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China Emphasizes Laws As Google Defies Censorship
Lomegor writes "Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said on Thursday that all companies are welcome to operate in China but that they must do so under local laws. Although not explicitly, this is in some way a response to Google's threat to leave the country. China also stated that they have strict cyber laws and that they forbid any kind of 'hacking attack'; when asked if those laws apply to the government as well it was quickly avoided. 'It is still hard to say whether Google will quit China or not. Nobody knows,' the official in the State Council Information Office was quoted as saying." I sure would love to be a fly on the wall of these discussions. We certainly live in interesting times.
It seems that google has moved firmly into politics. I wonder if as a kid good ol' Sergey Brinn would have ever imaged how much of a difference he would make in the world.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Prediction #1 - google.cn becomes unavailable in China today, never to return.
Prediction #2 - no other companies will stand with Google on this matter, preferring to endure Chinese hackers rather than turning away Chinese business.
There are other search engines. Google, otoh, loses a huge market.
Are the people vetting slashdot posts unable to fix the grammar from submited stories, or do they not care?
This post has multiple serious grammar issues.
To avoid criticism; Say nothing, Do nothing, Be nothing.
Do what we tell you to do and you can stay.
At this point, does Google even have a real choice in the matter? If they don't out and out leave China very soon, then they will forever be perceived as weak. The Chinese will consider them to be feeble pushovers. Not only that, but in the Western world they'll also be seen as weak, for caving in on the issue of censorship.
China to Google: "Listen to us and obey our laws, even though they do not apply to us and we will abuse this power against your company and your users."
Even worse is that Google probably fears their technology will fall in the hands of the Chinese who will just build an alternative google *exacly* as they like it, and not like before with 'cooperation' from google. This way China wins and Google is left without a market in China at all, leaving with a damaged reputation for 'helping' the Chinese oppression and gaining nothing in the end... Pulling out is the wise thing to do, but not on their own. They have only said 'until here and no further', if Google moves out of China it will be because China makes them, and then Google is the hero of the story and China will be the party losing face.
And you will stop trying to apply them to us because we wrote them!
I don't think anyone could have realistically expected China to respond differently.
mmmm...forbidden donut
Oh wow, I never realized how poorly these summaries are written. I didn't even notice until you pointed it out.
Reading the link below, you will realise that china state hackers
1) have dedicated datacenters for them
2) Work around the clock in 3 shifts during each 24 hours
3) Have specialised teams for things like a) Break in b) Data stealing c) Footprinting
Capability of the People’s Republic of China to Conduct Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
This is such bull...everyone, on all sides pretending that red commies care about law?! WTF?
That, of course, is true in any country in which a company operates. If censoring content is part of the rules that Google must follow in order to operate in China, they'll either have to back down from their new anti-censorship stance, pull out of China as threatened, or break the law. I expect it will be one of the first two.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
maybe they used google translator to get the summary from chinese?
Not politic, business.
Operating in china does not bring google profit. Add Baidou, a govt-subsidied competition and being routinelly hacked, they have reasons leave market. Saying they leave market makes them look weak and stock price would drop.
Making chinese goverment kick them out makes for quite nice PR stunt and will not really to much about stock price. And it actually makes them look strong.
They are still happy to censor in many other countries.
-- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
The Chinese constitution has allowed free speech since 1982 (not that that mattered much 2 years afterwards). That is, censorship is officially *against* the Chinese constitution. I'd actually like to see this go to court; if it's a fair trial, the Chinese probably will end up being better off because of it.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1gAHil89Z4 Hmmmm... Asian actually do catch flies with chopsticks.
The rest of the world must follow our rules. But we could not.
we will all pay a steep price for our hypocrisy contempt and cowardice towards China human rights abuse, censorship, lies and manipulation
The original post thinks it would interesting to be the fly on the wall to the "discussions"
I lived over there for 5 years. I don't think it would be quite so interesting unless you haven't been following Chinese politics and all for the past 15 (or 65) years. There will likely be two camps in the Gov't. One that sees the problems of letting a company like Google be forced out of China (call them the Capitalists) and the group that has been trying to make this sort of thing happen ever since the first let foreign companies in in the first place (the Nationalist Communists if you will).
The thing of it is, the Capitalists sympathize with the Nationalists. They just don't want it to be so overt and obvious.
You just have to understand they don't see what they're doing as wrong in any way. Protecting their regime is #1. It has been for thousands of years for whoever is in power there. Currently you can describe it as Nationalism. Go back and read about the lead up to WWI and you'll get a sense of the mind set of many of the people in China, if not the majority. War (with Taiwan) would be glorious, an Empire is a right of China's and to some Everything (worldwide) is part of China and maps should show that.
I am admired that this was done be the China.... ....
I am shocked that "all evil" and privacy violations did not come from USA.
So the USA is not always the evil? The "commie and social" can be as evil?
No, just trying to write at work without anyone noticing and having a keyboard that works half the time. Also, stupidity
Doesn't bring Google profit? With a 30+% market share that sounds unlikely. Could you please cite your source on that?
Exactly. They do in USA too, just look at the "x number of results were removed because of DMCA laws". It's basically the same thing, just different area. It's something US government see important, just like Chinese government see important the areas they're censoring. You can argue that "it's not the same thing", but really, it is. Different culture, different people. Remember that Chinese probably think some of your laws and censorship is weird and hilarious.
What do you think US courts would say if a company would come to operate in US but wouldn't work under US laws because they think differently on the issues? Exactly the same.
Is it because we can vote that we think we are safe from an abusive government?
Just reading the story below points out how the US likes to codify its abuses of our rights and somehow it is all OK because our elections are "open", granted calling only being able to select from two parties as being open. I guess that is twice as good as China.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
But if China's going to go around breaking other nations' laws, whining about it happening to them just makes them look stupid, opportunistic, and greedy (which, again, worked out for the Americans /rimshot). If they want people to take their laws seriously, they'll have to do what the States did, and actually start getting along with the other nations with mutual agreements and enforcement. I don't think they will.
No OS on the planet can protect itself from a user with the admin password. - Yvan256
As an American who has lived in China on-and-off several times for years, I have to say that you can't expect anything that the government does/says to be even nearly logical or otherwise make sense.
My other expat friends and I used to joke that China was the source of all anti-logic in the world -- that is, the closer that you get to China, the less things make sense. If you've ever visited, then you'll understand.
My employer does a lot of business in China, both development work and sales into the chinese market.
This incident with google has really made me stop and think about whether the whole game is rigged.
Invest in China? Your technology will stolen by chinese competitors.
Outcompete your chinese competitors? The local laws will be changed in their favor.
Complain? Your people will be arrested.
Leave? Your assets will be nationalized.
The chinese haven't done any of that stuff to my employer, as far as I know. But it is the only country we do business in where the question might even come up.
It turns out that doing business in a country without the rule of law entails some serious business risks.
I wonder how many executives are having this same thought, right now?
http://xkcd.com/756//
I think that Google is just posturing to try and get itself some negotiation room.
We all know that none whatsoever company that has the size of Google will choose to not participate in such a large market.
That Google would pull no evil is just marketing bullshit, they will betray everybody even for minimal amounts of money whenever they can, because this is what is it's function to do.
I sure would love to be a fly on the wall of these discussions. We certainly live in interesting times.
No you wouldn't. It's not that lively - on the contrary it is quite boring, full of ritual and face saving. If you ever have a case of insomnia attend one of these meetings - it will be clearly taken care of.
Now if you want a bit of excitement, political meetings that have some energy, then go to UK parliment meetings - especially when the prime minister is around. I remember watching video's of former PM Blair and boy was exciting. The guy was in the center of the room, turning around and launching off complex answers to complex questions. Any political group where you can get a bunch of old boys to start a fist fight will be exciting...and you will not see that in a Chinese gov't meeting.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
Moral relativism needs to be shot to hell.
Comparing the DMCA to political censorship and torture is ridiculous.
I don't get why China insists on filtering search results at the search engine level. Would it not be easier to enforce ISP level DPI filtering and block the pages accordingly?
Technically it's easier to get Google to do the censorship work, but in the end, Google and just up and leave if they want, whereas employing DPI @ ISP level means it doesn't matter what search engine the end-user uses, it's still going to be filtered, and you can always threaten a local Chinese ISP with much more than you can threaten an international spotlight company like Google.
I'm not saying they should do this, but I don't see why they are chasing this one, other than to make a political statement to the world.
