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China Warns Google To Obey Or Leave
suraj.sun writes with this snippet from an Associated Press report:
"China's top Internet regulator insisted Friday that Google must obey its laws or 'pay the consequences,' giving no sign of a possible compromise in their dispute over censorship and hacking. 'If you want to do something that disobeys Chinese law and regulations, you are unfriendly, you are irresponsible and you will have to pay the consequences,' Li Yizhong, the minister of Industry and Information Technology, said on the sidelines of China's annual legislature. ... 'Whether they leave or not is up to them,' Li said. 'But if they leave, China's Internet market is still going to develop.' ... Li insisted the government needs to censor Internet content to protect the rights of the country and its people. 'If there is information that harms stability or the people, of course we will have to block it,' he said."
Mr. Google:
Before leaving, please deploy a transparent, ubiquitous distributed darknet app. I just know you're sitting on one.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
The question is will Google jump off the tracks before the China train hits them.
I really don't know who would be more hurt by this. On one hand, Google provides huge resources to China, but on the other hand...google surely gets a lot of revenue from such a huge market.
Well Google should tell China they can deep throat it and choke. I'm all for companies having to comply with national and international laws, but censoring search results is NOT something they should comply with. I realize this gets into the grey area of "who are you to decide what's right and what's wrong", but still...government-sponsored censorship of search results? Nothing you could do or say could convince me that is a good idea.
Information yearns to be free.
Living With a Nerd
..and if we want your data, we'll take it and you'll like it. Seems Google found someone more evil than them.
"Protecting the rights of the country and its people", brought to you by the Ministry of Truth.
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This will settle once and for all whether or not Google's motto represents true company ethics, or pandering. Go, Google! Set a true example for the modern corporate world to follow!
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
regardless of google leaves or stays, american companies are going to suck up to china, and american government is going to do that too. maybe only there will be a few weak statements regarding the state of human rights in china. it will be business as usual :
american companies are going to help chinese government in suppressing its own citizens for profit. american companies are going to help chinese government to do anything that conflicts with american constitution, and american ideals you people are so proud of.
and you get worked up everytime someone points that out ....
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Li insisted the government needs to censor Internet content to protect the rights of the country and its people.
Li is a lying little tyrannical thug. What he would say if he were an honest man, is that the Chinese government is scared to death of what might happen to the party minions when ordinary Chinese realize that Mao killed more of them than Tojo.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Anything that would promote a different party is harming stability right? I mean, we can't afford to change our dictator too often if we wish to preserve stability!
Their government does not want the kind of "openness" and free exchange of information that is Google's trade. That is their prerogative. Google should pull out.
They won't, of course. Too much money to be made there.
They will cave in, compromise, and do (more) Evil.
It'll be interesting to see how Google's PR monkeys spin it, from a front-row-seat-at-the-Fall-of-Civilization perspective...
You bitch about China, but you continue to buy their wares. You let the U.S. go farther into debt and let China lend us more cash.
Hypocrites.
'If there is information that harms stability or the people, of course we will have to block it,' he said."
Yes, wouldn't want the people to know about the corruption of your officials. That wouldn't be a good thing.
I used the issue of China in my IT ethics class and said that having Google or Cisco leave China because they refuse to censor brings up a whole host of other issues. If Google leaves, are they taking their code and such with them? What about equipment they used? Are they scrubbing that before leaving? What about any documents pertaining to how their searches are done?
While the Chinese people won't see much of a difference if Google leaves, the Chinese IT folks might have some issues recreating what was once there. Personally, Google should leave and post whatever information they want so people know what they had to deal with in China.
As most asian countries have a cultural bias towards not losing stature, having their dirty laundry aired, the really dirty stuff, would be a mighty slap in the face which China won't be able to deny so easily. They'll deny it, but their words will ring hollow.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
As much as I hate to say it, China really has Google by the balls on this one. I'm sure there are a million companies with the right connections/deep enough pockets in China right now eagerly waiting to assume Google's spot on the hill and they are all willing to do whatever the government there says.
I really don't see how Google can adhere to its corporate mission statement and continue to do business with China, although part of me has a hunch that we'll find out since shareholders will demand Google not leave one of the largest markets in the world.
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Whoa there. Government itself is inherently sterile. Government can empower its citizens, or it can empower its leaders, but not both at the same time.
The problem is that leaders always turn government so it empowers them, not us. Power-hungry leaders who run the government are the problem...the government itself only does what its leaders tell it to do.
Living With a Nerd
Anytime some dumbass talks about censoring for your own good, like Australia or New Zealand, people should use this quote. Like China?
Hillary has asked Al to go to China to recover Google and the internet he created from the hands of the evil dictatorship of the Chinese people.
