

>> They are having a related problem in Cambodia where young people don't believe the Killings Fields ever happened.
> Do you have sources for that? When I was in Cambodia it wasn't my impression that the Cambodian government tries
> to deny their country's past.

Aware that Cambodia is *nothing* like China, and yes, they do try. From memory, no one had talked about the Killing Fields and it wasn't taught in schools. Having gone so long having heard nothing, when someone finally says something, it's a big like talking about a faked moon landing. A similar, albeit much more low key thing in modern Australia, is that a young person today can't comprehend the social movements of the 1980s. It's beyond their memory and not taught in schools, so doesn't exist. Same but starker in China; if no one dares talk about it, it ceases to exist.

I heard it on Radio Australia's Asia Pacific Programme. Here are some links. If you want to see the film, contact the makers. I think they'd only be too happy to share it with you:

http://www.abc.net.au/ra/asiapac/programs/s1815949 .htm
http://www.bigpond.com.kh/users/kid/
http://www.sangsalapak.org.kh/whatson/2006/12/film -screening-at-fcc-on-dec-13-phnom.html

Google Apologists

[BillGatesLoveChild]

> Censorship is the fault of the Chinese government, All Google ever
> did was respect and abide by the laws of the country they're trying to do business in.

When IBM installed and programmed card machines to sort out the Jews and Gays, they were thinking just like you.
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0213/black.php

All that is required for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing, and greedy ones to say they're just following the laws in the country they're trying to do business in. Just because your government tells you to lie to, rat on or murder your neighbor, doesn't mean you have to do it.

We might be powerless but we're not dumb

[BillGatesLoveChild]

> People who dislike China tend to mention Tiananmen Square a lot, but they always forget the Tank Man is also a Chinese.

I think people are smart enough to tell the difference between the ones doing the shooting and the ones getting shot at.

People are smart enough to distinguish between a government and the public at large. Governments go off and do their own thing. The public don't have a choice. Democracy? Some of us get to vote every 4 years between 2 parties which are nearly identical and have the same corporate donors. Nah. You're along for the ride.

It isn't all bad. For most of us the food is good and there's lots on TV. That keeps us happy.

Re:We might be powerless but we're not dumb

[lxt518052]

I think people are smart enough to tell the difference between the ones doing the shooting and the ones getting shot at.

It's a simple fact, isn't it?

I assume everybody is capable of telling it. But whether people bother to tell it, is another question. One quickly loses his/her ability to reason when some strong emotion is mobilized. That's how the neo-conservatives, in fact, most politicians, get their way.

Certainly the average American people has more power than the average Chinese, and arguably average people in any other country. You've got the chance to elect a president that unilaterally dictates over world affairs. We don't even have much say over Chinese affairs yet.

Re:We might be powerless but we're not dumb

[BillGatesLoveChild]

> I assume everybody is capable of telling it. But whether people bother to tell it,
> is another question. One quickly loses his/her ability to reason when some strong
> emotion is mobilized. That's how the neo-conservatives, in fact, most politicians, get their way.

These days people travel a lot. It's common to meet backpackers and students from other countries.
We have the Internet to communicate with each other. It changes perceptions. I hope most people
realize the rest of the world are a lot like us. I'm told if you visit Iran, most people are warm
and friendly towards foreigners, even Americans. They're not all religious nuts, only the
ones we see on TV.

If you haven't already and you can, read George Orwell's Book "1984". It says a lot about this.

> Certainly the average American people has more power than the average Chinese,
> and arguably average people in any other country.

I'm not sure that they do. China has only one party. America has two parties, but they're nearly identical. (Look at the last election: War President Bush vs War President Kerry). Most of the time they might as well be one party. The difference is Americans think they're free. Chinese on the other hand know they're not (I hope).

Rich Americans have more power than anyone else on Earth, even the President. Some of them use it for good (today's Bill Gates). Others use it for avarice (Rupert Murdoch). If Rupert Murdoch wanted to kick President Bush out tomorrow, he could. Imagine a thousand newspapers and FOX news screaming "Impeach!" He'd be gone tomorrow. No one else on Earth can do that. Is that one vote one value?

> You've got the chance to elect a president that unilaterally dictates over world affairs.
> We don't even have much say over Chinese affairs yet.

Governments do whatever they want to do. They only pretend to listen at election time. At least you know you're not free. ;-)

Re:We might be powerless but we're not dumb

[lxt518052]

Thanks for your comment. If you check my previous posts, you know we share quite a lot common thoughts. "1984" was written long time ago, yet weaknesses of human being have changed very little.

I agree if people from different countries get to know each other face to face, they are more likely to find the stereotypical perception to be wrong. That's part of the reason I'm on slashdot.

I'm not going to criticize either the current US administration or the general public. Others have done that much better than I ever could. There are much more to improve in China. We're working on it. I believe a lot of people here are working on their respective goals too.

My sig is only there to provoke some thought, to challenge the stereotypical image of China inside some people's mind.

Re:We might be powerless but we're not dumb

[BillGatesLoveChild]

There's a lot that needs changing on the whole planet. Fortunately thanks to the Internet people are talking and exchanging ideas now in a way that's never happened in human history. Who knows? Across the world, maybe we'll finally get something done. Robert X. Cringely said he'd bet on a thousand geeks rather than a thousand politicans any day of the week. So would I.

