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Rights Groups Are Demanding That Google Doesn't Release A Censored Search Engine In China (buzzfeednews.com)
More than a dozen tech NGOs and human rights groups have issued an open letter calling on Google to stop work on a censored search engine project in China. From a report: Organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Access Now and others released the letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Tuesday, saying the tech giant's plans to release a censored version of its search engine app to users in China represent an "alarming capitulation by Google on human rights." The project, dubbed Dragonfly, was first reported by The Intercept earlier this month. According to audio of a staff meeting, obtained by the New York Times, Pichai said that "if we were to do our mission well, we are to think seriously about how to do more in China. However, he went on to say that Google was "not close to launching a search product in China."
Not sure why they think their demands would carry any weight.
Clash of the SJW titans!
Hmm, who to root for? I mean, China's not Russia, so it can't be all bad ... but then, censorship is bad ... well, usually ... excuse me, something about Alex Jones got through the filter that I'm supposed to maintain, dang it, hang on ... OK, anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, censorship is kinda bad I guess ...
The biggest alarm bells are raised by the ordering.
If they are augmenting the searches for hot political topics in the US, they ought to do it in China too.
For equality and the Greater Good[tm], which are the Chinese government's top concerns just as they are for Google's management and employees.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Trump is looking into censoring searches at google right here. Maybe he can tie our search results to our credit scores, for that personal touch?
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
One of the reasons someone like Donald Trump resonates with America, is that the globalist mindset of embracing china and changing from the inside usually backfires when it encounters corporate America. The market is large and the money spigot can be effectively turned on or off by any capricious act of their government. As a result, corporations will adopt the lowest common denominator approach: do nothing that may possibly offend, and bend over to the whim of anyone in power over there. This includes of course the great firewall and what passes through it, how you do business in that country, but also to what is acceptable for employees in your company (who may not be located in China) and to a degree, what you do in other markets.
It is far easier for Google to play internet censor than to say no, so they will play internet censor. Unfortunately a few countries in Europe have made it easier for them to do so.
I like how when you search for 'American inventors' it doesn't even list Ben Franklin. Finally someone is removing white males from history!
When money is involved no amount of hypocrisy is too much.
Even if Google does release a censored search engine in China, the chances are very good that the Chinese Government censors, who presumably tell Google what to censor, won't be able to keep up with the flood of information, phrased this way or that way, that is directly or indirectly about all kinds of uncomfortable issues and topics for the Chinese government.
A long time ago, Freeman Dyson said the way to defeat the Soviet Union was to give them PCs (I think he actually said Macs).
So that people would be able to gather and pass information easily, without the government in the loop.
Eventually, more knowledge in the hands of more of the population will presumeably reduce totalitarian government power, as independent ideas flourish like weeds.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
China already has a censored search engine, and Google creating or not creating a search engine in China is going to have zero impact on China.
What I think is bad though is creating a censoring engine. Products want to be used. Having the technology brings very close to just applying this same technology everywhere. Right now there's little market for censoring products... Facebook is certainly one... but do we really want to make censoring things cheap? I don't.
Developing certain technologies is an ethical choice because technology makes it easier to go in certain directions. Censorship is a terrible direction to go into, and I don't think Google should go there because I don't want it applied to the rest of the world! China is already a lost cause.
They already run Bing in China, why aren't people complaining about that?
Big tech corporations already censoring "conservative" news worldwide, as "FakeNews".
Until a supervolcano will erupt and political correctness will burn in flames.
Funny when Google was helping develop better guided missile programs for the US government that would actually save lives they all had a collective hissy fit. But helping the Chinese government oppress its people is A-Ok with them.
I have a better idea, how about google fix the censorship issues with the versions of google outside of China first? You know, something about not being a hypocrite and all?
The letter should have been addressed to the Google shareholders. It's amazing how these american NGOs are blatantly unaware of how capitalism works...
IBM helped the Nazis deal with the jews!
many years ago South Africa was boycotted by many sports teams due to apartheid. There was a huge row: some said that this would punish South Africa; others said that sending Sports people would make more people aware of the issues and so help bring about change. Similar things have happened with other countries.
So the debate here is: should we punish China by keeping Google out or does Google being there help the Chinese people's political awareness/... by letting them see more from the outside world (even if it is filtered) ? I am not qualified to answer that question.
Google is just money. Like it or not, they don't have any moral obligation towards humanity.
The way to hinder them is to take away their money. That is probably not easily accomplished as long as 99% of their users don't care enough.
The robots are still coming for us all, and no one cares about your trolling business.
Whats more important, humans or doallzts?
Anything missing there?
Top hit seems to be to American Scientist magazine, which is reasonable (since Google ignores plurals in the search algorithm: "American Scientists" search is identical to "American Scientist"). Other than that, it's mostly whoever has been in the news recently or for some other reason has some web pages.
Why, what do you think is missing?