Any government that is afraid of its people having information
(let's perhaps make an exception for specific information on how to make weapons of mass destruction
out of common household ingredients)
is inherently not a government "of the people for the people".
It is not confident in its own popularity, or in the inherent stability through general agreement
of its governmental system.
Does the Chinese government not realize that their insistence on censorship simply
highlights the inherent weakness in their government and system of government?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Before I get modded troll, consider he does actually have a point. Openness and free exchange of information are serious threats to social stability in China (which is, as others have pointed out, what Google does best). China watched the fall of the Soviet Union as a result of glasnost and perestroika. They are eager to avoid the same mistake, as the costs of social instability (both human and economic) would be far too high, for the country, its people, and not least themselves.
This isn't about Tiananmen or the Great Leap Forward, which are pretty much open secrets. It's about suppressing free flow of information, and maintaining control over all mediums of information exchange. They had control of the traditional media, phones, SMS, etc. The internet is another beast. Finding out and sharing information about corruption and other major shortfalls is far too easy with an open, uncensored internet. They don't want peasants knowing too much about local corruption, and when they do know, they don't want them to be able to organize or share this information. Censorship is a key component; allowing criticism of the government even on such now-unimportant bygones as the Great Leap Forward would potentially open the floodgates on new criticism on issues that could result in instability.
So, Li is right. In order to suppress dissent, they must maintain control and continue censoring. Whether you think the cost imposed by censorship and lack of free speech is greater than the potential losses from any resulting social instability is another matter entirely. Many Chinese think, and I often agree, that while the Chinese government is too sensitive right now, maintaining a stable environment for economic growth is a bigger priority than free speech. The farmers I talked to in Shandong and Jilin also agreed- they know they're getting shafted in comparison to urban dwellers, but they're still doing better than at any time in history, and would rather not lose their chance at a new fridge, air conditioning, and a TV in return for some abstract ideas about freedom to criticize the government. In their minds, censorship and its evils are the lesser evil, when compared to potential civil strife.
Governments are the enemy of its people in all cases and in all nations.
Wow, this is such a bad misconception that if you base your actions on this idea, you will end up doing weird things like flying a plane into a government building. Government isn't our enemy, it is our collective way of cooperating and getting things done. You should read the preamble to the constitution sometime, it tells the purpose of government. Then look at Somalia for a vivid example of why government is better than none. It's good there are no warlords in America.
Instead think of government as a kind of servant. It exists to do our will. It is run by people, so it is not perfect, and you certainly need to watch it, otherwise it will start doing stuff you don't want it to do (government responds to people who pay attention to it: if the only people who pay attention are the ones that want special kickbacks, then it will respond mainly to them).
Seriously, do you think Obama is your enemy? Do you think Harry Reid is your enemy? I don't agree with everything Obama does, but I generally feel he is trying to help the American people. Harry Reid is kind of a dud but calling him an enemy is a bit much. Even if you do a character analysis of Bush (whose policies I generally hated), read his speeches, look at his actions and try to figure out who he really is, it's hard to claim that he wasn't at least trying to help out the American people.
There are some people in government who are enemies of the people, and these people should be identified and removed, but that is different than saying that government is the enemy. "Government is the enemy" is some kind of backward reactionist ideology. Instead view government as a tool: it can benefit or harm us, much like a hammer.
Qxe4
'If there is information that harms stability or the people, of course we will have to block it,'
If information can harm the stability of you're country, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!!
I am not sure that this is really about censorship. This is a staring contest.
Google called China out as a pack of thieves and thugs by revealing their hacking and break-ins.
Google made a statement that this was close to the 'last straw', and that they were thinking of leaving China.
This is an attempt by China to try to out stare Google. The topic on the table isn't really the question of 'Will Google stay in China an stop filtering the internet'? By changing the focus of the debate, China is trying to recast the issue as China's laws vs. a foreign company who doesn't want to follow them.
If Google leave under these terms, it doesn't look as bad for China.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Human rights have nothing to do with it. Google was hacked. If people can't trust the contents of their GMail inbox to remain out of the hands of Chinese intelligence, and Google can't ensure that some Chinese entity isn't stealing proprietary code, Google's profits will suffer. Pulling out of China will make this less of a threat. It's a cost-benefit analysis, and that's how it would be presented to the shareholders.
All this stems from an incident several years back in which Li Yizhong was sent a link in a message online. When he clicked on it, and stared for a moment into the gaping void of a man's disproportionately stretched anus, he was forever changed... Determined to fight a never-ending battle against harmful information so that he would never again face that horror.
Bow-ties are cool.
I'm so surprised! A sovereign nation with an authoritarian government insists that foreign companies abide by its laws! Who woulda thunk...