Is that a joke about "The People's Republic of China" moniker. Or is there some more obvious aspect I'm missing?
And remember, Chinese citizens will still find a way to use many of googles products - no matter how much the chinese gov't tries to block google addresses.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
>when asked if those laws apply to the government as well it was quickly avoided.
Are you freaking kidding me?
That is EXACTLY what every government does, ESPECIALLY the US.
But since its someone else who does it, ohhh, theyre baaaaad.
Govts have always played the game 'do as i say, not as I do'. .... hypocrite.
To make it seem like the chinese are doing something exceptional makes you a
You cant be that daft not to know that some people are terrorists while others who do the same are freedom fighters. Its the same actions but we frame it differently when we support terrorism.
Same things for war crimes and international laws: we force others to respect them when we need a stick to beat them with yet when we bomb, invade, kill, kidnap presidents, overthrow govts, poison people and lands, we dont follow the rules. Hell, we event went to countries getting them to sign a waiver so our criminals with guns in other countries cant be prosecuted.
If youre going to use the word hypocrite please look into the mirror first.
Having worked in China for a few years, I know that they dont take kindly to being publicly humiliated and saving face and honour still has importance there.
Besides, we've sold guns and weapons and still do to some of the filthiest govts in the world, some which still practice racial purity and apartheid, we have no morals in this country in this matter. Let's now act like we have a moral compass. If we do, its pretty selective and only is used when it suits us.
If it doesn't bring profit, Google just isn't doing it correctly. Baidu and other companies can work on bringing profit there too. Like I mentioned in the earlier story, Google's business model is extremely easy to make work in different countries and market areas (even more so because their largest infrastructure costs would still be there)
And Google is working hard in other countries trying to gain marketshare. Google is spending millions trying to gain marketshare in Russia and paying the most popular local sites to drop yandex and use themself instead (microsoft's tactics anyone?)
This isn't about profit margin.
Google is perfectly happy censoring for China and other countries.
It is unhappy when its computers get hacked by the Chinese government.
How can anyone do business when the government of a dictatorship is actively sabotaging them?
Did you even read what I said?
Different cultures and people have different values. Just because you think something is more moral doesn't mean everyone does so. Your mentality and thinking mostly comes from the culture you grow in. So does theirs. Yes, they protest. So do people in the US - just see all the battle about patents, MPAA/RIAA and other issues here on slashdot.
Now I do not either think it's the same thing. But trying to force the same kind of thinking you have to other people, especially to people in other cultures, just sickens me. And US is particularly known for forcing their laws to other places in the world, even forcefully.
What relationship have censorship with trying to attack Google or some activists accounts? They don't want to leave China, but specifically ends censorship, and that related not just with trying to hack accounts, but specifically get IP from google (private sources stolen?).
Could be related on how that censorship is implemented? If China govrnment had privileged access to Google network or some machines inside to implement that censorship, and those machines "misbehaved" (maybe not point a direct finger to how and when, but at least to say that odds were pretty high), that could have triggered that, hacking or not of activists accounts. Maybe they could trade to do a "dumber" way of filtering, a compromise between filtering something at least, and don't letting chance to China to infiltrate their network.
An interesting article on this on zerohedge.
From the article:
My newspaper said that Google is shaping US foreign policy. And they're working closely with Hillary Clinton on this.
It's great, exciting, but also a bit scary.
Sometimes, avoiding a question provides are all the answer you need.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
How can you have business without politics?
Or cyber crime to their servers in order to read political agitators emails are any
different then privacy crimes to individuals crossing borders in order to read political agitators emails?
Not to mention human rights crimes are very similar in both countries.
Both have LAWS that allows their gov agencies to kidnap their own people
Nobody is comparing the DMCA to torture, but it most certainly IS political censorship.
And it's not moral relativism to say that censorship is just as repulsive in my own country as it is in China.
The GP accuses you of commiting a fallacy of scale, and I must say I agree.
Sure you can logically draw comparisons between the DMCA and chinese censorship laws, it's not particularly hard or imaginative. The problem is when you compare the two on equal grounds. One involves gross violations of basic human rights, the other involves less Brittany Spears remixes on youtube.
Don't get me wrong, I have strong moral issues with the US patent and copyright laws. But I have far greater issues with human rights violations, regardless of who commits them. Not all atrocities are created equal.
Call me crazy, but I don't excuse the things the Chinese government does just because they convinced their population that they should. If thinking that basic human rights are universal makes me an imperialistic American dog, then I am a proud imperialistic American dog.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Not politic, business.
Operating in china does not bring google profit. Add Baidou, a govt-subsidied competition and being routinelly hacked, they have reasons leave market. Saying they leave market makes them look weak and stock price would drop.
Making chinese goverment kick them out makes for quite nice PR stunt and will not really to much about stock price. And it actually makes them look strong.
They are still happy to censor in many other countries.
Not business, politics.
Google operates in many markets where they are not yet profitable and continue to do so. Their investment in China is very small compared to the potential market and the size of the company, so it makes good business sense for them to try to keep developing their market while it is still growing, especially when they have other products besides search to offer (like Andoird, Google Voice, etc.). Google is not just a search engine. Unless someone's figured out there is something wrong with the future of Chinese economy, it's not business.
They will work with other countries when they feel it's beneficial. But when those governments backstab and sponser cyberattacks right after shaking hands with them, it shows cooperation doesn't work.
Where's "-1 you fail" when you need it?
.. compliance with local laws where it interferes with making money.
Just ask Japan or Switzerland..
Insert
There are lots of people in the world who can live for a day on the price of a popular adsense keyword...so I would imagine people in countries with a much lower cost and standard of living are not bringing in very much revenue for google. There is still some small benefit from the additional users/market share (and google's structure is very portable...just translate and go) but as soon as things start to become difficult, the profits might not be there to cover the expenses of dealing with messed up governments and widespread hacking.
I would bet china generates far far less revenue per user than the US so the added difficulties could very well make it unprofitable to continue service.
Bottles.
.... I'd actually like to see this go to court; if it's a fair trial, the Chinese probably will end up being better off because of it.
.... Your real name wouldn't happen to be Anne Frank, would it?
I suggest you go read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarianism. Pay attention to the first two paragraphs.
Regards;
Yes, that is scary.
Still, it's far better than M$ shaping foreign policy.
Say what? The full title is People's Republic of China. Are you trying to tell me that those are mere words?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Look, I've taken enough classes in philosophy to understand moral relativism. I read what you said, and I disagree. People in the US argue and complain because quite frankly the government and corporations in the US are judged to impossibly high standards. Westerners tend to be idealists and when something doesn't approach their ideals, they complain, loudly over the internet.
However, Humans Rights are a Universal Truth, they come from our human nature, our instincts and the way our brains are wired, and China is a country that is committing gross violations towards it's own Citizens. What should really sicken you is the communist parties destruction of their own ancient culture and peoples.
I should add, if you're feeling sick, you should visit the doctor.
Since the changing government wants to prohibit talk radio, say that the Constitution didn't go far enough to redistrubute wealth and soforth, what are the odds that they'll be forced to censor American traffic?
I mean, at this point we're not seeing a lot of political murders, but remember the "civilian national security force as large as the military" he promised? Chances are, it's the only campaign promise he'll keep.
Let's look back a second: these Liberals/Progressives have decided our light bulbs, toilets, refrigerant, cars, (in NYC) trans-fats and soon the salt in our shakers because [sarcasm]clearly the government knows better than us, what's good for us.[/sarcasm]
I submit Google will start censoring us when the cost to not do so, is death.
Now...does anyone want to talk about those 'fascist', 'mean', 'racist', 'angry', and 'extremist' conservatives? :) That lie's getting quite old these days.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
They didn't say which people, did they?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
1) Making money off china without playing ball
2) Providing a means to get around the Great Firewall
3) "Index" Chinese companies and the gov like they've never been "indexed" before.
China is effectively using a militia to achieve political and economic goals. And they just pissed of a big company based in a country that's also an economic competitor. It's going to be like The East India company vs. privateers.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Sure you can logically draw comparisons between the DMCA and chinese censorship laws, it's not particularly hard or imaginative. The problem is when you compare the two on equal grounds. One involves gross violations of basic human rights, the other involves less Brittany Spears remixes on youtube.
I'm not sure censorship counts as "gross violations of basic human rights". It's not good, certainly, but not in the same league as arbitrary imprisonment, torture or executions (things the US is not exactly innocent of). If Google was cooperating in those, I'd be all for boycotting it.