Has years of not having access to google at all weakened chinas resolve in their great firewall? If I sell vegetables to a parent that is forcing their children to be vegetarians, am I violating the kids rights by giving the parents something they will allow. Or am I margionally lessening how much the kids are starving? Google is currently blocked in china, china ain't going to unblock google.. and with or without china-google the people still use vpns or whatever they can to sneak past the wall and access real google.
I am pretty sure money is going to win out each time.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
While I agree that Google shouldn't censor search engines results. However the reality of the situation is, if Google doesn't it just will not be available in China at all.
So the population will not have it at all.
They will be better with some of the information vs none. Especially, as some information can populate and get into peoples thoughts and minds faster then a government can deem it censored.
Also China equivalent is a white listed search engine vs a black listed engine, so information will populate faster then what can be approved.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
He was a British inventor.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
What you're missing is that China is demanding Alex Jones be available in China. They want to be able to point at him, and tell the Chinese how bad America is.
Gooogle's SJW management can't decide if they are willing to accept such a compromise of their deeply held beliefs.
Have they also asked for a non-censored search engine in the United States?
It seems to me that Google's activity in China is simply an expansion of their current US censorship, rather than anything new. Sure, the keywords might be "falun gong" instead of "conservative news", but it's silly to protest their activity in China without acknowledging their activity in the States.
Good form of mass protest, apparently it worked with #deletefacebook
Only a fool thinks China gives the slightest fuck about what people in some "rights" group think.
Google can refuse to provide a search engine modified to China's specifications, but some other company will step in and give China what it
wants. Welcome to the real world, where snowflakes melt very quickly indeed.
How dare you call him a liar.
Ben Franklin British? In that case, so was George Washington!
Let's not forget that they both lived well into the period after America was recognized as a sovereign state by Britain.
Sorry, Britain, you can't have Ben. Plus he didn't want you.
May their brains spontaneously combust.
Nah, holding mutually contradictory positions is these days par for the course.
Ben Franklin was born a British subject in Boston, an American Colony. I'd argue duel citizenship.
Google already self-censor to a large degree in the US by giving more weight to democratic-leaning stories. When the censorship is less obvious; it is often more effective.
I'll be happy if they release an uncensored search engine in the USA.
The reality is even when google was in china they weren't competitive so they pulled out. going back in they need to obey the rules, they censor content in every other country so why not China too? I doubt it will make a difference there as it would be like a Chinese search engine starting in the US, it has no hope of any real influence regardless of content.
I wonder if we could have the censorship lifted in our 'progressive western democracies?'
Requiem for the American Dream
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
The fact is that most of K Street and Congress are bought and paid for by China, and the more people see Putin hiding in their closet, the more China will be able to strengthen its economic, military and social engineering hegemony.
Chinese government and companies employ many thousands of people to censor.
And no, the Chinese do not tell Google or others what to censor, at least not very often. Google and others decide what to censor, and if the Chinese do not like it then they threaten to shut Google down. If Google does an excellent job then they might be granted a few favors.
Companies like WeChat employ most of the censors. They use a combination of patterns and terms. The spend their lives monitoring the internet, and become quite good at it.
If any censor is caught letting something through then they may have to write a self-criticism. And maybe lose their job. Possibly, although most unlikely, something worse.
But Chinese respect authority. It would never occur to them that they are doing anything wrong. They are just maintaining social harmony.
Google operating in China is very dangerous. It will affect their operations in the USA. Partly just though culture, as more of their engineering is done in China. But also overtly -- if China does not like Google's US search results they can penalize Google China. And Google is (now) all about making money.
After watching a youtube "laRouche" video about the city of London England is not a city in the normal sense but owned by banking groups, I wondered if there was any cross reference with the "Illuminati"
https://twitter.com/StevWork/s...
(see the attached picture of Google search result.)
Please note that the top returns from a google search of laRouche with Illuminati had nothing to do with either.
Almost the entire first page results replaced with what seems completely random results.
SOooooo, if they are 'protecting' us from knowing about these conspiricies, what other information will the Witch family owned and directed corporate Satanic Masters are they hiding. The Deadly Sin of Greed can not explain this, their is more pure damnation slimy evil here.
Google has already perfected censorship in the US election 2016 and the ongoing TDS information warfare.
They do that, don't try to rationalize it. Enter politically charged search terms into Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo and others and compare the results. Try "racially insensitive" search terms, like "crime and race". Yeah sure that's bad and evil and no one should be doing it, but why should a search engine remove results? Really. Is removal of information not censorship? What's the difference to the Chinese government demands? "it is immoral, remove it" - same thing.
When Google censors American search results, IT'S FOR OUR OWN GOOD. Because Big Brother Google loves us all.
Seems like someone took a left turn in their decision making. I'm no fan of any of the censorship stuff China or USAis doing. However, access to find some particular thing on a search engine is about as far from a "human right" as you can possibly get.
Human rights are things like food, water, air... claiming otherwise just waters down the value of your opinion later.
Rights groups demand it? Good luck with that.
"We don't demand solid facts! What we demand is a total absence of solid facts. I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!"
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.