Pleasure talking to you on the big melting pot that is Slashdot.

Can't see what is wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

My god, you have been totally brainwashed haven't you? Anything in the name of the almight buck. If in order to do something you must do something that is wrong, then don't do it. Google DOES NOT have to do business in china. It could just say no.

I know that it is an amazing concept in this day and age but not doing something is still an option that some of us oldies have heard about.

The defence of the weak is going to be "but everyone else does it so we might as well".

Only a retard would fall for that one.

The simple fact is that Google with all its "do no evil" crap commited an evil act that went against everything it claims to stand for in order to make more money.

Google therefore has shown itself to be no better then anyother company that will do anything for money. Google and its founders are whores who do anything for an dollar. Apparently that is alright by many people but don't make it out that they didn't have a choice.

That had. Morals or money. They took the money. And unlike a whore it is not like the choice of morals would have included starvation. Morals or greed is perhaps a better description of the choice they faced.

Re:Can't see what is wrong?

[PRC Banker]

My god, you have been totally brainwashed haven't you? Anything in the name of the almight buck. If in order to do something you must do something that is wrong, then don't do it. Google DOES NOT have to do business in china. It could just say no.

That is actually incorrect. Google is bound under law to do the best thing in the interests of its shareholders. It would take a big movement to say that not doing business in China is in the best interests of its shareholders.

Not to say one is wrong or the other is right. Just to say that Google does not answer to a self-imposed moral stance any more. Just, it has to listen, and pander, to its shareholders.

Free darkies or convicts

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

- l do wish you'd let me hire free darkies instead of using convicts. I believe we could do better.
- Darkies! Why, their pay would break us, and convicts are dirt cheap.
- If we just give Gallegher a free hand...
- A free hand! You know what that means. He'll starve them and whip them. Some of them are sick, underfed....
- Oh, Ashley, how you do run on. Left alone, you'd be giving them chicken three times a day and tucking them to sleep with eiderdown quilts.

To access the US google...

[Bazar]

Because when they launched Google.cn, they changed it so that typing "google.com" in China redirected to the Chinese version, just like going to Google.com in Germany actually brings you to Google.de. The result is that it's effectively impossible to bring up the US version in mainland China; most users will only ever see the "cn" version.

Use www.google.us
You'll be redirected to www.google.com/webhp, unlike www.google.com, which will usually redirect you to your local google.

Disappointed in Google

[Diablo1399]

After weighing up my feelings on the issue, I'm very disappointed in Google. For a search engine company, whose mission is to organise and disseminate information that's on the internet, deliberately distorting search results to better serve an oppresive communist regime is a major ethical failure. When faced with a choice between providing good search results and getting more money, Google chose the money.

Google has optimized for 'most good'

[bill_mcgonigle]

Logically you are going to ask what would have happened if Google refused to do business in China. Another American company like Microsoft or even some other foreign company would have undoubtedly taken the place of Google. Their censorship may have been more or less strict. And from this you might think that Google is doing good because other companies could have been more evil. But then tell me why so many people think Haliburton is an evil company. They bring required services to Iraq and would certainly outperform many other companies. You might object and say that war profiteering is not the same as profiting from censorship, but I would disagree. Fundamentally, both companies are profiting from morally wrong actions.

People hate Haliburton because it gives them a chance to rail against Cheney and by proxy Bush because they think Cheney and Bush stole the 2000 election, and they're still mad about Clinton's impeachment. Also, they don't know anything about military support logistics, and figure that a 120-day bid process would have been better because they assume there are other companies out there with capacity and capability even though they don't know anything about the field. It's true, Haliburton has been overcharging for services in Iraq, but, my goodness, if we got rid of all the government contractors who overcharge we'd have an idle economy. It's not right, of course, but those mad at Haliburton don't show the same level of indignation across the board, belying their bias. I'd back them if they showed some savvy and consistency.

Google's tagging of censored content is the best solution that can be achieved with an uncontrolled market. As you mentioned, Microsoft and Yahoo! would jump in with both feet and not bother tagging. The right solution, arguably, is legislation preventing this kind of immoral action and then Google could feel justified of pulling out.

I'm glad someone bothered to point this fact out

[Runty McGhee]

I'm glad someone bothered to point this fact out and I hope someone takes the same pains on every Google-censorship-in-China story.

It's absolutely ridiculous and hypocritical for so many on Slashdot to criticize Google's China policy and make no mention of their US censorship policy. Google has to censor results in *every* country to comply with each nation's laws. If there's a country where results *don't* have to be filtered, I want to hear about it.

Sorry, but there's no such thing as free speech anywhere in the world. Get off your high horses Slashdotters.

I bet most US kids don't know about Tiananmen

[Runty McGhee]

You overestimate youth. They neither care about nor are capable of understanding these things.

Re:I bet most US kids don't know about Tiananmen

[BillGatesLoveChild]

> You overestimate youth. They neither care about nor are capable of understanding these things.

In which case we've turned full circle. Kids used to say the same about parents. But compared to Vietnam when it was young people who were protesting, with Iraq the protesters are the ones with grays in their hair. Young people are too busy shopping to be bothered. "Hey, The war isn't over *here*, is it?" Was a discussion in the press about this a while back where they came up with the term "Generation Me".

Maybe it's a generational backlash; a generation that cares, produces one that doesn't, which in turn produces another that does care.