The spark for war between China and United States this may be.
Moral relativism is the principle that people should be aware of the moral framework behind moral statements. Just like when we say we are driving at 60 km/h, we are moving at 60 km/h relative to the earth, so too is political censorship and torture much, much worse than the DMCA, relative to human rights morality (Oh noes! I just compared the DMCA to torture!). I think that it's more than useful; it's absolutely vital for understanding intercultural politics.
That's the inoffensive part of moral relativism. The part that people have trouble with is that it doesn't allow you to make judgement calls about which moral code is superior, external to your own moral code. That is, you allowed to think that your moral code is superior, but in the back of your mind must be the recognition that this is your moral code promoting itself, and nothing more. I'm not sure if it's a shooting offence though.
I'm not sure if it's fair to call people ridiculous for comparing two things (that's not moral relativism, that's me and my moral code). It all depends on what aspects you are comparing between them. The GP was pointing out that, just like DMCA is part of the US, censorship is part of China, and Google obeying the US's rules need not be any more expected than Google obeying China's rules. Of course, it depends on the people who make up google, and their moral alignment. Since most of them will be from the US, it would be reasonable for Google to be more closely aligned to the US's values.
Either way, this doesn't mean that Google, me, or the GP is saying that the DMCA is just as bad as censoring political speech!
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
It is not "that they are censoring", it is "what they are censoring" that gets human rights violations involved.
If google censored websites about Gitmo for the US government, I would be equally inflamed.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Humans Rights are a Universal Truth, they come from our human nature, our instincts and the way our brains are wired
[citation needed]
The GP accuses you of commiting a fallacy of scale, and I must say I agree.
Sure you can logically draw comparisons between the DMCA and chinese censorship laws, it's not particularly hard or imaginative. The problem is when you compare the two on equal grounds. One involves gross violations of basic human rights, the other involves less Brittany Spears remixes on youtube.
I'd argue that freedom of speech counts as a basic human right.
Regardless, the DMCA has been used to censor material critical of the Church of Scientology from appearing on Google search results. Is that political speech, to you? Google also censors Nazi-related materials in Germany. Is that political speech, to you? Sure, perhaps the US doesn't jail political dissidents quite the same way China does, but what's Guantanamo Bay? Sure, there's a difference in scale, but the difference isn't as great as many people think.
The original point is that Google is demanding uncensored search results in China, but not in the US or Germany. There's no fallacy of scale here, unless you wish to argue that the US is more deserving of censorship since they commit fewer human rights violations?
Want a high quality FOSS RTS game? Try Warzone 2100!
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said on Thursday that all companies are welcome to operate in China but that they must do so under local laws
I thought that everyone knew that US laws surpassed all and any other laws. The natives are indeed getting a bit uppity.
I would absolutely love for you to explain your reasoning
I get furious with the DMCA, especially when it is abused for censorship purposes. I also have some very serious issues with the US government and what it is/has been doing. I have two short points to make though:
1) Actions taken by the US government do not excuse actions taken by the Chinese government.
2) You either have an incredibly warped sense of scale, or you are not very familar with the Chinese censorship program.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
China does not allow non-Chinese companies to make a profit in china. Before your can your products will be cloned by government backed companies, your website blocked, your travel inhibited, your employees hired away or detained. If you somehow manage to turn a profit your assets will be seized.
For google, doing business in china is a cost without a reasonable prospect of future benefit.
I'm not trying to defend China - I'm just interested in where we draw the line. At what point does censorship become a human rights violation severe enough to require non-cooperation? Some forms of censorship have widespread public support (e.g. child porn).
So, is DMCA-style censorship bad enough?
Censorship of pornography or violence in films?
Restrictions on what news can be reported or discussed openly?
I don't think any country is completely free of questionable activities in the area of human rights. China is worse than most, to be sure.
I'm not sure why he's been tagged a troll. What he says is true. People in the West have the benefit of living comfortable, carefree lives where they have the luxury of worrying about relatively insignificant problems. It's really not surprising people blow things out of proportion.
Things like DMCA are, without question, garbage. We should indeed fight to end this sort of thing. But stop trying to make it out to seem some kind of moral crusade where something profoundly crucial to our existence is somehow at stake. No one's going to die if they can't enjoy the current popular tv show, the latest Hollywood blockbusters or music from untalented, overrated pop stars.
Frankly, from my experience I don't think most Chinese are concerned about political censorship or torture and in fact seem to believe it's a good thing to maintain social order. But the fact remains that people from many parts of the world would laugh at us and the pathetic things we get worked up about.
"I sure would love to be a fly on the wall of these discussions."
Probably already is, so to speak...
Again, you didn't get it... Human rights should be universal, but who is going to tell what rights we should put in the pot? For me more important than being member of some religious sect is to have affordable health service (being healthy basically). So, let embargo trade with US, until universal health care is not accepted and major pollutant (US again) closed for good! Ts, ts... you really don't get it that basic human right is right to be different and to have different values.
so i see we're now comparing "genocide" with "not providing free healthcare"
cute
They do in USA too
Huh?
Others have pointed out you're comparing apples to apple seeds here, but there is a larger point to be made, the Cold War equivalent of Godwin's Law: Anyone who responds to a criticism of any country with a rant about how bad the United States is has immediately lost the argument because they have failed to address any of the criticisms, but instead introduced a lot of emotionally-charged irrelevancy based on the false assumption that the original critic is somehow an admirer or defender of the United States.
It didn't make any sense during the Cold War (for us non-Americans, especially!) and it makes even less sense now. The American Empire is broadly speaking evil. Everything thinking person agrees with this. To impute the belief that the American Empire is basically good too someone who points out how utterly vile the Chinese government is, and then to try to turn the discussion to the completely irrelevant area of American crimes, is simply the act of someone who knows how evil the Chinese government is, who knows they do not have a single fact to defend the Chinese government with, and who wants to distract everyone by bringing up how evil the American Empire is.
So let's call it "Godwin's Second Law" that anyone pulling this particular lame stunt automatically loses, and move on to the actual subject of discussion in this thread, which is how outrageous it is for the Chinese government to pretend that the rule of law is the least bit important.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
They shouldn't leave, they should just stop censoring all traffic and then make China go through the effort of blocking them. They look like even more of the good guys then.
Not politic, business.
Really the same thing, if you ask me.
It seems that google has moved firmly into politics.
Hardly. This is about Google getting annoyed with China flouting their own laws.
As a server admin I routinely see hacking attempts on our servers emanating from within China. Any attempt to follow this up with the owner of the netblock where the attacks originate from is usually just met with a bounceback from the abuse address or silence.
This has been the case for years as China have no interest in a clampdown on their own citizens hacking. I have long suspected that this was because they were actively recruiting hackers who broke the law if the hackers in question were pro-government and did not want to cut off their own recruiting stream.
I think it is probably most likely that Google saw themselves being attacked, and got fairly aggressive in trying to determine who was attacking them. They almost certainly would have had to break the law to do this so are going to be a little cagey about exactly what they did. They did however probably notice that this was being organised from within certain government IP ranges and instantly went running to the US state department.
The fact is that China is not willing to even pretend to play by the rules of common netiquette. Until they change this I would much rather have an option to have all traffic to any of our servers from China dropped far upstream. I know I can do this at a firewall level but then we still can billed for bandwidth if we go over a certain level and they still have the option of DoS by overload. No, what I want is the ability to have our upstream provider drop all traffic into our IP range if it even looks like it came from China. We have no interest in doing business there so allowing traffic from an internet rogue state is just a liability for us.
I dont read
Don't be silly, when we speak of Human Rights being a Universal Truth, it must be something that must stand the test of time. Human rights refer to a set of acts that the government or a person can not perform on another human being. They do not refer to a set services that a government must provide. Health care is a a socio-political issue that the citizens of a nation must decide on themselves, not one of human rights.
Maybe "don't be evil" is a healthier basis for foreign policy than whatever Microsoft's mission statement is.
Didn't MS once decide that their goal was "world domination"?
A simple prediction is that the Chinese government will make google.cn redirect to baidu.com. If the rabid slashdot speculation about l33t Chinese hackers, let us call them Chackers, stealing Google's code is correct, they can create a Google.cn golem datacenter and carry on google.cn.
From now on we will refer to this as Radtea's Law.
