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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.
We cant continue business unless we use slave labour....guess we'll have to use slave labour.
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?
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.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
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.
An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." --Orlando A. Battista
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.