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Google Gives Up Fight Against Chinese Censorship
judgecorp writes "Google has abandoned its policy of warning Chinese users against keywords that trigger censorship. The search giant had added a warning that advised Chinese users not to use search terms that could cause the Chinese authorities to shut off their access to Google, but has now abandoned these warnings. While Google says they were ineffectual, free speech campaigners have expressed disappointment."
Now, if you want to complain about somebody, complain about the People's Republic of China. It's THEIR laws and policies which make this a threat to free speech, not Google's capitulation to the lawful government of China.
Google was warning people before they searched. Who reads the fine-print before starting these days.
What they could do, is on any search that used a keyword, make the warning the first result.
Example :Search Tuna:
1) Tuna is a trigger search word used by China to start investigations into users.
>
2) Tuna are a great food to eat
Google will be quietly allowed back into China. The timing of this news will coincide with some other big event, such as a new iPad release.
Acceptance of censorship is part of their culture. Maybe they prefer to not know all the reasons why some things are blocked, or maybe they don't care. We're not Chinese, who are we to say anything?
Let's be tolerant of them and go back to yelling at those ignorant Americans for being brainwashed and accepting censorship.
Screw it, go full-on SSL.
Anyone caught SSL tampering will result in their SSL root certs being pulled. China can't afford to pay that cost so they'll have to back down or block Google on their own and so take the blame.
(RFID) At Disney Parks, a Bracelet Meant to Build Loyalty (and Sales)
ORLANDO, Fla. â" Imagine Walt Disney World with no entry turnstiles. Cash? Passé: Visitors would wear rubber bracelets encoded with credit card information, snapping up corn dogs and Mickey Mouse ears with a tap of the wrist. Smartphone alerts would signal when it is time to ride Space Mountain without standing in line.
Fantasyland? Hardly. It happens starting this spring.
MagicBands will function as a room key, ticket and more.
Full Article:
http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://www-nc.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/business/media/at-disney-parks-a-bracelet-meant-to-build-loyalty-and-sales.html?=_r=6&
Would you say it isn't anyone's job bring censorship to light, and that it's up to Americans individually to understand, and to obey or rebel as he/she sees fit? I'm quite certain in that case you'd disagree, and you'd likely counter-argue that the individual's attempt to enlighten him/herself without help is a futile act in the presence of a state which has so much control on media and information. If that could be true of the US, why would that not be even more so of China?
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
While none of this is exactly new to people who've studied moral philosophy, Sam Harris can present this very well in his 23 minute TED talk "Science can answer moral questions". What he is saying is that most (he simplifies to "all" but anyways) schools of thought in ethics can be traced back to human happiness and flourishing (even if you believe in god and think that the happiness occurs in afterlife). Questions of human happiness are factual questions that we have studied for a long time (psychology, sociology, etc.). While we might not be able to agree on what are the peaks of happiness or how to get there, we certainly can say that some states of being are not the right answer... So we should not pretend that all cultures should be respected equally in that regard.
...they do so to support a f*cking mega corporation that would sh*ts on them at a moments notice, for chance of extracting a few extra dollars from the customers. Google withdrew *alone* from China in a response to "evil"...What did they do when "Human Rights Watch praised the decision and urged other firms to follow suit in challenging censorship...on yeah right I remember *nothing*...Lets call them Microsoft who at the time by the "the Congressional-Executive Commission on China ...sharply criticized Microsoft for continuing to be complicit with China's censorship laws"...what about Apple??. Acting Alone Googles strategy was weak/stupid.
Make 'em your BUSINESS MODEL.
Google, selling you out since 2003.
Rainey Reitman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said that technically, it is indeed all legal, but she emphasized that people don't really understand how their random thoughts, disclosures or opinions on social media may be exploited.
"I think people don't realize when they sign up for these sites that the government is going to be routinely monitoring and sifting through this data," she said.
"If Coca-Cola is reading all my tweets," Dan Zarrella points out, "it's not as scary as if the DOD is reading all my tweets, right?"
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20121113/DEFREG02/311130003/Unwitting-Sensors-How-DoD-Exploiting-Social-Media
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
No matter how right your cause is there comes a time when you have to face the fact youre not making a difference and just wasting your time, when that time comes there is nothing wrong with giving up. Sometimes trying to do the right thing is like punching a 9 foot thick galvenized steele wall, sure you may mean well but all your going to do is waste your time.