Embrace the foreigners, Extend the foreign Country's government, Extinguish the foreign Country.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
Saying they leave market makes them look weak and stock price would drop.
Funny, that's exactly what all the state-run chinese newspapers are saying.
And the reason I don't buy it is that plenty of internet companies have dropped various services in various countries and they never needed a scapegoat - American business doesn't give a shit about "saving face" like that.
In fact, one of the most positive things a US business can say is, "this market has proven to be unprofitable so we are cutting our losses by exiting it" - that tends to cause the stock price to go UP because investors expect that the company will no longer be losing money in an unprofitable venture. In the west, there is no shame associated with stopping the loss of more money.
So, while a story about needing to save face may play well with people who have spent all their lives in a culture that values face as much as they do in China, it is just an example of how "the east" has its own share of problems with understanding the way "the west" works.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Pirates Government. China law allows the Red Army to steal from anyone. Tolerating this means that we already lost the war. Profit hungry corporations sold us out. We are going down.
I can see your frustration brother. but there is really no point in telling americans that they don't actually hold the unquestionable truth about what is Good and what is Evil.
Read your statement again:
"One involves gross violations of basic human rights, the other involves less Brittany Spears remixes on youtube."
Uh, DMCA involves gross violation of basic human rights **AND** **NOT** downloading Britney from Youtube (youtube doesn't use DRM and your downloading of content is not affected by the existence of the DMCA: just the existence of the video.
the other involves less Brittany Spears remixes on youtube.
I'd consider having less of those a human right too.
Kudos to Google for making a principled stand. But it might have been better if they had a tech coalition, Google, msft, yahoo, oracle etc to slowly peel off the censorship. Perhaps this brash approach is the only way to make any impact.
Hello Cruel World
I'm not sure censorship counts as "gross violations of basic human rights". It's not good, certainly, but not in the same league as arbitrary imprisonment, torture or executions (things the US is not exactly innocent of).
Uh, what happens in China if you try to bypass censorship? That would be arbitrary imprisonment, torture, or executions. I certainly don't excuse the US for doing this (it is completely inexcusable), but the fact that some people commit horrible acts doesn't give anybody else a pass for doing the same things. The US has turned most of those policies around and most people agree that it is at least moving in the right direction now.
If you disagree, why don't you try running a fiber line into China and set up an ISP that doesn't go through the great firewall and see what happens to you? Why don't you try posting something critical of the government on a blog (while living there)? Why don't you try to organize a protest?
Then come back and tell me (maybe in 30 years) about how censorship isn't all that big a deal in the big scheme of things.
This is nothing to do with market share. I build web sites. Everyday, I reassure customers that their data is safe. If the FBI knocks at my door and tell me that I have been hacked, I have no choice put take drastic measures to prove my commitment.
Even if Google loose market share, exiting is not an option that makes business sense. They are telling the world that they security is more important than profit.
Every $EVIL_GOVERNMENT has laws, too. Doesn't make them right.
You are lying. Google makes (made) a profit in China and there is every reason to believe they would have made more if they stayed in China.
I tried looking for one but they're all censored.
Torture is too much of a stretch. Censorship is not.
Am I the only one who thinks a multipolar world with a Chinese superpower would be way, way worse than an American hegemony?
Comparing jailing political dissidents to Guantanamo Bay is comparing apples and oranges. China jails internal dissidents, Gitmo is for enemy combatants who are necessarily foreign to the U.S. There are no American citizens in Gitmo, their lawyers would have a field day.
And equating DMCA with political censorship is plain silly. Sure, some lawyers may try to pervert DMCA, but that isn't the law's intent.
Uh, what happens in China if you try to bypass censorship? That would be arbitrary imprisonment, torture, or executions
No, it wouldn't be arbitrary, it would be for breaking the law. As long as the law is made clear, you can avoid the penalties.
That doesn't make it right, but it's not the same thing.
LOL, look how the subject line changed. I thought for a minute you'd been hacked by the Chinese government!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You are trying to force the same kind of thinking you have about forcing the same kind of thinking on other people on me. I assume you're feeling sick about it.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Can we please cut the crap in thinking "about the children" or "about the state"? It is the fact THAT they are censoring that is bad.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
I read a very compelling quote recently about "basic human rights". They defined basic human rights as something that is so taken for granted by the population that they will react with violence if you attempt to trample those entitlements. If that feeling doesn't exist, there is no right.
Personally, I consider any nation that enforces private property rights to be a nation of thieves. You think of them as a natural right, while I consider that they make you no better than that Nordic chap who kept his daughter in his basement as a sex slave.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what either of us think. What matters is what we will violently fight to defend, and what we will not fight to defend. Paper laws don't even come into it.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
What....where are you getting this info? All the estimates I've seen suggest Google is making hundreds of millions in revenue from China, and their expenses can't be THAT much. Why do you think they aren't making money? As far as I can tell they are quite profitable.
Qxe4
Embargos aren't really the solution to problems like worker safety or healthcare - but tarrifs certainly are fair game.
If France wants to say - "workers should have good health care, so any product made by a company whose workers don't have x standard of health care will have a tariff" - then I'm fine with that. You'll probably find that almost anything the US actually exports probably is made by people with healthcare comparable to most Europeans, however.
These kinds of tariffs are important because otherwise a country that wants to keep its workers safe (or whatever) puts its companies at disadvantage against other nations that do not. It is also perfectly fair for countries with similar goals to unite (EU, etc) on these kinds of policies.
Despite a lot of the EU-USA bickering during much of the decade, the fact is that when you're dealing with countries like China the US and EU have a lot more in common than apart - ditto for non-EU countries that have decent standards. We shouldn't allow our multinationals to just move all the jobs to countries that have zero safety/environmental standards - and tariffs are a good way to do that. I'm hopeful that Obama may help to heal some of the rifts in this area.
And I say all of this as a fairly libertarian-leaning conservative that isn't all that big fan of most national healthcare proposals (although I think that eventually the concept will be inevitable when genetic testing makes voluntary insurance unsustainable). I'm just for nations competing on a level playing field and not having one big race to the bottom for workers.
Go back and read about the lead up to WWI and you'll get a sense of the mind set of many of the people in China, if not the majority. War (with Taiwan) would be glorious, an Empire is a right of China's and to some Everything (worldwide) is part of China and maps should show that.
You know I think that is the part of the Chinese mindset that worries me the most. I actually understand the talk about wanting peace and tranquility and valuing that over freedom. I am not saying I agree with said values, but I can understand them. However, as you mentioned, the current mindset that Chinese nationalists have has been seen in the world before, about 100 years ago in fact. Hopefully most of us remember what a glorious cluster fuck that turned out to be for the world. Everyone had their shiny new guns and thought they were the biggest and baddest on the block...millions died. The world was left in shambles...It's funny, I remember hearing a friend of mine in high school argue about how the world had grown out of that phase....
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
There is no effort being made to censor the information based on the DMCA. The act it designed to prevent people from using copyrighted works without paying for them, and that is exactly how it is used. The works are still publicly available, you just have to pay for them. I'm not saying that it's the right thing to do, but it's not the same thing at all.
China has all these laws which they enforce against Google and other American companies, but they think that they are above the law. They believe what Nixon said in the Frost/Nixon interviews, "When the president does it, it's not illegal." The Chinese government thinks that the laws don't apply to them and can do whatever they want, while at the same time they enforce these laws on others. It is completely hypocritical. China doesn't deserve Google.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
The point is, however, that China and the US/West have different taboos. What political criticism is to China, copyright infringement is to the West. Each one censors what goes against their own taboos.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
These things are different.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
I believe you have the wrong "fallacy of scale". The Chinese censorship is a pre-filtering: it requires pre-processing by Google of almost all their web traffic, for guidelines that are deliberately ill defined. The DMCA takedowns are quite specific. Even if they're incorrect, or issued by non-copyright-owners, they're limited and specific. The resource requirements for Google to do content filtering are profound, and it's certain that Google has not ignored the sheer _cost_ of doing such content filtering.
