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Sergey Brin On Google and China
yuhong writes "The NY Times has an interview with Sergey Brin on Google and China. A few quotes from it: 'Mr. Brin lived in the Soviet Union until he was nearly 6 years old, and he said the experience of living under a totalitarian system that censored political speech influenced his thinking — and Google's policy. "It has definitely shaped my views, and some of my company's views," he said.' Yes, business is personal, especially these days."
Ha!
It's nice to see a company take an ethical stand and stick to it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I get the feeling this whole showdown is a Larry and Sergey thing. And that Eric Schmidt is against it, and probably the rest of the board is as well. They would rather be pusillanimous like John Chambers and just make as much money off China as possible, even if it means aid and abet totalitarianism and not standing for anything except quarterly share price (again: see John Chambers).
I applaud refusing to censor information on the internet, this is a line in the sand they have drawn, to perhaps 'do no evil' and in Slashdot spirit we should all be behind it....
Why did Google initially agree to censor search results in the first place if this was their philosophy? I am certain they have made money in China, they would not have gone there for altruistic purposes of giving China good search results and web based email if there was not profit in it. Sure they have the philosophy "Don't Be Evil" but they got in bed with China to do business there. Only after the Aurora Exploit did they finally say enough is enough. Taking an anti-censorship stance only AFTER the Aurora attacks makes it seem retaliatory to me. They got a bruised eye from the neighborhood bully and then after playing along fine for quite some time decided they wanted to pick up their ball and go home. I would have been more impressed if Google uncensored their search results from the beginning instead of reacting to overt actions from China to their bottom line.
There are two kinds of fool. One says, This is old, and therefore good. And one says, This is new, and therefore better.
he lived in Soviet Union until he was nearly 6 years old only after some guy from China cracked some Gmail accounts?
Chinese government surely was fine before that accident because Google censored results without thinking twice about it!
You obviously haven't lived in a totalitarian country. My girlfriend is from a Soviet-Era-communist country. She was very young when the communist regime was repelled but she has distinctive memories of the era, how you could only get state television channel, how going abroad was almost impossible, how it was impossible to get foreign made goods, how the country was everything and criticizing the country was frowned upon. In addition, please remember that Antisemitism in Soviet Union was a de-jure policy after WW2. Also remember, that Sergey Brin's parents were academics, which made them an active target of the government. If you live not under a fear of the government but also under the fear of a government openly hostile to your community and your parents are marked people, it makes a pretty damn good impact on your childhood. In addition, do you think as a child his parents would've never talked about their life in Soviet Union ? These are the experiences that shape your thinking. Just because he was young doesn't mean he doesn't know how it was.
You could see the same thing about the protestors that interrupted the torch carrying ceremonies prior to the Beijing olympics. Most chinese didn't view those as a criticism of the their government, but as an attach on chinese people. To say that Americans are used to people criticizing the U.S. government is an understatement, but this is not so in China. I'm tempted to chalk a lot of it up to the immersive indoctrination and political thought control that goes on in China, e.g. every Chinese college student has to take Mao Ze Dong thought, Deng Xiaoping thought, as well as military tactics and strategy. However, there's also a deep seated insecurity in the Chinese people -- for some reason they can easily interpret criticism of their government as a criticism of them. I can't tell if that itself is due to propaganda campaigns waged by the government or what though. Sometimes the U.S. government does this too, e.g. when G.W. Bush & Co painted anyone who criticized the attacks on Iraq as an unpatriotic traitor, including places like France, but also U.S. citizens.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
And what's that special "experience" of a totalitarian regime a child can get from the moment he's born up to 6 years old? Please.
A corporation's goal is to increase its profits & market shares. Trying to make it pass as some kind of moral authority is at best a marketing trick for image polishing, and at worst utter hypocrisy.
This is just stupid. Do you think that the moment he moves away he becomes disengaged? No. His parents and family and the media all continue to have a profound impact through out the life of an individual. Do you think that children who flee war zones with their family are fine because they left as kids? Don't think so.
What I mean stems from this: "On April 15, the US Treasury will be required by law to issue a report naming countries deemed to be “currency manipulators.”".
If the report names China as a currency manipulator that creates vast trade deficits to benefit their economy (which, for all intents and purposes, they are), you can bet the Chinese government will lash out and claim we are protecting and siding with our corporations.
For a children it is about living in fear, not about politics. You do not understand this because you have always lived in a protected society, and your parents were never in fear for their lives, so they raised you accordingly. It is hard to relate unless you have lived through something similar.
I grew up under a military dictatorship when a kid, and I still remember my parents explaining what a curfew was to me when I was 3 or 4 years old, and me not been able to sleep at night because hearing shooting, bombs going out, and people yelling on the street. To this day, I am afraid of the police and to publicly express my political opinions. I even though 10 times before posting this under my name and not as AC.
Sergei's experience may not have been as bad, but a 5 year old understands fear and censorship, and believe me, once you've been there, you deal with it all your life. Good for him for standing up.
I remember Martin Luther King's assassination, although granted I as *only* seven. I was walking down the street with my mom, and I read a hand lettered sign tacked to a telephone pole calling for revenge against white people. My mom explained that when something bad happens, somebody is bound to get mad and make things worse for everyone.
It made a big impression on me, and I certainly recalled that moment three decades later when I turned on my radio on the morning of September 11, 2001.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Your post isn't interesting or insightful. It's simply crap.
Russia is a hellhole. There is no law at all beyond what you can get away with through bribes and connections. There is state-sponsored xenophobia, racism, and antisemitism... and last I remember the living conditions were about equivalent to the US in the 1940s... at the latest.
That's the way it's been for centuries, and it's unlikely to change now.
Kids absorb the cultural norms very quickly and will understand who is safe or not.
Even if you say "dont talk about this or that" you are still talking politics with your kids. They learn that the "Man" is not your friend or to be trusted.
They are certainly going to get the point if government goons are tossing the house on a regular basis.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Under the Soviet bloc, you didn't become an academic unless you supported and abetted the government. It's likely that Brin's parents were part of that totalitarianism, that they enjoyed favoured status by reporting dissidents etc.
This is pure bullshit, sorry, as evidenced by the fact that many dissidents were academics themselves.
You didn't need to toe the party line any more active than your average citizen to get into academia.
China is not unique there. Just try to criticize Israel w/o being accused of being of antisemitism.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
I've been thinking this for awhile. I'm sure executives at Google didn't love having to do censorship in China (it's gotta create a bunch of busywork for the developers, if nothing else), but they went along with it for awhile. However, if I was running a company in China, and it became painfully obvious that the government was trying to hack my systems to get the identities of protesters and try to steal my IP, and at the same time blatantly helping out my local competition ... that sounds like a loosing game.
I'm guessing that somebody originally didn't want to go in to China, and only after the attacks could he get enough support to get others to agree to pull out.
Liberal as I am I still criticize Obama on many things, but just because there are plenty of valid criticisms to be made doesn't mean we have to ignore the fact that there are a lot of racists out there trying to veil their racism with phony political outrage. I get enough email forwards from conservatives to know that's a fact.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
It's not just about politics and current events, it's about culture as well. I get that. Look at it this way: when you were 6, had your parents taught you not to accept rides or candy from strangers? Well, imagine that kind of thing, plus being taught one or more of the following:
Any child who has to be taught any of the above things is living in an oppressed society (not necessarily by their own government, in the minefield case), and will remember and recognise what these things mean as they get older.