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Google Employees Protest Secret Work On Censored Search Engine For China (nytimes.com)
According to The New York Times, "Hundreds of Google employees, upset at the company's decision to secretly build a censored version of its search engine for China, have signed a letter demanding more transparency to understand the ethical consequences of their work (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source)." In the letter, the employees wrote that the project and Google's apparent willingness to abide by China's censorship requirements "raise urgent moral and ethical issues." They added, "Currently we do not have the information required to make ethically-informed decisions about our work, our projects, and our employment." From the report: The letter is circulating on Google's internal communication systems and is signed by about 1,000 employees, according to two people familiar with the document, who were not authorized to speak publicly. The letter also called on Google to allow employees to participate in ethical reviews of the company's products, to appoint external representatives to ensure transparency and to publish an ethical assessment of controversial projects. The document referred to the situation as a "code yellow," a process used in engineering to address critical problems that impact several teams.
If they're concerned about moral and ethical issues why the hell do they work for Google?
Various countries asked Geac to make library systems that would report who borrowed, for example, "Lady Chatterley's Lover". Our answer? "That would be illegal in Germany, so we can't do that".
davecb@spamcop.net
It is absolultely not, of course, a reference to Chinese people.
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... where Google secretly hires thousands of (conveniently also cheaper) Chinese programmers to substitute those indignant first-world employees who intend to obstruct the profit maximization process. It's not like any larger corporation would be willing to put morale before profits, you know...
I work for a company that makes quality management software. When we dealt with smaller companies they would often ask if we could add a feature to fudge audit logs to fix "mistakes." The answer was always *NO* as there was a facility to update the data, but with a log item indicating it was changed. If it was a legitimate mistake, an auditor wouldn't ding them for fixing it. Of course there were always creative answers as to why they would need to edit a value without there being a log entry...
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Who are all these Google employees who didn't have any problems when Google helped the Chinese authorities track down, imprison, torture and kill political enemies? They've done this for more than a decade and it's public knowledge.
I am confused. Google already has a censored search engine for China at http://www.google.cn/ that has been operating for over a decade. What new ethical question is being raised here? Why are these Google employees suddenly upset now but they weren't last week?
I am heartened to hear of these employees changing the course of Google. Change is difficult sometimes, but the best change always starts from within.
To progress.
It sounds like they need something like an Institutional Review Board, but geared more towards the ethics of the project objectives and the potential applications of the technology in question.
It is probably not a bad thing for any very influential company in the tech space to consider.
Google, Apple and Microsoft have all moved to China! The Chinese government offered them 0% Tax rate. Its a move by the Chinese to secure more control over the technology that facilitates modern life, and therefore control.
And you know what... the people at the top don't care. They want a more brutal regime over the populace. They want an aristocracy of the powerful elite over the general populace.
This is why Soros and other big players are backing the democrats so hard - they want to waterdown the 1st and 2nd amendments so people have less rights and are more easily controlled.
The thing is, people are so blind, and follow the main stream media so heavily they have missed some of the biggest "collusion" stories, instead focused on fake Russia narratives.
The deep state, in league with democrats, and the main stream media are abusing the justice system to take political control of America and pervert its democracy. The end goal here is to implement a socialist system that makes people subordinate to the state, just like China.
America is literally the last bastion of freedom again this globalist take over.
I bet fewer than six will quit when Google proceeds.
Now, those six - they might be worth hiring.
My God, it's Full of Source!
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They do realize that google regularly censors results in America, right?
Any urgent moral or ethical issues with say, blacklisting Alex Jones? Down ranking alt-right sites? Artificially manipulating auto-completes to prefer one political party?
I'm not sure if these people realize that the "secret" work isn't just in China.
This made me laugh myself silly : "The letter also called on Google to allow employees to participate in ethical reviews of the company's products".
Yeah right - That's a tough one; involve your employees in "Ethical Reviews" and risk an immense revenue stream from China.
I wonder which way the company will lean ?
Remember when people believed the Google motto?
Surely they would not turn into Microsoft, IBM, or any of the other tech giants who turned in evil in the past.
Whoops. Make a company big enough, get shareholders involved, and have lots of employees who are hoping to cash in and cash out, and suddenly you have another evil corporation.
Alternative Right.
Because Chineese people only care about themselves, and think money is GOD, and make religeon illegal.
Family is #2.
If its not theres, they let it fall apart, thats why their smaller cities look like soviet union in 1973
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
well any people that try to get rid of religion can't be all bad, as for soviet era looking cities obviously you don't get out much, go drive around some of Alabama or Detroit and Chicago for that matter.
Not many people are willing to possibly lose their earning, their home, and possibly worse just for a few philosophical question (note that this would be different if they were threatened themselves, but let us be clear this is about half a word away so not the same attachment ideology or not).
The answer is obvious that does not make THEIR position more hypocrite. They are just realist but still trying to do something. What have you done agaisnt censorship except calling other hypocrites about working at google while having ethical issues ?
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Do not confuse legality with morality, they are completely independent concepts. Nobody in their right mind would ask a company to define morality, only to follow it.
Companies absolutely have a requirement to include morality in their decision making process, otherwise we end up with IBM supplying the Nazis with punchcard machines again. "Only obeying the law of the land" is no defense - we're all human beings and no amount of hiding behind a bit of paper "but I did it as part of a company" shield will protect your soul. You are always responsible for your own actions, and absolutely these employees are asking the right questions.
Google became so big in so many ways that it has it's own social movements now. What's next? Parties? A parliament? A revolution?
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They were just following orders...
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wi...
... where Google secretly hires thousands of (conveniently also cheaper) Chinese programmers to substitute those indignant first-world employees who intend to obstruct the profit maximization process. It's not like any larger corporation would be willing to put morale before profits, you know...
Gonna be interesting though. The tension between the supposed commitment to sunshine and puppies vs. their desire for all that Chinese cash.
Because Google is a rather moral and ethical company.
Hahahahaha.... They are a company that makes money by pimping vast amounts of personal data about you and everyone you know to advertisers. Spare me the notion that they are some sort of ethical paragon of an organization.
You obviously disagree but you might want to consider that Google employees have much better visibility into company actions than you do.
So did the people who worked at Enron so I'm not seeing much validity in your argument. Good people often work for bad organizations.
Actually, I think this question about censorship in China is one that reasonable people can disagree on. I appreciate and agree with the goals of the protesters, but I think they're making perfect the enemy of good. It's better to provide a censored search engine in China than to provide no search engine in China, from an ethical perspective.
Could not disagree more and I don't think your argument is a reasonable one at all. If censorship is bad you don't eliminate it by facilitating censorship.
It allows Google to become a force for reducing censorship in China.
So by censoring they are reducing censorship? That circular reasoning right there.
Oh, and also to make money, which is the primary goal of any business, of course.
Making money and having ethics are not incompatible behaviors. But it's undeniably easier to make money when you don't have to worry about ethics. Google seems to have placed theirs in escrow when it comes to China in order to make a buck.
Microsoft Bing and Yahoo are fully cooperating with the Chinese dictatorship - their completely censored search engines have been operating in China for years. Why is nobody talking about it? Aren't they breaking the law by cooperating with oppressive regimes?