According to Google, China is only a 300M Dollar Market. Not much money when you factor in normal expenses for their China Operations. Raises the question is it Profitable to remain in China? From what they've said, not really so why continue expending money on a market where the Government does not want you? Pack up and Leave I say and tell the bastards to eff off and die.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
They try to poison our pets and then ourselves with tainted foodstuffs, they sell us building materials made with toxic substances that fall apart and make people sick, they make toys for our children with cadmium and lead other toxic heavy metals in them. Lately I hear about a Chinese auto manufacturer that wants to sell here in the U.S.; I can only assume the damned things will explode, or be radioactive, or have some aspect to them that will eventually kill or sicken the driver and other occupants. They continually hack our government and corporate servers, and all the while they talk shit about us and try to push their agenda. Granted in some ways the U.S. isn't much better but what the fuck? Google should close down their offices in Beijing and leave China, and China should be cut off from the rest of the Internet, permanently. I can't see why they would complain anyway, their government is so fucking isolationist, they should appreciate being left alone. Pull out of China, stop doing business with them, and cut them off. We don't fucking need them and their poisons, or their poisonous attitudes.
Anyone who responds to a criticism of any country with a rant about how bad the United States is has immediately lost the argument because they have failed to address any of the criticisms, but instead introduced a lot of emotionally-charged irrelevancy based on the false assumption that the original critic is somehow an admirer or defender of the United States.
Anyone?
Emotional?
I think you are correct -- however surely there is a way to make the point without wooshing yourself
I was looking for the movie quote about the people's army driving the people's jeep until they run out of the people's gas, but I failed. :(
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Taboo is the wrong word to use here, as it has a specific meaning when talking about societies. I think 'hard-on' is probably more appropriate.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
So there are human rights and "human rights". Why should an American have the right to not be tortured but an Afghan doesn't?
One sentence later:
Assuming you are equating "the United States" with this "American Empire" then you have dismissed your own argument; if not, then you merely have a straw man, which is irrelevant. While the following statement is simply an ad hominem attack on anyone who disagrees with you, I thought I'd include it for the irony. Perhaps you should think this through more.
(And on the original topic, I hardly defend China's position on human rights and freedom and censorship issues. But then I'm an "evil" American of the US variety, and many of us tend to take issue with these sorts of things.)
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Saying they leave market makes them look weak and stock price would drop.
Funny, that's exactly what all the state-run chinese newspapers are saying.
Probably with the same grammar. If I believe that the Chinese Government-Economic-Industrial-Military/Medical-Cultural-Scientific MegaMachine is systematically astro-turfing discussion boards and news story comments does that mean I need to get a tinfoil hat? Maybe I should make that an "Ask Slashdot" question...
Value systems are properties of personal conscience, not of culture. As individuals, we cannot be "forced" to believe something against our will. You can be forced to _act_ like you believe something you don't (as in the book, 1984), but that would just be an act. You wouldn't really believe it.
Since values belong to persons, and persons make up cultures, then values precede culture, and in many ways, even transcend them. For example, If I value free speech and live in the US, I don't think I would value it any less if I lived in China. I may let my culture influence me in deciding which values I hold, but in the end, they're my values, no one else's.
It isn't valid to charge someone with arrogance merely because they state what they believe. If you tell me what you believe, you aren't coercing me in any way. You're just expressing yourself.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Anyone who responds to a criticism of any country with a rant about how bad the United States is has immediately lost the argument
(...)
The American Empire is broadly speaking evil. Everything thinking person agrees with this.
Wow. Just .. wow. You completely undermined your own fantastic point less than 3 sentences after you made it. I could try to respond to this by pointing out all the good the United States does in the world, and how I believe they're second to none in that department, but what would be the point? I'm apparently not one of your "everything thinking people," just some dumb Canadian who'd rather have the USA, flawed & imperfect as it is, at the top of the food chain than any other country out there.
What you say? This aggression will not stand? That's like, your opinion, man.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Morality IS relative and is the sum of all moral judgment.
Comparing DMCA censorship and China's censorship is not ridiculous, but equating them is. Sorry for the semantic nitpicking.
China's censorship of political dissent IS worse to me because I judge it to be. I'm only one American but I imagine that most Americans would agree with me. As would the dissenters. And so the grandparent can say that since the communist party leaders have different views and priorities that censoring dissent is not wrong to them. But I don't give a shit what they think. I view it as morally worse then the DMCA. So it is wrong to me.
That's moral relativism. It doesn't make all moral decisions meaningless.
And when you put those moral judgments through the bullshit filter, the self-checker, quantize it into options, correct for self-interest, factor in the I-need-to-eat constant, run it past the shoulder committee, and actually DO something about your moral judgments, that's called politics. And when it comes down to it, I'm still going to purchase cheaper Chinese goods.
It's not good, certainly, but not in the same league as arbitrary imprisonment, torture or executions
You might say that, but I never heard you.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
really ? it is ? Lets see,
Political censorship/torture:
How many times have you read about the torture in guantanamo before the Red Cross made it an international issue?
Have you ever compared news being reported from afganistan/irak by CNN and BBC or AFP ?
What do you know about the EU investigation about secret US installations in western countries used to kidnap and torture citizen of other countries without any legislative process ? So much to the human rights part of the problem.
Now, if the US government wants to spy on Gmail accounts they dont have to hack it, they have their own interface to access them without any warrant. Doesnt seem Google has problems with it, quite the opposite. But, when China wants the same access they are the bad.
If you want to reason about Google being a moral authority form the standpoint of US political doctrine, do so, i have no problem with it, but then dont accuse others of moral relativism.
Call me crazy, but I don't excuse the things the Chinese government does just because they convinced their population that they should.
The thing is, the Chinese population has been convinced long before current government is established. I'd say the first time censorship was tried and accepted by Chinese people is around the time of Ancient Roman Republic.
If thinking that basic human rights are universal makes me an imperialistic American dog, then I am a proud imperialistic American dog.
I think you are an American *idealist*. If people are worried about food and shelter, they are not going to worry too much about free speech. This must be hard to imagine when you were born in prosperity.
And the overstatement-of-the-year award goes to...
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
... Chinese politics and all for the past 15 (or 65) years.
US politics towards China for 50 years has been engagement then change. The argument was: We won't get China to change it's policies if we don't do business with them.
So why should anyone find it surprising that after 50 years of business "engagement", the push for change is in the veneer of business? Consider: an *immediate* response from the US Secretary of State. 20+ multinationals attacked, it's not just Google. The last decade has seen political hearings on Chinese laptop manufacturers, internet attacks, Chinese held US debt, Chinese censorship and the role of US companies, etc...
People also aren't acknowledging the power of Google and other multinationals in China. When big companies what change in the US they go out and get it. When they want change in China they'll do the same thing. The form is just different then campaign contributions.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
As a foreigner I have been owning a software company for the past 5 years in China.
It might be a surprised to most of you, but I've experienced nothing but a pleasant business environment.
Obviously I recognize that many companies get throughly shafted by the gov, or worse...
But why is this?
Here is an equation:
You like China and thinks it is a swell place, you're glad to add some value! = your business stays.
You think that China is not political correct in regards to your favorite government at home....and you try to change it = your business fails.
Now substitute "China" with any country you want... it might help you to understand the equation......
Less torture and censorship is better than more torture and censorship. I say this unequivocally, and without any cultural bias. More freedom is also always better than less freedom (as long as an individuals freedom does not impinge on anothers'), no matter what culture you're in, or what government forces itself upon you.
I say this because people should be able to choose what restrictions apply to them, and once you remove that aspect of choice moral arguments become completely irrelevant.
Choice requires information, and choice requires the ability to at least voice dissent. Remove those two abilities and you remove choice, and this remove all moral considerations.
Its like saying that it is okay for some countries to ban women from education and voting. Sure, some of the women may be okay with this, but how can they know any different without education, and how can we know they are okay with this without voting?
Unless someone goes so far as to argue that oppression is fair to the oppressed, if the oppressors say so (after all, they chose to be oppressed!). I doubt anyone could successfully make this argument though.
Moral and cultural relativism is a load of horsecrap. In a relativistic world, how can one make the definitive statement that everything is relative, when their own damn statement would be relative as well. Your culture only tells you that moral/cultural relativism is correct, therefore your belief in moral/cultural relativism is also purely a matter of opinion. Blah. Post modernism is self-defeating.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
"when asked if those laws apply to the government as well it was quickly avoided."
Of course the government will obey the law, because they write the law. They can just write the law to make it legal for them to do anything.
On the other hand, don't other countries do the same? I am sure there are other government agencies busily hacking for military or business intelligences as I type.
... Humans Rights are a Universal Truth, they come from our human nature, our instincts and the way our brains are wired, and China is a country that is committing gross violations towards it's own Citizens
Go back to those philosophy classes/books, you forgot the bit about evidence and questioning your assumptions. Human rights are not a universal truth, "2+2=4" is a universal truth, beyond that we really don't have any. If human rights were a universal truth, their formulation would be invariant through time, and I could pull out a datum of evidence and wave it in the face of those who disagree.