Besides, its not googles job to warn anyone of anything. They tried, it didnt work so they gave up. The fact they even tried, let alone tried as long as they did is a testament of their nobility in trying to help others for no other reason than try to help them.
Google have totally abandoned the princeples of freedom, liberty, knowledge, and enlightenment. Google caved and catered to the lowest common denominator here in America and they're not interested in resisting China or any of our thuggish 3 letter agencies here, or anyone.
If you wan't check out the differences between safe search on google.se and google.com from a US ip address, just google something and see what I'm talking about. Google does not care about accurate and unbiased and clean and unfiltered search results.
Google does not want to protect knowledge as a whole, they are perfectly happy to cater to whatever they want to dictate or someone else does so they dont get harrased legally or politically, so they can have one step up on everyone who does not cater to the fear and ignorance of censorship.
Google are victims of political correctness and the evil they do is to victimize its users because they won't stand up for what the internet has become and should be for, free exchange of ideas and information.
What did they do when
Who is they? the same people both times?
what about
We already knew they were evil. Google claimed not to be. They lied.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
there are plenty of cultural differences that are ok
but violating people's basic rights can not be justified with references to culture
this applies to problems in the west too, i'm not singling out china
you can't say chinese people are happy being slaves, so let them be, it's just culture. or muslim women are happy being slaves, so let them be, it's just culture. or poor people in western nations leaning towards social darwinism as plutocrats warp the politics are happy being slaves, so let them be, it's just culture
bullshit
NO ONE is happy being a slave. culture is no excuse
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
what does Goodwin the thread mean?
Don't be evil != Be good.
The meager flaccid goal of avoiding evil results in evil. The goal needs to be to do good... even then there is no assurance of success, but at least there is not assurance of failure.
My message for the free speech campaigners here is that if you don't like the laws in china, leave.
As per subject.
AMERICAN constitution says it is, but that isn't China and it isn't The One True Law.
If you think your creator gave you those rights, please ask him to step forward and confirm.
Look, if the Chinese people are not going to fight for human rights and removal of censorship then why should some American company do so?
I think everyone outside of China believe they need to fight for Chinese rights but obviously the Chinese living in China are largely accepting of the state of their rights, those that don't go to another country.
I can't believe that in a country with over 1 billion people the government would be able to suppress a revolution if the population demanded better human rights. Ergo obviously the population in China are largely content with the rights they have.
People outside of China need to start minding their own business. Also business outside of China need to start realizing they are never going to win in that market, so just stop trying.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Of all the FOB Chinese I talk to, very few even care about this issue. Mostly they're not even aware of it, and if they are, they don't see it as anything worth worrying about. From a Western individualist point of view, it's sad to see people who don't care about oppression, so long as it's done in the name of unity. But then, that's us and that's them. Maybe they have a point in going for national unity and peace over individual rights. What do I know.
If a Chinese user is unable to search Google for being locked up then Google only really loses a few (3) bucks at most, but the cost to continue warning users, etc...that's probably like four (4) bucks. So it boils down to $$$ again.
apart from China, they changed the safe search options on image search (without telling anyone); and GoogPlay is linking to cleaned-up versions of music files making it a little harder for us to get our porn and **explicit** hiphop.
bitchez.
...but that doesn't mean you can't passively advocate it.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
...Former governor Richardson, Google's Schmidt arrive in North Korea
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/07/us-korea-north-richardson-idUSBRE90600A20130107
I suspect a correlation between Google's move in China and Schmidt's "private, humanitarian" visit to NK. Methinks the almighty dollar may be taking precedence over principle.
Regardless on which side of the censorship debate you are,
it's one thing to censor results but to inform you that it has happened but it's another to silently remove results. It's so irritating to spend hours searching for something only later to relise that it's been censored.
Isn't there any decency to people these days? If a thread or reply on a forum gets deleted isn't it only fair to inform other people that it has happened?
A blog I run for the wealth
I have no idea which one, but somekind of agreement must have been reached. I'm sure that Google ceeded something and the Chinese also. We shall see. Something to do with the change of leadership in China?
Google's trip North Korea may have some relation tho this.
We shall see...
yes, it sounds like giving up.
i am disappoint?
Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
Google is more evil than Microsoft ever was.
First, do no evil. After a while, though, whatever...
Take your time posting. I am reading this post and cannot follow. Maybe "the choir" catches all that you are saying, but I'll bet its nearly all lost on the rest of us.
That was Zen, this is Tao