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?

[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?

[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?

[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

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...

[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...

[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...

[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.

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.

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

[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.

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

[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.

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.

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

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

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

[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.

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