No, human rights are a social/political formulation at worst, and a bit of prescriptive system building at best.
Our brains are wired to be largely amoral opportunists, we generally only give any empathetic consideration to those in our immediate family or social circle. We evolved this way, we don't give a shit about the species or the larger society, we only really care (innately) for those things that help our reproduction and the health of our offspring. I don't see the chance for a "censorship is bad" characteristic to evolve into our species.
I have never seen a wholly convincing descriptive (innate and universally existant) moral/ethical system, but I have seen a ton of prescriptive systems (thou ought). Prescriptive statements from "hard" philosophy (being that it isn't in the realm of any other science, barring the ineptly named "political science") generally have the same intellectual rigor as those found in classic books such as the Bible (no, coming from me that isn't a compliment).
I agree with you, though, that china over steps their bounds. But until I see a measurement of a universal human right, I will generally pass over all talk of "rights". I read somewhere that rights are those thing which you can convince others you have, and this seems about as apt a description I can find.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Just a guess, but it's possible that Google has discovered somehow that the Chinese Govt isn't going to allow them to get very big in the Chinese market because it would threaten Baidu's growth. If this is so Google isn't losing very much anyway...
Sure you can logically draw comparisons between the DMCA and chinese censorship laws, it's not particularly hard or imaginative. The problem is when you compare the two on equal grounds.
There is a key difference between the DMCA and the Chinese censorship laws (not that I support the DMCA). The DMCA says, "You may not post/link to that because you do not have the permission of the Copyright holder." The Chinese censorship laws say, "You cannot post/link to that because it is critical of/puts in a bad light the Chinese government."
For those people who like to link Gitmo to Chinese human rights abuses, again there are some key differences. The U.S. government put people into Gitmo because they believed that those people were plotting to take violent action against the U.S. (whether they had sufficient basis for this belief or not, is another question). The Chinese put people in prisons that are significantly harsher than Gitmo because they believe those people said things like, "This factory (owned by a government official) is poisoning the water that people in China use as drinking water."
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
funny how the detainees dont want to leave from Gitmo to one of our "regular" prisons.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Guantanamo-Prisoners-We-want-to-stay-in-Guantanamo-80911687.html
They are tortured so bad in Gitmo yet they'd rather not be in the conditions our current citizen criminals are in.
So no. They've got it better over there and they know it.
From what I understand only 3 prisoners were "tortured" with waterboarding. Let me ask you something. If two men kidnapped your daughter and you captured one that knew where she was. What would you do to him to get that information from him knowing your daughter would soon be raped, killed, or sent to the black market overseas? No need to answer to me. I just want you to answer truthfully to yourself. I understand the bad PR but supposedly 1000's were saved due to waterboarding information from K.S.M. I'm completely okay with saving thousands of innocent people by waterboarding a murderer.
-- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
I can see your frustration brother. but there is really no point in telling ideologues that they don't actually hold the unquestionable truth about what is Good and what is Evil.
There, fixed that for you.
-- thinkyhead software and media
The fact is that China is not willing to even pretend to play by the rules of common netiquette. >
This and a comment by an Anonymous Coward further up thread pretty well sum up why Google is doing this. The AC said that Google needs to take drastic measures to assure thier users that Google takes keeping thier users' data safe seriously. Additionally, Google is saying to China, "If you are not willing to at least pretend to play by the rules of common netiquette, we won't/can't do business with you."
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Anyone who responds to a criticism of any country with a rant about how bad the United States is has immediately lost the argument because they have failed to address any of the criticisms
Then...
The American Empire is broadly speaking evil. Everything thinking person agrees with this.
How do you keep those two sentences in your head without your skull exploding? Christ. Hypocrite of the Year candidate here!
Comment of the year
So, would you be okay with locking up a few annoying dissidents to maintain stability and prevent possible civil war and revolution in a country of 1.3 (innocent) people?
The Chinese government is (legitimately) worried that their county might fall into chaos if they don't maintain a fast grip, which is something that, uh...has happened before, many times, including within living memory. Many of the top ten most devastating (in terms of lethality) wars in history were Chinese civil wars; WW1 was NOT the second most fatal war in history.
I'm not saying it's right to hold dissidents, and I'm against torturing anybody, even suspected terrorists. But, the same kind of people who here argue that waterboarding a terrorist to save citizens is okay would, in China, argue that the rights of a few loudmouthed activists are outweighed by the stability of the nation.
No. unless thos "dissidents" were charged with a crime such as "murder". Its not a crime to voice opinion in the US. Unless you're using hate speech far as i know. MLK was a "dissident" And is regarded as one of our greatest hero's ever.
In china could a man like this get on TV for speeches every week and hold marches? I dont know im asking.
I'm of the opinion that there are worse things than civil war. The one the US fought was worth it. I'm sure many black people agree with me.
-- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
So let's call it "Godwin's Second Law" that anyone pulling this particular lame stunt automatically loses,
Aside from the other problems with your post that others have pointed out, why do we really need to codify all sorts of silly named rules for engaging in rational discussion of a topic? What's wrong with just using good old logic to point out flaws in a argument?
What are you, some kind of logic rule nazi?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Sounds like slippery slope to me.
I don't recall any other basic human right concerned with "what" the subject is about.
Let's try substituting censorship with other words...
It is not "that they are killing people", it is "who they are killing" that gets human rights violations involved
It is not "that they are discriminating", it is "who they are discriminating against" that gets human rights violations involved
It is not "that they are rigging elections", it is "what their political platform is" that gets human rights violations involved
When you add subjective judgments like that into human rights, it then becomes an issue of whether the ends justify the means.
I don't believe that human rights is 100% black and white, but the shades of grey must be clearly identified and a strict line must be drawn and ferociously guarded.
Don't quote me on this.
"2+2=4" is a universal truth
Erm not always, 2+2=5 for significantly large values of 2.
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
The civil war the USA fought was child's play.
The most populous country in the world has reduced its population to a fraction of its old size numerous times in the past. And during those times, I honestly think it's possible that being a slave would be better off than somebody caught in the turmoil of war.
Do you know why Mao, despite all his flaws, was viewed as a hero by a sizable number of Chinese? He stopped almost 50 years of civil war in China -- i.e. the first half of the 20th century. Those types of strong leaders, ruthless they may be, are viewed as the greatest "heros" in Chinese culture. It's almost like, you can be a monster, but as long as you unify the country and stop those wars (and save our lives), you're the greatest person in the world.
You may disagree with this line of thinking, but you can't change the fact that there's a sizable portion of 1.3billion people who thinks this way.
Don't quote me on this.
I have always been disturbed about the differentiation between "internal citizens" and "foreigners".
I'm aware that in America it's fine for the government to violate the right to life of "foreigners" for some stupid reason (WMD anyone?), as long as the government doesn't harm their "citizens".
But "foreigners" are people too? It's not like enemy combatants are monsters. From what I've read a lot of them had no clue and was just forced by their circumstances to fight as pawns.
I honestly don't know what's more disturbing -- a government who freely violates the rights of its own citizens, and a government who freely violates the rights of non-citizens. What I know is disturbing is people who think one is definitely "better" than the other.
You're all "holier than you" on this issue, but I must ask: what happened to "all men (and women) are born equal"? Are some (eg. citizens) more equal than the others (the enemy)? Are political dissidents who defy the Chinese government more equal than Islamic terrorists who defy the USA government?
Don't quote me on this.
I get furious with the DMCA, especially when it is abused for censorship purposes. I also have some very serious issues with the US government and what it is/has been doing. I have two short points to make though:
1) Actions taken by the US government do not excuse actions taken by the Chinese government.
I agree with you there. But that's not the point.
The point is that Google is refusing to censor its search results in China, while turning a blind eye to its censorship elsewhere, such as in the US and Germany. So I repeat: There's no fallacy of scale here, unless you wish to argue that the US is more deserving of censorship since they commit fewer human rights violations?
2) You either have an incredibly warped sense of scale, or you are not very familar with the Chinese censorship program.
I'm a Chinese citizen. I have plenty of experience with the Great Firewall. There's currently a MUD that's blocked from it because I convinced one of its coders to install a proxy on it for me. The Great Firewall has caused tons of problems for me - not having Wikipedia access was probably the worst (and why I set up that proxy in the first place).
I won't argue with you here - China is indeed worse in some aspects. But what's your point? That it's okay for the US to commit human rights violations because they aren't as bad as China?
Sadly, these recent Google actions will do nothing useful. The Chinese government has wanted Google to leave for ages; the more people who use domestic search engines like Baidu, the easier those searches are to censor, and without the censorship warning Google insisted on. The Americans who support the decision - virtually all of whom are completely unaffected by the change - are patting their backs right now. Meanwhile, we - the Chinese citizens - will soon lose access to Google (at least Gmail offers forwarding - I'll have to forward my e-mails to a different off-shore mailserver that hasn't been blocked yet).
This is why I don't understand why some people can't accept the lesser of two evils. Would you prefer the greater of two evils? Well, here we are, at the greater of two evils. Were you expecting anything else? A mythical third option - a revolt, perhaps? The majority of China don't use Google and won't care - and plenty are nationalistic enough to applaud the withdrawal of Google as the triumph of Baidu.
Want a high quality FOSS RTS game? Try Warzone 2100!
Let me clarify this: "that they are censoring" is still a very bad thing in my point of view, and probably a human rights issue. "what they are censoring" definetly makes it a human rights issue.
The comment I was responding to was critical of the "censoring == human rights issue", so I was reminding them that "what is being censored" is important to consider also.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
People in the US argue and complain because quite frankly the government and corporations in the US are judged to impossibly high standards. Westerners tend to be idealists and when something doesn't approach their ideals, they complain, loudly over the internet.
I wouldn't say for example the Bush administration was judged to impossibly high standards. Honestly I was surprised at the impossibly *low* standards he and his administration was judged against.
However, Humans Rights are a Universal Truth, they come from our human nature, our instincts and the way our brains are wired, and China is a country that is committing gross violations towards it's own Citizens
Not all human rights are necessarily equal. It's not like you can't imagine a situation where the harsh reality is that you can't have one without violating the other. Realistically, could the Chinese government transform itself to a democracy tomorrow, and expect the transition to go smoothly without any blood spilt? No power hungry opportunists trying to use their newfound "freedom" to seize power and reverting the country into a military state? No mass protests ending up in riots?
I mean, I'm not claiming that those things *are* going to happen once the Chinese government loosens its grip. But it's still a possible scenario (it's happened to other countries), and hence your claim that "Humans Rights are a Universal Truth" is not really that black and white.
Don't quote me on this.
Comparing jailing political dissidents to Guantanamo Bay is comparing apples and oranges. China jails internal dissidents, Gitmo is for enemy combatants who are necessarily foreign to the U.S. There are no American citizens in Gitmo, their lawyers would have a field day.
As another poster asks, are non-American citizens nonhuman, then? Do human rights no longer apply to them? Then surely you have no objection to China jailing internal dissidents - they aren't American, either!
And equating DMCA with political censorship is plain silly. Sure, some lawyers may try to pervert DMCA, but that isn't the law's intent.
And what makes you think China's applying laws intended for political censorship? Those laws are intended to promote a more harmonious society! I'll have you know that China's constitution guarantees freedom of speech.
The biggest problem with America's legal system is that laws are passed under the assumption that it'll never be enforced in some theoretical unjust way, because it would violate the spirit of the law. And then when they're enforced in that unjust way, they bring up that the letter of the law allows it, so they're doing nothing wrong. One or both of those really needs to change.
Anyway, what does it matter what the law's intent is? I'm sure all those websites being censored by the US feel much better because the laws weren't intended to do that.
Want a high quality FOSS RTS game? Try Warzone 2100!
The manner in which the law is enforced tends to be arbitrary.
They don't just put you in a court and charge you with protesting. You simply disappear.
There really isn't due process of law - regardless of what the laws are.
As a server admin I routinely see hacking attempts on our servers emanating from within China. Any attempt to follow this up with the owner of the netblock where the attacks originate from is usually just met with a bounceback from the abuse address or silence.
This has been the case for years as China have no interest in a clampdown on their own citizens hacking. I have long suspected that this was because they were actively recruiting hackers who broke the law if the hackers in question were pro-government and did not want to cut off their own recruiting stream.
Having seen what IT in China is like, I'll state an alternative reason.
The quality of "IT" people there generally sucks. It's like, if it works, then I don't care whether bad things are done with my connection/computer/whatever. Network administrators have other things to worry about (eg. complying with censorship laws). With sites like Facebook and Youtube periodically on and off the censorship list, they just expect things to break. Malware on the computer making things slow? Just another bad day, maybe it will be better tomorrow.
There simply is nothing of quality in IT circles over there. Complying with standards and protocols? Only if it's mandated by the state. Why would they care about this English speaking guy who talks about being hacked? It's not like they understand your English too well anyway, and it's none of their business.
Honestly, even being culturally Chinese, I still couldn't stand their tastes on choice of software and their tolerances of utterly crappy IT systems. (Well, their tastes in general, are really crap) It's no surprise that they're indifferent to requests from some random outsider like you.
Don't quote me on this.
The American Empire is broadly speaking evil. Everything thinking person agrees with this.
I believe its the exact opposite, the American Empire broadly a good influence, which have a bad habit of kneejerk reactions which go over the top,
Generally, i find most people who say otherwise, generally havent researched and thaught the issue through properly. Yes, the US has done unpleasant things, Name any government in the world that hasnt done in the last 10 years, generally in a similar Kneejerk fashion.
US bashing is a popular passtime in Europe at the moment, and i expect in the rest of the world as well, and to be honest, its childish and stupid.
Dammit, i fed the troll.
Operating in china does not bring google profit.
It does, but not that much.
Saying they leave market makes them look weak and stock price would drop.
Indeed it did, only 1% though.
"It is not "that they are killing people", it is "who they are killing" that gets human rights violations involved"
The existence of bad does not preclude the existence of worse.
For example, for someone from the absolute majority of countries that do not practice capital punishment, killing convicted criminals they way USA does may well seem like a clear case of human rights violation.
However, a country killing political dissidents would seem even worse.
Thus you should probably read the argument as "not only are they X, they are also Y".
Maybe no need to answer but I'll answer anyway:
That why we have judges and juries that don't have any connection to the victim and vigilantes are prosecuted. Private justice is just as detrimental to society as no justice at all.
And if you are OK with torture if 1000 people are saved, then where is the threshold? How many people do need to be saved by your torture? 1000 are enough but 100 aren't? What if you don't know? Just torture to be sure? How certain would you have to be of your victims guilt? Would you risk torturing someone innocent?
I am convinced the Google guys are James Bond villains in the making.
It's not like enemy combatants are monsters.
Enemy combatants who don't wear a uniform or other identifying marks are terrorists.
As such, pretending that they deserve the due process of the law is laughable.
So if the US were invaded by some foreign power every gun owner would put on a uniform before starting to defend his country or gladly face torture? I kinda doubt that.
IMHO this whole "rules of war" nonsense is antiquated anyway. Those rules were written when war was a normal occurrence. Nowadays aggressive wars are universally frowned upon so the only legitimate reason for the use of armed forces is self defense. And contrary to the opinion of some politicians a country is defended within its borders, not in some country half a globe away. And when you are defending your own country you can use whatever means necessary to defeat the aggressors. Wearing whatever clothing you want
Well, that depends where you live. A right to heath care sounds like a good thing to me, and it's just as inherit as any other right.
I agree with grandparent. Politics. Although it was probably brought about by constant nagging and put downs by us.
The lesser of two evils? If you want to maintain your dignity as a human being, you must always strive for freedom.
If you choose to see your country as a place where freedom of expression is unfathomable, then I pity you.
There is one critical difference between the censorship in China and the one in US or Germany and it's more than a matter of scale. In the western world, unjust laws can get changed. If a US blogger receives an unjust DMCA takedown notice, he can fight it and if he is in the right he will also end up as the winner. In China, you don't get the option of telling your side of the story, except maybe to the other guys in the cell.
What you call dissidents, we call concerned citizens and we respect them.
And by the way, I don't know whether you realize it or not, but you're a dissident as well. You are breaking the Chinese law as we speak simply by bypassing the censorship, so you are more than a bit hypocritical.
right...
Google isn't the first, nor the last, company to decide it isn't worth it to do business in China.
Everything that comes into the country belongs to the "people". And, of course, the "people" means the government. You wanna do business? Fine - sign your ass away to us, then fall into line, chump.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Anyone who responds to a criticism of any country with a rant about how bad the United States is has immediately lost the argument
Not quite. In China they would be unable to criticize or rant about how bad their country is. The mere act of self criticism proves the point.
heroic post
Enemy combatants who don't wear a uniform or other identifying marks are terrorists.
As such, pretending that they deserve the due process of the law is laughable.
For starters, it's wrong. Enemy combatants who don't wear a uniform are not protected by Geneva conventions, yes, but that doesn't make them terrorists. Terrorism is when you deliberately attack civilian population, to induce terror and garner publicity for your cause. Whether one is a "legal" or "illegal" combatant, uniformed or not, is entirely irrelevant. For example, there were numerous acts of terror perpetrated by uniformed soldiers of the legitimate army of Iraq under Saddam. There were quite a few cases perpetrated by uniformed soldiers of the U.S. Army in Vietnam. And so on.
Furthermore, without due process of law, you do not know if those people are really enemy combatants not wearing a uniform, or it's a lie (or deliberate omission of facts) by people who captured them. What you're saying is not at all different from saying, "people who kill someone are murderers, and pretending that they deserve the due process of law is laughable".
Assuming you're an American, please go find a copy of the constitution of your country, and re-read it, paying attention. It really is a wonderful document; I only wish more Americans would actually know what it says (all of it, not just areas they believe to be more important, and not skipping the areas they find inconvenient).
As a side note, what's wrong with giving any criminal, no matter how detestable, due process of law? If they're guilty, they will be sentenced as such, and last I checked, U.S. still has death penalty on Federal level (and I'd presume such people would come under Federal jurisdiction). So what's your problem? You're afraid that there is insufficient evidence, and they might be found innocent? Well then, perhaps, they shouldn't have been detained in the first place?
However, Humans Rights are a Universal Truth, they come from our human nature, our instincts and the way our brains are wired
Says who?
It's not a good argument against moral relativism, really, it isn't. You're just stating your dogma.
There's nothing wrong with following a dogma, by the way. "I understand that others may be disagree, but I'm just right and they're just wrong" is a perfectly valid position, so long as you're honest with yourself about it.
In any case, "everyone has some truth on their side, so if I think they're wrong, I'll just go cry in the corner about how insensitive I am" is a much worse maxim to live by, and that, in essence, what unrestricted moral relativism is. I much prefer the "right/wrong" scale. So long as it broadly agrees with mine, of course...
The part that people have trouble with is that it doesn't allow you to make judgement calls about which moral code is superior, external to your own moral code. That is, you allowed to think that your moral code is superior, but in the back of your mind must be the recognition that this is your moral code promoting itself, and nothing more.
I do think that my moral code is superior, and I do recognize that it's my moral code promoting itself, but I don't have any trouble with that.
I just grok recursion, and lazily evaluate my arguments.
There is no effort being made to censor the information based on the DMCA. The act it designed to prevent people from using copyrighted works without paying for them, and that is exactly how it is used. The works are still publicly available, you just have to pay for them.
This isn't quite true, since a copyright holder has no obligation to sell. So if some information is copyrighted, the holder can restrict all distribution of said information, which is effectively censorship.
This has nothing to do with DMCA, either, it's just copyright law; DMCA is just an enforcement aid. Furthermore, what with the takedown/put-back process written in it, I don't see how it adds any more potential for censorship than what's there already.
The only part of DMCA that explicitly censors something is the anti-circumvention clause. And that is cut-and-dried censorship, no ifs or buts about it.
In any case, comparing this kind of thing to broad censorship of political speech that goes on in China is rather inane. A valid point could have been made for "Holocaust denial" laws there, but copyright/DMCA? Pah.
Assuming you are equating "the United States" with this "American Empire" then you have dismissed your own argument;
You and the guy immediately below you really need to read what I wrote again, put it in context, think real hard and see if my comment agreeing with the OP's evaluation of the US as a sometime-evil country so we could get back to talking about China really falls within the scope of "responding to the criticism of any country by irrelevantly pointing out how bad the US is".
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
You completely undermined your own fantastic point less than 3 sentences after you made it
Really? How exactly? I responded to an utterly irrelevant comment about the evil the US has done by agreeing with it, so we could get back to discussing the far greater and more relevant evil that China is doing.
Since that in no way resembles the situation I was describing, where someone responds to legitimate criticism of a country that is NOT the United States by irrelevantly introducing an attack on the United States, I'm not totally clear on how it undermines my point.
Perhaps, as one dumb Canadian to another, you could enlighten me?
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
How do you keep those two sentences in your head without your skull exploding?
Just possibly because I was not "responding to a criticism of any country with a rant about how bad the United States is", I was instead agreeing with the idiot I was responding to that the US is not a model citizen to take the wind out of his ignorant sails and we could get back to talking about China.
You will, of course, see when you read very carefully and think very hard about what I actually said, instead of vaguely noticing that I a) criticized people who for a very specific reason and in a very specific context introduce an attack on the US as an way of distracting from a major evil being done by another country and b) criticize the US myself under quite different circumstances, for the purposes of getting the argument back on track.
Apparently instead I've attracted the notice of a bunch of people with really poor reading comprehension and logic skills.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Effective communication is the responsibility of the communicator, not the communicatee.
Comment of the year
Capital punishment.
Gay marriage.
Election zoning.
Well, then, seems that censorship fits right in with those examples. It's definitely the degree to which you do it in all of them that makes it a human rights issue.
The point is that censorship prevents the Chinese from making informed decisions about their lives. How can you be a responsible citizen if basic information is withheld from you? You claim rigging elections is a violation of human rights and yet censorship prevents even the idea of a fair election.
Not that I'm saying we should do anything about it. It's up to the Chinese to save themselves from their government. Google and the US aren't going to change much without the Chinese people getting some idea about the harm their government is doing to them.
Why not? Congress did it...
(There is supposed to be a Sarcmark® here, but my $1.99 check hasn't cleared, yet...)
"...Life...Liberty...Pursuit of Happiness..." Nope, can't find it.
(There is supposed to be a Sarcmark® here, but my $1.99 check hasn't cleared, yet...)
Some forms of censorship have widespread public support (e.g. child porn).
Of course. Child porn is a human rights violation.
Are you thinking of Josef Fritzl from Austria? Yes, Austria is in Europe, as is the Nordic countries. But no, Austria is not a Nordic country, more central European.
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
Except for Finland. We are huggy feely right kind of communists. If Finland were to be in charge of the civilized world, all of you would be embraced to death by our motherly care of citizens and associated costs in taxes.
(OT: What the fuck is that checkbox between title and body edit fields? It doesn't have any explanation.)
Bot Assisted Blogging
Human rights are not a universal truth, "2+2=4" is a universal truth, beyond that we really don't have any.
"2+2=4" is only true for nominal values of '2' and '4.' For large values of '2', for example, or small values of '4' it most certainly would not be true.
'Universal truth'? Wha' izzat? When you find one, I'd like to see it.
"the holder can restrict all distribution of said information, which is effectively censorship."
Yes, but if I have an opinion I can also withhold it, and that is effectively censorship too. The complaint people have against censorship is when someone wants to speak and another person wants to listen but then a third person gets in the way and stops that from happening. That's not what is happening here.
"The only part of DMCA that explicitly censors something is the anti-circumvention clause."
How so?
Yes, but if I have an opinion I can also withhold it, and that is effectively censorship too.
You can withhold it, thus "censoring" yourself. But once you share it with anyone, they can propagate it further, and you cannot restrict that. Copyright allows you to do the latter - restricting information one third-party transmits to another third-party. That is undeniably censorship. Not all censorship is bad (think slander/libel etc), but that's a different matter.
How so?
"No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that ... is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."
Note that "technology" can well be an abstract description of a circumvention algorithm, not necessarily any kind of physical device, or software program. It also most definitely restricts redistribution of software - including source code format.
I do not see how this could possibly not be considered censorship.
What about the first one? Besides, I wasn't talking about the rights that a specific country has decided to give their citizens. I'm talking about the concept of rights in general, and that there is no reason you can't make access to health care a right.
No. 2+2=4 is merely a set of rules that every human educated in mathematics agrees upon because it is very useful indeed. Over time, 2+2 tool on a variety of meanings ( think 2+2 (mod 3) ). However, the gist of it still remains. The same goes for human rights. It is a social construct that allows a great number of people to live comfortably.
No you don't. You want to, but you don't.